Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Mine be the deer, lyre and bended bow,

and I will utter to men the unerring council of Zeus.

Such are the first words of Apollo hardly out

of his mother's womb.

Apollo, God of light, protector of the arts,

patron of the divine and of the prophets.

The sun beats down on the newborn babe, or rather babes,

for next to Apollo sleeps his twin sister Artemis.

All around them in the arid and desolate landscape

this island where their mother Leto,

the Goddess of the night,

finally found refuge is truly a stone.

Just a single tree,

a palm tree, the silence, and the sea

stretching out to infinity.

Leto's face relaxes nine days,

nine days before deliverance came.

Nine days of suffering after seven months of wandering.

And all that was whose fault?

Zeus of course.

Zeus who might have been called the God of adultery

if he hadn't already been given the title of

Master of Olympus.

Zeus and his innumerable feminine conquests.

Poor Leto, for how long did the king of the Gods

harass her before stealing her virtue?

Indeed she might have guessed that this affair

would end badly.

Leto pulls her twins to her side.

She remembers, how could she forget.

A few months earlier she announces to Zeus

that she if pregnant.

The master of the Gods explodes with joy.

This boy, for it will no doubt be a boy,

will be the most valiant of all his children,

the most handsome.

Leto does not share her lover's exuberance.

Indeed she is very worried, for Zeus is married,

and not to just anybody.

His spouse his called Hera, and she shares his sovereignty

over heaven and Earth.

Not only is she the greatest of all the Olympian Goddesses,

but she is the protecting divinity of marriage,

and infidelity is something Hera doesn't like in the least.

Deception is no joking matter for her.

Pitiless not only with her rivals,

but also with the children they bring into the world.

(dramatic music)

Of course Leto could've pointed out that she hadn't

wreaked havoc in an other wise untroubled union.

A short time earlier the heavens had been witness

to another clash.

(thunder)

Having learnt that Zeus was on the point of

committing a new infidelity Hera had called upon

Athena, Poseidon, and numerous other divinities for help.

Together they had tried to chain Zeus.

Alas the project failed, and it didn't take long

for the Master of Olympus to retaliate.

As Hera was at the origin of the conspiracy

Zeus suspended her over the clouds,

an anvil attached to each ankle.

Despite her cries no God dared come to her aid.

Zeus only accepted to release her on condition that

all the conspirators vow never to rise up against him again.

Leto's fears turned out to be justified.

Zeus' cries of joy upon learning that his mistress

is pregnant have reached as far as Hera's chamber,

right up there on Olympus.

Yet more deceit.

This time the Goddess' promises her anger

will know no bounds.

To start with she threatens bloody reprisals

against anyone who offers Leto asylum.

Next she calls up a monster from the depths of the Earth,

Python the serpent,

and she sets it on the heels of the unfortunate woman.

And so begins weeks of wandering for poor Leto.

Abandoned by all, desperate, she goes from land to land

and from town to town looking for a place

where she can bring her twins into the world

in all safety.

(quiet music)

But her path is strewn with closed doors

and evasive glances.

No one dare brave the anger of Hera.

Leto struggles on begging until, already stricken

by the first pains, she reaches a little island

in the Aegean sea by the name os Asteria.

Asteria, that was the name of her sister.

She too had once suffered Zeus' advances,

but rather than give in she had thrown herself into the sea.

(eerie music)

At the place where she fell had appeared the island

of Asteria.

Leto seeks refuge on the island which was once her sister.

She lies down at the foot of a palm tree.

She first gives birth to a girl, Artemis,

and then a boy, Apollo.

So here he is this magnificent God.

This God of light, of music, and of poetry.

Seven days later and he's already out of nappies.

He's already a superb boy with extraordinary strength.

Zeus sends him a seven stringed lyre, a chariot

pulled by two powerful swans, a bow and arrows

specially made for him by Haphaestus the God of blacksmiths.

Immediately Apollo decides to leave.

He has a fixed purpose in mind, to be the one who reveals

to mortals their destiny, as well as the intentions

of his father, the mighty Zeus,

but for that he must find a place.

A place where he can build his temple.

Apollo climbs onto his chariot, leaves the island

which suddenly becoming fertile and green

takes the name of Delos the resplendent.

But the swans who pull his chariot see things

in a different way.

