Information ☽¤☾ Depth ☽¤☾ Texts ☽¤☾ Miscellania ☽¤☾ Site

Nyx and Zeus

Orphic theogony's most known take on creation results in Phanes and Nyx creating Ouranos and Gaia. Her scepter has been said to be passed down to her son Ouranos, and then it was stolen from him by his son Kronos and finally came to Zeus' grasp.

Nyx had helped Kronos and Zeus in deceiving their predecessors.

With Kronos, it was said that she loved him most of the Titans due to her gift of prophecy, which told that he was destined to be the next ruler. She nursed and tended him. He in turn became the most clever minded. He eventually led the Titans to seek revenge on Ouranos for their mother and for themselves. In doing that he then took hold of the scepter.

With the coming of Zeus, there is the known fable of how his mother deceived his father, Kronos, by offering him a bundled stone to pose as Zeus, which he thus devoured in order to prolong his rule. Zeus instead was safely concealed in the cave of Nyx.


The following is from Proclus commentary on the Plato's Timaeus:

"The Demiurgus [Zeus], as Orpheus says, is nursed by Adrastia (Adrasteia) [her 'from whom none can escape']; but he marries Necessity (Adrasteia?) and begets [a daughter] Fate." For "Adrastia (Adrasteia) is the one goddess that remains with Night (Nyx) [the most supernatural Mother, the great Grandmother of all], and her sister is Form (Eide)... for Adrastia (Adrasteia) is said [mystically] to clash her cymbals before the Cavern of Night (Nyx). [That is to say, she directs the sound which 'goes out into all worlds.' And by the sound all forms are created.] For back in the Inner Chamber [Adytum] of the Cavern of Night (Nyx) sits Light (Phanes), and in the midst Night (Nyx), who delivers prophetic judgment to the gods, and as the mouth is Adrastia (Adrasteia). Nor is she the same as Justice (Dice), for Justice (Dice), who is there, is said to be the daughter of Law (Nomos) and Devotion (Eusebia). ...And these are said to be the nurses of Zeus in the Cavern of Night (Nyx)."


There is also mention of three others guarding over Zeus. They were the Kuretes. The Kuretes, a trio, were said to stand first guard, danced and sounded instruments to prevent Kronos from discovering Zeus due to times the child cried.

Eventually Zeus grows into adulthood and he lays a trap for his father. He intoxicates Kronos with honey and having surprised him in the depth of sleep, captures and castrates him. Chained in the cave, Kronos is said, then, to sleep drunk on honey and speaks prophesies and dreams.


Proclus' commentary on the Plato's Timaeus tells the Orphic take on what Zeus did after is in the following:

"The artificer of the universe [Zeus, the creative aspect of Phanes], prior to his whole fabrication [says Orpheus], is said to have betaken himself to the Oracle of Night (Nyx), to have been there filled with divine conceptions, to have received the principles of fabrication, and, if it is lawful so to speak, to have solved all his doubts. Night (Nyx), too, calls upon the father Zeus to undertake the fabrication of the universe; and Zeus is said by the theologist [Orpheus] to have thus addressed Night (Nyx):

'O Nurse supreme of all the powers divine,
Immortal Night (Nyx)! how with unconquer'd mind
Must I the source of the Immortals fix?
And how, will all the things but as one subsist,
Yet each its nature separate preserve?'

"To which the interrogation of the Goddess thus replies:

'All things receive enclos'd on ev'ry side,
in Aether's (Aither) wide place in Heav'n,
In which let Earth [visible Cosmos] of infinite extent,
The Sea [the Ocean of Space], and the Stars
The crown of Heav'n be fixt.'"

After his consultation with Nyx, Zeus swallows and absorbs Phanes and thus all things were generated in him.

Another note of advice from Nyx to Zeus was to have an assistant, who took the form of (I am assuming) Themis, or Law.





Book sources:
Orpheus. George Robert Stow Mead. Theosophical Pub. Society. 1896.



☽¤☾ Back