Original subtitles

(light music)

- [Narrator] Zeus is the almighty ruler of the world.

He has vanquished all, even the most fearsome

of his opponents.

He has avenged his mother, and won all of the wars.

He reigns supreme over both the mortals

and the Gods of the Pantheon.

There are 12 of them in his grand council.

12 gods and goddesses.

The great Olympians.

But after battling his way to the top, Zeus found

himself presiding over a universe that had been

turned upside down and torn apart.

He thus had to remodel the world as it were

to establish a more harmonious, a more measured

form of governance.

But can power be exercised without that passion

that consumes the heart as well as the body?

The truth of the matter is that Zeus liked to seduce.

It was in fact through his many wives and mistresses

that he would strengthen his own power.

Zeus would acquire the assets of each of his conquests.

Those who were to know him as rain,

as a bull, or as a swan would give birth

to a race of demi-gods and heroes who's names

would become the names of almost every region

in the world.

Zeus's amorous adventures were thus more than

just romances, it was through his love interests

that the master of Olympus indirectly imposed

his authority, an authority that was based on

the institution of laws and norms that had to be obeyed.

Any transgression was severely punished.

So in a certain way, Zeus combined love with order.

(light music)

First there was Metis, Metis was a beautiful sea nymph.

She represented prudence and wisdom as well as cunning.

In the primordial time when the world was in gestation,

her precious advice had enabled Zeus to avenge

his mother and to rescue his brothers and sisters.

So did the master of Olympus then propose

to her out of gratitude?

Gratefulness is not a strong point among those in power.

No, Zeus was attracted to Metis.

He was even very attracted to her.

And as for Metis, how could she refuse?

It was the King of the God's who was asking for her hand.

The young nymph was flattered, she felt very honored,

she said yes, and so they were wed.

Their postnuptial bliss knew no bounds until one day

an Oracle revealed to Zeus that after giving him a daughter

his wife would bear him a son and that the boy

would later dethrone him as he himself has dethroned

his own father Cronus.

(intense music)

We can imagine how disturbed the divine ruler felt.

And so in order to keep such a scenario from happening

again, when Metis told him she was pregnant,

Zeus challenged her to say what was the very least

a rather unusual contest.

He dared her to outdo him by turning herself

into different creatures.

This game of metamorphosis is commonly played

among the God's who had the power to change

themselves into whatever they choose.

Metis, though she was the symbol of prudence

threw caution to the winds.

She blithely went through a series of metamorphosis.

Turning herself into a lioness.

And then a wild boar, a flame, and even a fly.

Zeus congratulated her, very good, but can you make

yourself into something even smaller?

Metis was caught up in the game and changed

herself once again, this time into a drop of water.

Zeus applauded, and then immediately swallowed it.

But one does not swallow the Goddess of Cunning

without getting into big trouble.

After awhile Zeus was seized by a raging headache

that was so violent that he felt like his head

was about to explode.

His son, Hephaestus, the God of Blacksmiths,

ran up in a panic and with his great mallet struck

his fathers head splitting it open.

And a miracle happened, the daughter that Metis

had been carrying leapt out of the head of the King

of the God's, her name was Athena.

Athena, the Goddess of War, Protector of the City.

She emerged in all of her splendor, with her helmet

and her sphere ready for battle.

(intense music)

Rhea, Zeus' mother, became aware of her sons

lustful tendencies, she sensed that his romantic

and sexual volatility would lead to disastrous

consequences, so she forbid him to remarry.

She forbid him?

How dare she.

Had she forgotten that she was speaking to the master

of the universe?

Zeus took offense and threatened to rape his

progenitress then and there.

Rhea was unimpressed, she changed herself into a servant

ready to pounce on her son.

Zeus did the same thing, he turned himself

into a male serpent and entwining his mother

in an indissoluble knot carried out his threats.

With his mother out of the way, Zeus did not waste

any time in choosing a new wife.

And he did not choose just any one, through Metis,

Zeus had acquired cunning and prudence.

What he lacked was a sense of equity,

a sense of justice.

He therefore set his heart on the vulnerable

Themis, a Tetannite.

Themis was the Goddess of Justice.

She and Zeus would have 15 children together,

to begin with, there were three lovely daughters

the hours, three maidens who would oversee the regularity

of the seasons.

After that, they had three more girls, three more daughters

who lived somewhere in an impenetrable cabin near Olympus.

(intense music)

Three beautiful women with vacant eyes.

They went everywhere together, connected by a thread

and they took on the appearance of simple spinners.

At the mention of their names, mortals as well as Gods

trembled.

Clotho, who spun the thread, Lachesis who determined

the length of the thread, and Atropos the merciless

Atropos who cut the thread.

That thread is of course, the thread of life.