They carry their passenger off to their own country

beyond the north wind, the land of they Hyperboreans.

It's a magic country.

The gold that is found here is guarded by griffins.

The people here are rich, happy, and never grow old.

Here Apollo is initiated into the mysteries of Zeus.

(wistful music)

Then he continues his journey.

He arrives at a splendid spring lost in the middle

of a deep forest.

The place is guarded by a nymph.

Her name is Telphusa.

When Apollo informs her that he intends to build

a magnificent temple here the nymph,

offended that a greater divinity has come to compete

with her, persuades him that the place though beautiful

is terribly noisy.

She sings the praises of another sight very close by

at the foot of the gorge of Mount Parnassus.

Apollo sets off again.

He doesn't know it,

but the nymph has just laid a trap for him.

(dramatic music)

A few hours later Apollo discovers a magnificent valley.

The place does indeed seem perfect, but hardly has he

started to mark out the foundations of his temple

than a shadow silently slides up behind him.

Python, the terrible serpent who was already hunting him

in his mother's womb, Python had been here

awaiting his hour of revenge.

The combat is incredibly violent.

(dramatic music)

Apollo's triumph is absolute.

Yes, but he killed a God all the same.

Gaea, the Mother Earth who gave birth to this monster

is furious.

She immediately reports this offense to Zeus.

Zeus orders his son to go to the vail of Tempe

to purify himself.

Apollo does more than this.

He establishes the Pythic games in memory

of his beaten adversary.

But what is a sanctuary without a priest?

While looking out to sea in meditation

Apollo suddenly notices a vessel

which seems to be in trouble.

He leaps into action, takes the form of a dolphin,

and reaches the boat.

Onboard he finds that the Cretin sailors are half dead

from hunger, thirst, and fatigue.

He promises to save them on condition

that they accept never to go home,

and to faithfully serve him.

Apollo leads the boat to shore and initiates the sailors

into the divine secrets.

On the pediment of the temple he has the words

"know thyself" engraved.

An errant God roaming the countryside, Apollo undoubtedly

understands better than most the profound meaning

of this maxim.

(soft music)

It remains to find a name for the place.

The sailors turned priest remarked that it was

in the form of a dolphin that Apollo had appeared to them.

Dolphin, Delphis in Greek.

Apollo approves.

The site will be called Delphi.

Delphi is soon to become the most venerated place of worship

in all Greece.

People hasten there from the four corners of the Earth

to know the destiny reserved for mortals by the Gods.

For that one needs to question the oracle of Delphi.

The famous Pythia.

It is through the mouth of this oracle that the God

is supposed to express himself.

(angelic music)

For the moment the time of wandering is over,

and the time of power can begin.

Apollo makes a triumphant arrival on Olympus

at the assembly of the Gods.

He is at the height of his glory.

Alas everyone has their dark side, even the Gods.

And although with his lyre Apollo enchants

the immortals stay,

with his bow he renders men's lives impossible,

and one quickly discovers that behind the delightful

poet who frolics with the muses hides

a bloody and violent archer.

A Queen, the arrogant Niobe, will learn this to her cost,

and she won't be the only one.

Niobe rains over the town of Thebes.

She had once been loved by Zeus, but had not deigned

to give him children.

However, Niobe was fertile.

With her husband Amphion she had brought into the world

no less than fourteen children.

One day spurred on by jealousy and grievance

Niobe boasts of her prodigious fertility,

and taunts the Goddess Leto who only has two twins,

Artemis and Apollo.

An unpardonable offense in Apollo's eyes.

While Niobe's children are accompanying their mother

on Mount Sipylus Apollo approaches them,

and without any qualms

bends his bow and lets fly his arrows.

Fourteen arrows, fourteen children, total carnage.

We can only imagine the immense sadness

of the unfortunate Niobe.

(sad music)

Prostrate she refuses to leave the tomb

of her assassinated children, and bewails them day and night

until Zeus taking pity on her turns her into a rock

streaming with tears.

A paradox of this strikingly beautiful God,

he is always disappointed in love.

The women to whom he is most attached

always escape him inexorably.

The most famous of these unconquered women

is the nymph Daphne.

Daphne spends most of her time hunting.

However, one day Eros the young God of Love

who Apollo constantly teases for his weak archery skills

decides to play a game on the proud seducer.

