Original subtitles

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Narrator] The Gods are immortal and invincible.

United, they're capable of beating

the most malicious divinities.

Disunited, the world would return

to the chaos from which it came.

These divinities are proud, susceptible, vain.

They possess both cunning and intelligence,

and when they use these two qualities,

it is usually to quarrel, to plot, to betray.

(suspenseful orchestral music)

Deep down, the gods are not that different from mortals.

They succumb to the same two passions, love and hate.

However, one day a god appeared

who was wiser, more rational than the others,

capable of uniting instead of dividing.

Of constructing peace rather than preparing war.

A God profoundly planted on the side of reason,

as opposed to those who let themselves

be guided by their passions.

This god came to the world, but this god

was a goddess, Athena.

For an exceptional divinity and exceptional birth,

Zeus' first wife was the nymph Metis,

whose name signifies both prudence and cunning.

Despite a few storms brought

about by the king of the god's infidelity,

this was the happy couple.

And then one day, two other divinities,

Gaia, the Earth, and Uranus the sky

came and knocked at the door of the master of Olympus.

They delivered a worrying prediction.

After having given birth to a girl,

Metis would have a boy, and this boy

would surpass his father in cunning

and in power, and would eventually dethrone him.

Zeus is a king with no rival,

and he intends to stay that way.

He conquered his throne through fierce

fighting and has no intention of sharing it,

even less of concealing it.

So when Metis was on the point of giving birth,

Zeus who was never short of a trick

sent his wife a challenge, just how great

a metamorphoses was she capable of?

Metis, far from imagining what was really going

on entered into the game.

She went through a series of incredible

transformations until urged on by Zeus,

she turned herself into a drop of water.

Zeus congratulated her, applauded and swallowed her.

Delighted with the tricky at play,

the king of the gods went about his business.

A short time later, Zeus was overcome

with atrocious headaches.

So sharp was the pain that he called

upon all the divinities of Olympus for help.

To ease his father, his son Hephaestus,

god of blacksmiths, struck him a terrible blow

on the head with his sledgehammer.

Immediately, wonder of wonders,

a young girl armed and helmeted,

sprang out of the crack.

She gave a deafening war cry,

which echoed around Olympus.

The Gods were struck with fear,

the rivers and the seas swelled up with roaring waves,

and the son reigned in his fire horses.

Athena had just been born.

Athena possesses the prudence

and wisdom of her mother, Metis,

but also the intelligence of her father Zeus.

She is double, she is a woman,

but she is dedicated to the game of war,

which for the Greeks is men's business.

For Zeus, she is and will always be his favorite child

who will forgiven everything.

Zeus entrusts the river god,

Triton, with Athena's education.

Triton himself has a daughter, Pallas.

Very quickly, the two young goddesses become inseparable.

But one day, during single combat training,

as Pallas prepares to strike Athena,

Zeus, afraid for his daughter, steps in.

Surprised by the appearance of the king of the gods,

the unfortunate Pallas drops her guard

and receives a terrible blow from Athena,

an involuntary blow, but a fatal one.

Athena's sadness is immense.

She has lost a sister.

So, as a sign of her pain, she decides

to place her friend's name before her own.

Hence forth, she will be called Pallas Athena.

Athena grows up, her beauty dazzles

all those who meet her, but Athena remains insensitive.

She fends off all advances, she is a virgin

and she intends to stay that way.

One God however, relentlessly pursues her, Hephaestus.

Hephaestus is the ugliest, the most graceless

of all the gods.

A limping blacksmith, it is he who with

a blow of his sledgehammer brought Athena into the world.

He is even more in love with her since

being recently abandoned by his wife, Aphrodite.

One morning, Athena comes to Hephaestus' forge.

She has come to order some weapons from him.

Hephaestus is quick to tell her that he

will accept no payment, that he will carry

out his work just for the love of her.

Flattered, Athena accepts.

A few days later, the goddess comes to collect her weapons.

Hephaestus at first greets her amicably,

then suddenly fired with desire

unable to control himself, he throws

himself on Athena and tries to abuse her.

In reality, Hephaestus who does not usually

behave so crudely is the victim of a dirty

trick played by no other than Poseidon, Zeus' brother.

Poseidon and Athena have always been fierce rivals,

and Poseidon has used Hephaestus to cause the goddess harm.