It measured out the lives of mortals as well

as the lives of the God's.

The three maidens were called the Moirai by the Greeks.

And later the Parkai by the Romans.

Their decrees were absolute.

Nobody had the power to change anything at all.

Zeus himself acknowledged this superiority

and never dared to challenge them.

The Moirai were the three fates.

(intense music)

It wasn't long, however, before Zeus

repatriated Themis, although he kept her by his side

as a sort of counselor.

So far, his love affairs had given prudence, cunning,

and justice, but what is a king without a queen?

It was time to choose a queen, she would come from

his own family and since incest was quite

common in the world of the God's,

Zeus' third wife would be none other than his sister

the Goddess Hera who was violent and irascible.

And very jealous.

Brother and sister would be wed in secret on the

island of Samus.

In fact, with Hera, Zeus got caught at his own game.

For Hera at first spurned his advances.

Zeus tried to seduce her in vain.

After several failed attempts he appeared to her

in the guise of a young bird that had fallen

from its nest and was shivering with cold.

Moved by the sight, Hera picked it up and held

it against her in order to warm it up.

At that point, Zeus changed back into himself

and tried to ravish her.

Not one to get flustered, Hera decided that she would

give into him but only if he promised to marry her.

Zeus, unable to contain his desire agreed.

And the beautiful Goddess would lose no time

in reminding him of his vow.

Hera, it must be said, had many assets.

Her beauty may have been a bit severe,

but she took pride in her appearance, and was known

as the Goddess of the White Arms.

She was irresistible.

(light music)

His marriage to Hera, which in a way,

had been forced upon him and the beauty of his wife

did not stop Zeus from pursuing his amorous

affairs, which he did with a very precise aim in mind.

As the master of the universe, he was seeking to

strengthen his connection with the

different elements in nature.

For example, with water and the seas.

Where had he met Eurynome, the oldest daughter of Oceanus.

Oh, well, it doesn't matter, like the others,

she succumbed to his charms.

She would give him three children, the famous graces.

The three graces who personified the joy of life

deemed to be a gift from the God's.

(intense music)

Later, Zeus would spend not less than nine nights

with another Titanide, the beautiful Nemesis,

or Memory who would give him nine daughters, the Muses.

The Muses represented the arts, and each Muse

had her own special gift, eloquence, history,

poetry, music, et cetera.

The Muses divided their time between Mount Olympus

where they entertained the God's with their talents

and Mount Helagon where it was said there was

a spring that was a source of poetic inspiration.

Among the God's, there was one Goddess who's beauty

was unsurpassable as well as mysterious.

She was the Goddess of the night Laitle.

Zeus desired her, he had desired her for along time.

And he wanted a boy, a beautiful boy who would

be the God of the light of the sun.

The God of Music, and of poetry.

He would get this child from the Goddess of the Night.

Had he forgotten Hera, his wife, who was as

vengeful as she was jealous.

Laitle was a mistress that Zeus regularly honored

with his favors.

She soon became pregnant with twins.

But the queen of Olympus exasperated by her husband's

latest escapade sent Python, a monstrous serpent

who rose out of the depths of the earth to pursue

poor Laitle.

Hera also decreed that Laitle should never find

rest in any land on which the sound shone.

The unfortunate Goddess was forced

to wander endlessly all over Greece until she finally

came when she was already in the throws of labor

to a small island in the Agean

sea that agreed to give her asylum.

She gave birth to a girl, Artemis,

and to a boy, Apollo.

But Zeus' wandering eye did not only fall upon

Goddesses, women, mortal women also stirred

the heart of the God of the God's.

And that posed more than one problem.

First of all, because it is not in the order

of things for God's and mortals to mix.

And secondly because a mere mortal cannot look upon

the divine glory of a God.

But Zeus had fallen passionately in love

with one woman on earth, one woman in particular.

She was the daughter of the King of Thebes, her name

was Semele.

In order to woo her, Zeus had no choice but to appear

to her in the guise of a handsome prince.

This was the only way that a God could be viewed

by the human eye.

The problem was that our divine philandro was still

married to Hera, and she furiously disapproved

of this romance that was developing between

her husband and Semele.

Hera had no intention whatsoever of turning a blind eye.

She took on the appearance of Semele's old nurse,

an elderly woman whom Semele loved and trusted

and went to see her.

Semele who was already pregnant was about to give birth.

This man who claims to be Zeus, the old nurse said to her

are you sure he's not an imposter?

Then tell him to show you who he really is.

If your lover is indeed Zeus, ask him to prove it to you.

Let him reveal himself to you in all of his splendor

just as he appears to the other God's.

These words did not fail to strike a cord with

Semele, she began to doubt, this man, her lover,

could it really be Zeus?