He pierces Apollo's heart with a golden arrow

which makes him fall in love with Daphne.

Then he strikes Daphne with an arrow of lead

which renders her insensible to love.

Apollo tries to court Daphne,

but she obstinately refuses him.

To avoid the God's persistent advances she flees.

Apollo chases after her.

(quick music)

The nymph plunges through the forest until,

as her strength fails her, she collapses onto the bank

of the great river Peneus.

With Apollo only a few steps behind her

Daphne fervently calls upon her father,

the God of the river Peneus,

and the God hears her.

In a thunder of water and spray

Peneus surges out of the water,

and with the point of his scepter touches her breast

just at the level of her heart,

right where Eros' arrow had struck.

The beautiful Daphne feels her members stiffen.

Her fine tunic slides from her haunches,

and her body suddenly becomes covered with rough gray bark.

Her arms stretch out into branches,

her hands become vines, her blood turns into sap,

and her ankles enroot themselves

in the warm grass of the riverbank.

Her father has just changed her

into a magnificent moral tree.

Apollo rushes to her, but too late.

(sad music)

He can only grasp the smooth frozen trunk.

Under the bark he feels Daphne's living heart beating.

Beaten, broken, Apollo picks a branch from this laurel

and decides that from now on a branch of this sacred tree

will decorate his lyre, and adorn the heads of poets.

Turbulent, violent, it is time for somebody to bring

this overtly impulsive God to heel.

Who could be better placed than his father Zeus?

Apollo has just fallen in love once again.

Her name is Coronis,

she's the daughter of the King of Thesime.

Apollo and Coronis are happy.

Coronis carries the God's child,

but the princess still pregnant unfortunately falls

under the charm of a simple mortal.

A certain Ischys.

It's a raven, who the God has employed

to watch over this beauty,

who informs Apollo of this treason.

His anger is as always implacable.

Apollo starts by killing the poor raven

who originally white becomes black.

Then he kills Ischys and Coronis.

At the moment when the body of Coronis

laid out on the funeral pyre is about to be consumed

by flames Apollo snatches from her breast

the still living child.

This child is Asclepius.

Apollo is shaken by this fresh tragedy.

Once again he has lost the woman he loved,

but he still has the child.

Asclepius learns the greatest secrets of medicine,

and soon he proves to be os gifted that he personally

discovers the most incredible and insane remedy,

the dream of humanity.

How to resuscitate the dead.

And he doesn't hesitate to use it.

Asclepius resuscitates Orion, Hippolytus, Tyndareus,

and then Lycurgus.

Hades the master of the Underworld is furious.

What is happening is very serious.

Asclepius is shaking the order which reigns

between the Gods and men.

It is out of the question to let him carry on.

Hades protests to Zeus.

The master of Olympus shares his anger.

Asclepius has gone much to far, so without hesitation

Zeus strikes down the medical genius with a thunderbolt.

(thunder)

Apollo is in despair.

His own father has dared to take his son.

To take vengeance on Zeus Apollo targets the cyclops,

those one eyed creatures who had forged the thunder

for the mater of Olympus, and assassinates them

one by one.

(dramatic music)

Zeus is furious.

This son is clearly uncontrollable.

Zeus dreams up the worst way to punish him.

Throw him into Tartarus,

that accursed corner of the Underworld,

but when Leto intercedes Zeus agrees to soften the sentence.

Apollo will become the slave of a mortal.

For one year he will serve the King of Thecilly

as a simple shepard.

(eerie music)

All is tragedy in the life of this God.

All is complexity.

Even in his loves, which are not limited

to the feminine gender, for Apollo also loves men.

Two of his lovers come to dreadful ends.

Hyacinth and Cyparissus.

Hyacinth is accidentally killed by Apollo who,

to honor him, turns him into the flower.

As for Cyparissus, in despair at the death

of his favorite animal, he begs Apollo to put him to death.

The God refuses, but faced with his friends insistence

turns him into a cypress tree.

One has to recognize that there's a certain genius

in this God, who though unhappy still finds the strength

to lend beauty to sorrow.

(quick dramatic music)

So far from the cliches which depict him as a solo God,

a God of purity and of beauty, Apollo cultivates paradoxes

in the same way as mortals do.

He is both shadow and light.

Apollo is the God of many faces.

(dramatic music)