A few hours earlier, he had led him

to believe that Athena was on her way

to the forge, and that she was longing

for Hephaestus to ardently court her.

Athena struggles, pushes away the blacksmith

and takes flight.

Despite being lame, Hephaestus manages

to catch up with her, and again tries to take her.

He is so clumsy that he tears her tunic.

He catches site of the goddess' naked body

in all its splendor.

Hephaestus is captivated.

Athena takes advantage of his confusion

to free herself, but just as she

is about to escape, a long jet of semen

lands on her thigh.

In disgust, Athena grabs a piece of woolen cloth,

wipes herself, and throws the cloth on the ground.

But as the cloth hits the floor, it fertilizes

Gaia, the mother earth.

Gaia is now pregnant through the desire of Hephaestus.

And sometime later, Gaia gives birth to a child.

It is a strange creature, half-man, half-snake.

Horrified, Gaia announces that she refuses

to bring up the child.

But not to worry, Athena will look after him.

She adopts him.

She names this child sprung from the ground

Erichthonius, which signifies autochthones.

She hides him in a sacred basket, which she gives

to one of her high priestesses,

with orders to take great care of him.

But one day as she returns from a feast

carrying the sacred basket in which

the young Erichthonius is dozing,

her two sisters, burning with curiosity

lift the lid of the basket.

When they see the snake-tailed child, they panic,

scream in terror, and throw themselves

from the top of the Acropolis.

Athena races forward, and taking

the child from its makeshift cradle,

she carries him to safety within

the walls of her temple.

For days on end, she brings him up

with so much love that everyone who sees

them is convinced that the goddess

is his real mother.

At that time, the gods lived in their palaces

on Olympus, but there were no cities

on earth which were exclusively dedicated to them.

Zeus felt that this error should be immediately rectified.

He calls all the gods together and tells

each of them to choose

a town in which men will worship them.

One single city for each God.

Each of them makes their choice.

Apollo chooses Delphi, Ares takes Sparta.

Aphrodite settles on Corinth.

Even the solitary and ferocious Artemis

decides to choose a town, it will be Ephesus.

But when Poseidon and Athena's turns come around,

both claim possession of Attica.

The tension mounts.

Seeing his brother and his daughter

arguing more and more violently,

Zeus decides that the king of Attica,

the wise Cecrops, will be the arbitrator in this conflict.

Cecrops is a good sovereign.

He has forbidden human sacrifices,

he has made his region

the most civilized country in the world.

He has established monogamy, marriage,

and has created the first law courts.

And something unheard of, not only has

he given men the right to vote,

but he has given it to women too.

Cecrops does as Zeus wishes.

He retires to his palace.

A few hours later, he reappears

and declares that the patron of the town

will be the god who gives man the most useful gift.

Poseidon is convinced he will win.

The god of the oceans aims his trident

at the ground and makes a magnificent water spring appear.

The saltwater flows across the arid plains.

He offers the inhabitants of Attica

a sumptuous lake, a sort of gigantic swimming pool

in which men can take their leisure

and practice the water sports which love so much.

Then he tops off his gift by offering Cecrops himself

a splendid black stallion, a magic reputedly

invincible walls which springs from the spray.

Athena considers carefully.

With a wave of her hand, she makes a tree

grow out of the earth, an immense

tree with silver branches

and a knotted trunk, an olive tree.

An olive tree whose leaves, she proclaims,

will never fall, not even when winter comes.

This tree, she declares, will bear fruit

that you will press when it is fully ripe.

It will feed you, you and your children

and your children's children.

This tree will be a symbol of the peace

and fertility that I grant you.

Under the watchful eye of Themis,

the goddess of justice, the inhabitants

of Attica begin to vote.

And it is the women's votes which tip

the divine balance in favor of Athena.

Poseidon flies into uncontrollable rage.

In revenge for this humiliation,

he determines to submerge Attica

beneath the waves, but Zeus who has

attentively followed the ballot, forbids him.

So, the lord of the oceans leaves Olympus,

full of bitterness and hatred towards Zeus'

daughter, he plunges into the abyss

and returns to his palace where he shuts

himself away to consider some fresh revenge.

The logic of the inhabitants of Attica is simple.

Poseidon offers them entertainment and war.

Athena offers them peace and agriculture.

And in homage to the goddess, they decide

that the place will hence forth be called Athens,

and her own son Erichthonius, will be one

of the first kings to reign over the city.