The next time he came to see her, she begged him

to show himself to her as he really was.

Zeus refused, he knew only too well what the consequences

would be, Semele insisted, Zeus stood his ground.

If that's the way it is, Semele threatened him,

you will no longer be allowed in my bed.

Mad with desire for Semele, Zeus capitulated.

As his lover looked on in awe and astonishment,

he revealed himself to her as he really was

in the eyes of mortals, he was thunder and lightning.

The entire palace went up in a blaze,

and along with it poor Semele.

She had just enough time to give birth to her child

before she was consumed by the flames.

Miraculously the fire spared her child.

It was a boy, Zeus took the infant with him.

He would be called Dionysus.

Clearly Zeus could not sleep with mortals without

employing incredible stratagems.

At times, he became an eagle, at other times a goose,

or even a shower of gold varying his many

amorous metamorphosis just for the pleasure of it.

On seeing an exquisite young woman playing on the beach,

Zeus felt his heart throb wildly once again.

She was a princess, the daughter of a king

from the shores of Asia.

How should he approach her?

She was leading her flock out to pasture.

Zeus took on the form of a bull,

a dazzling bull with a snowy white coat

and sinuing neck muscles outfitted with horns

that were more diaphanous than a diamond of pure water.

It was such a gorgeous animal that the beautiful

maiden drew closer in order to stroke it.

The bull gently lay his warm muzzle on her breast

and then knelt down at her feet.

The princess thus grew bolder.

In spite of the protests of her servants, she climbed onto

the animals back, it immediately jumped to its feet

and rushed toward the shore.

It galloped swiftly over the sea and took the

unfortunate maiden all the way to Crete.

(intense music)

Once there, Zeus changed back into human form

and then satisfied his desire.

The princess from Asia who would live here in Crete

from now on was named Europa.

To thank the animal that had enabled him to abduct

the princess, Zeus placed the bull up among the stars.

Keep your eyes on the sky, not too far away from

here is the big dipper, it's real name is Callistone.

In Greek, Callistone means the most beautiful.

It is therefore hardly surprising that Zeus

fell head over heels for this nymph.

There was just one thing, she was one of the servants

of the Goddess Artemis.

Artemis was the Goddess of hunting,

she was also the Goddess of virginity.

Callisto had thus taken a vow of chastity.

No man was allowed to get near her or her companions

who were all virgin huntresses.

The last man who transgressed the rule

was a hunter named Actaeon.

And he was punished in a most dreadful way.

Artemis changed him into a stag who was devoured

by his own hounds.

(intense music)

Zeus was well aware of the danger,

he wondered how he could get around it.

Who would Callisto trust without any suspicion

whatsoever, the Goddess she served of course,

Artemis herself, so he approached his hearts desire

disguised as the divine huntress.

And there he was, or rather, she.

What Callisto saw was her mistress who was making eyes

at her and covering her with voluptuous caresses.

Callisto's body trembled, and then gave itself up.

Several months went by, Calsisto noticed with

astonishment that were belly was growing,

what was happening?

Was it possible to get pregnant by a woman?

It didn't take Callisto long to realize

that she had been deceived by Zeus.

If by some misfortune Artemis were to find out,

that would be the end of her.

A terrified Callisto desperately tried to conceal

her pregnancy in any way she could.

She kept herself hidden, wore larger and larger

garments but one day when she was bathing

in the river, Artemis, the real Artemis discovered

the truth.

Callisto had gone astray, it didn't matter whether

she'd been tricked into giving in by a God

or a mortal, she had to be punished.

Sensing the Goddesses rath, Zeus who was worried

about Callisto's unborn child immediately turned

his lover into a bear and hid her away in the mountains.

But he underestimated Artemis's abilities.

Was she not after all the Goddess of the hunt,

weren't her attributes a bow and arrow and her quiver?

It only took Artemis a few hours to find Callisto.

And without any hesitation, she shot the she bear

through the heart with an arrow.

Callisto was dying.

(somber music)

And so Hermes, Hermes the faithful messenger

of the God's was sent by Zeus to rescue

and extremist the child that Callisto was carrying.

The boy would named Arcus, he would become

King of Arcadia.

And what about poor Callisto?

Zeus didn't forget her, he put her body up in the sky

to become Urso Mager, the great bear, commonly

known as the big dipper.

Zeus' amorous conquests were countless,

from the Goddesses Zeus sought to acquire the virtues

that he lacked.

But he also spent his time

seeking beauty for his own pleasure.

Beauty in its purest and simplest form,

wherever he could find it, whether among Goddesses,

or among Mortals.

Zeus may have been the master of Olympus,

but in matters of love he was not any better

than the rest of us mortals in overcoming his desires.

He was a very human, all too human King of the God's.

(intense music)