Zeus  

Zeus And The Maiden Goddess

In the myths, Zeus transforms himself into a bull to capture a maiden goddess. In the palm, the bull-like creature lies between what ancient people called the Zeus finger and the Mount of Aphrodite. Is there a connection? Was this story once illustrated by the features of the hand?

The names given to parts of the hand in ancient palmistry first suggested a link between the bull-like creature in our palms and prehistoric storytelling. In palmistry, features of the hand are named after the planetary gods. The earliest record of this is the Greek Chiromantic Fragment, thought to be a relic of antiquity. The index finger is Zeus, the middle finger Cronus, Helios is the ring finger and Hermes the little finger. Ares rules the thumb and the base of the thumb is named after Aphrodite, the goddess of love. (7)

The Mount of Aphrodite is interestingly named. In the story, the goddess believes the bull to be gentle and climbs on its back. Or mounts it. Zeus abducts her and has his evil way. Could the Mount of Aphrodite be not just a reference to this plot - but also a joke? A Stone Age joke? 

Captured By A Bull 

The features of the hand seem to lend themselves to telling the story of Zeus capturing the maiden. He appears as a large white bull as she picks flowers by a shore and she is captivated by his beauty. Believing him to be a gentle creature, she climbs on to his back and the bull, as Ovid puts it, “gradually slips his deceitful hooves into the waves” and swims away with her. (8) It’s handy from a storytelling point of view that the bull swims away with his victim rather than runs away.  Running would have been easier for the bull but swimming is much better for the storyteller as this short video demonstrates.

.

Illustration 2: Video of bull among the waves

Zeus As A Bull, Swan And Eagle

In some versions of the myths, Zeus lands on the shore with the maiden and then turns himself into an eagle. (9) The ruler of the heavens also turns himself into an eagle to capture Ganymede (10) , known as Aquarius in the zodiac. (11) He also turns himself into an eagle to capture another maiden and a swan to capture yet another (12 and 13). The bull and the eagle were said to be sacred to Zeus. (14) Illustration 3 shows how the hands can be used to illustrate a swan and an eagle. 

Illustration 3: Zeus as a swan and an eagle

The Archer

By covering up the back leg of the bull, you get a two-legged creature. And by adjusting your thumb slightly you can flatten the lines of the thumb so they appear to show an arrow tail.

Illustration 4: The Archer

 Illustration 5 shows the archer firing his arrow by flicking out the index finger. If you try this yourself you will hear and feel the satisfying flick as the arrow fires.

Illustration 5 : Archer firing an arrow video

One of the most amazing things about this character is not that it shows a man with an arrow but that it shows a man poised to fire an arrow. 

Illustration 6: Drawing of the archer 

The line of action from his head down through his body and his front leg is just how a cartoonist would draw it today. And the same thing is true of the bull character. It’s not just a bull, it is a bull skidding to a halt with its weight on the front left leg and the right leg slightly raised. This is how we represent movement in drawings to this day.  Is it possible that the lines of our palm have influenced how we represent the world around us? Did prehistoric man work out how to manipulate the curves and straight lines in his palm into pictures long before we had paper on which to record the drawings? Before we even had paint? It is interesting to note that the three cave paintings below are all in the same position as the bull in the hand - with head and horns to one side, with the weight on the front left leg and with the front right leg slightly raised. There are a lot of different ways to draw a bull. Just Google bull drawings and you will see them pictured from all sorts of different angles. But if you look at cave paintings you will see this basic pose with the head and horns seen from the side is often used to depict bulls and other horned animals. The first two pictures below are from the Hall of the Bulls in the Lascaux Cave, France, painted around 17,000 years ago. The third picture was discovered in Indonesia in 1994 and has been dated at 44,000 years old, the oldest known work of figurative art. Did the motion in these pictures come from motion in the hand?

Illustration 7: Bull from Lascaux Cave

Illustration 8: Hall of the Bulls

Illustration 9: 44,000-year-old art

The Archer - A Storytelling Format

If this storytelling theory is correct, the archer character would probably be the main character in a lot of different tales. As well as firing an arrow you can make him appear to walk.

Illustration 10: Archer walking video

So if you were telling stories about Zeus, maybe this could be Zeus. Or if it was a tale about Heracles, perhaps it depicted Heracles. The problem with that is, especially from a child’s point of view, they all look the same. But do they? All the features of all the animals and mythological creatures shown in this study are made from creases that we all share. They are formed by the way our fingers and thumbs move.  With a little practice you can change the creases that can be seen and change the details of the figures.
For example, if you move your thumb towards your palm and twist it you put pressure on the base of the thumb and the arrow tail appears more like a thunderbolt. (To see the thunderbolt animated, see Weapons, Illustration 61).
Other versions of the Zeus bull myth say that after capturing the maiden, he reveals himself to her and woos her in his own form, rather than as an eagle. (15) Is this the form he took?