Athena dedicates herself to men's happiness.

Naturally enough, she becomes the protectoris of heroes.

She plays a major part in the success of their exploits.

Without her precious help, Perseus would never

have managed to beat the horrible Medusa,

whose scowling face now decorates Athena's shield,

a gift from the heroic Perseus to his protectoris.

During the Trojan War, Athena takes

the Greeks' side and gives them

the idea of the wooden horse.

Later, she helps Ulysses to return to Ithaca.

It is she who, disguised as the wise mentor,

guides the young Telemachus in his efforts

to trace his father.

And she too who one evening allows

Prometheus to secretly enter Olympus

so that he can steal fire, which he takes back

to earth to give to mortals.

Indeed, it is Athena who inspires

mortals to be audacious and clear-headed,

giving them a new form of bravery guided

by a reflection and cunning instead

of disorganized blind fury.

Athena, goddess of war appears

to mortals as the opposite of her brother Ares,

who is also god of war, but a god of carnage and blood.

Athena, contrary to Ares, puts intelligence

in the service of war, in order

to bring about peace as opposed

to the extermination of the enemy.

In time, Athena also becomes protectoris of the state,

guarantor of the equity of laws

and their correct application.

But she quickly realizes that without

prosperity, laws alone are not enough.

So, in order for men's wellbeing

to develop, she gives them the plow

and the yolk for their oxen.

She also teaches them numbers.

She instructs women in the culinary arts,

as well as weaving and spinning.

She equally passes on the intricacies of ship-building,

how to work wood, polish planks, and assemble

the different elements of the structure.

It's in this way that she oversees

the construction of the Argo, in its time

the biggest ship every built, aboard which Jason

and his sailors would go to retrieve

the famous Golden Fleece.

Once, only once, Athena felt jealous of someone else.

It has to be admitted, it was concerning

an artist who was sorely lacking in humility.

Her name was Arachne, she was the daughter

of a rich cloth merchant.

Arachne had become a true expert

in the refined art of weaving.

She produced magnificent embroidery,

thinking up motifs, each more beautiful than the previous,

creating veils and dresses, and reportedly

incomparable splendor.

So much so that her fame reached

the ears of Athena, who decided one fine day

to check out for herself the talents

of this young prodigy.

Athena took the disguise of an old gray-haired woman,

and went to visit the young girl.

To her great surprise, she discovered

an arrogant and boastful individual

who claimed that no one in the world

could spin as well as her.

And to crown this tactlessness, she added

no one, not even the goddess Athena.

Athena at first took this attitude

for adolescent bragging.

She benevolently advised Arachne

to take back her words and pay homage to the goddess.

But Arachne, caught up in her own enthusiasm persisted.

Yes, she felt capable of beating

the powerful Athena if she ever dared

to take her on.

And promptly insisting that she was going

to prove it, she ran her fingers

the length of the threat.

The loom chattered, and little

by little the motifs appeared.

Arachne had chosen as her subject,

the love affairs of the gods and the metamorphoses

which they frequently employed.

When she had finished, Athena, still disguised

as an old woman inspected the work.

There was nothing to be said, it was perfection itself.

It was useless to compete, the work

of the young Arachne was well beyond

what she herself was capable of.

The goddess was overcome with rage.

She who was usually so reasonable,

smashed everything around her and stormed

out of the room.

When Arachne realized that the old woman

was none other than Athena, she fell into despair.

She had just committed an abominable sacrilege

and deeply offended the person who she,

nonetheless cherished above all others.

Wracked with remorse, Arachne shot herself

away in her father's attic and hanged herself.

When Athena heard the news, she immediately

regretted letting herself get carried away,

and to pay homage to this excellent spinner

who death had unjustly taken, she returned

to Arachne's workshop and poured a magic

balm over her corpse.

Arachne's body began to shrink,

shrink, shrink, until it was nothing more than a tiny

belly from which were protruding

spindly little legs covered in hair.

In this way, murmured the goddess,

you can remain hanging forever, since

that was your choice, but you will continue

your work as before Arachne, in the form of a spider.

Ever since, pursuing her fragile trade

which a breath can destroy, Arachne

eternally weaves her cloth.

Watched over like all craftsmen and artists

by the goddess Athena.

(dramatic orchestral music)