Illustration 11: Extra creases make arrow a thunderbolt

This study shows that by twisting the thumb in different ways early storytellers may have used the figure to depict, Zeus, Poseidon, Pan, Orion and, by adding a little firelight, Heracles.
The differences are only slight. But they are enough to distinguish between different characters. And by a happy coincidence all the major characters in the stories are related to Zeus. That would appear to remove the last remaining problem. If an enquiring child was to point out that apart from having one more prong on his trident, Poseidon looks a lot like Zeus they could be told "he would do, they’re brothers."

References

7. (and 5) Pack, Roger A, 1972 On the Greek Chiromantic Fragment Roger A. Pack, University of Michigan Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. Vol. 103 (1972), pp. 367-380 (14 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/2935981

Establishes the system of planetary names for the fingers and parts of the hand. (Page 10)
Supports ancient origins of the fragment (Page 1)
8. Ovid, Metamorphoses [2.868-875] Translation A. S. Kline, 2004. Borders Classics https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Ovhome.htm
The royal virgin even dares to sit on the bull’s back, not realising whom she presses on, while the god, first from dry land and then from the shoreline, gradually slips his deceitful hooves into the waves. Then he goes further out and carries his prize over the mid-surface of the sea. She is terrified and looks back at the abandoned shore she has been stolen from and her right hand grips a horn, the other his back, her clothes fluttering, winding, behind her in the breeze.

9. Graves, Robert (1955, 1960) The Greek Myths, London, Penguin.Chapter 58, b, c.

b. Zeus, falling in love with Europe, sent Hermes to drive Agenor’s cattle down to the seashore at Tyre, where she and her companions used to walk. He himself joined the herd, disguised as a snow-white bull with great delaps and small, gem-like horns, between which ran a single black streak. Europe was struck by his beauty and finding him gentle as a lamb, mastered her fear andbegan to play with him, putting flowers in his mouth and hanging garlands on his horns; in the end she climbed upon his shoulders, and let him amble down with her to the edge of the sea.Suddenly he swam away, while she looked back at the receding shore; one of her hands clung to his right horn, the other still held a flower basket.c. Wading ashore near Cretan Gortyna, Zeus became an eagle and ravished Europe in a willow-thicket beside a spring.

10. Graves, Robert (1955, 1960) The Greek Myths, London, Penguin.Chapter 29

It is said that Zeus, desiring Ganymedes also as his bedfellow, disguised himself in eagle’s feathers and abducted him from the Trojan plain.

11. Greek Myths Website https://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/signs-of-the-zodiac.html

More obvious is the mythological tale behind the eleventh sign of the Zodiac Aquarius, the Water-bearer, for it is said by most that Aquarius is Ganymede.
12. Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 6 Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al, Internet Classics Archive https://classics.mit.edu/Ovid/metam.6.sixth.html
Next she design'd Asteria's fabled rape,When Jove assum'd a soaring eagle's shape:And shew'd how Leda lay supinely press'd,Whilst the soft snowy swan sate hov'ring o'er her breast
13. Apollodorus. 3.10.7 Translated by Sir James George Frazer. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 121 & 122. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Perseus Digital Library https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D7

[7] But Zeus in the form of a swan consorted with Leda, and on the same night Tyndareus cohabited with her; and she bore Pollux and Helen to Zeus, and Castor and Clytaemnestra to Tyndareus.1 But some say that Helen was a daughter of Nemesis and Zeus; for that she, flying from the arms of Zeus, changed herself into a goose, but Zeus in his turn took the likeness of a swan and so enjoyed her; and as the fruit of their loves she laid an egg, and a certain shepherd found it in the groves and brought and gave it to Leda; and she put it in a chest and kept it; and when Helen was hatched in due time, Leda brought her up as her own daughter.2 And when she grew into a lovely woman, Theseus carried her off and brought her to Aphidnae. 3 But when Theseus was in Hades, Pollux and Castor marched against Aphidnae, took the city, got possession of Helen, and led Aethra, the mother of Theseus, away captive.
14. Theoi Project Exploring Greek mythology in Classical literature and art https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Zeus.html Editorial summary 

Zeus' sacred animals were the eagle and the bull. In myth he abducted the youth Ganymede in the shape of an eagle and the maiden Europa in the guise of a bull.
15. Moschus 2 [153] Translated by J. M. Edmonds, Theoi Project https://www.theoi.com/Text/Moschus.html

So far the maid, when the hornèd ox upspake and said: “Be of good cheer, sweet virgin, and never thou fear the billows. ‘Tis Zeus himself that speaketh, though to the sight he seem a bull; for I can put on what semblance soever I will. And ‘tis love of thee hath brought me to make so far a sea-course in a bull’s likeness; and ere ‘tis long thou shalt be in Crete, that was my nurse when I was with her; and there shall thy wedding be, whereof shall spring famous children who shall all be kings among them that are in the earth.”[162] So spake he, and lo! what he spake was done; for appear it did, the Cretan country, and Zeus took on once more his own proper shape, and upon a bed made him of the Seasons unloosed her maiden girdle. And so it was that she that before was a virgin became straightway the bride of Zeus, and thereafter straightway too a mother of children unto the Son of Cronus.