The Olympic Universe: D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths

Before fans spoke casually of universes -- Marvel, DC, Star Trek and Wars -- there was an Olympian universe laid out in D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961) with methodical efficiency and loving care. I'm not the only boomer I know for whom the D'Aulaires' lithographs and stories have remained vivid, bedrock for our imaginations in the sixty years since we first saw them. [Image: Ingrid and Edgar Parin D'Aulaires - 12 gods of Olympus, each depicted with a symbol of their godly domain and power]

Ingrid (nee Martins) and her husband Edgar Parin D'Aulaires published their first book in Germany in 1932, but they had settled in New England by the time they published their Greek myths in 1961.

The book is tall and wide, not thick, something a small child can grasp themselves and lose themselves in. The first full page shows the Greek isles with helpful notes under the place names, e.g. "the childhood home of Zeus" and "wild centaurs fled here." On the page opposite, the authors tell us straight up that the Greeks on their lovely islands, "cherish[ing] light and beauty" while their neighbors still worshipped "ugly idols," "creat[ed] their own beautiful, radiant gods."

While the D'Aulaires' book fascinated me as a child on my mother's lap, the authors made room for a small reader's growth. Throughout my childhood, whenever we moved to a new town, locating D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths in an unfamiliar library to re-read was a comforting ritual. I did read other versions of the myths and study Edith Hamilton's grown-up anthology, but at 25, when I was commissioned to write a musical pageant from Greek tales, I turned to the D'Aulaires.

The D'Aulaires stretched a child's vocabulary. Mom and Dad explained words to me, sometimes having to check the pronunciations, and sometimes pointing out that words come from stories, e.g. scary god Pan is the source of "panic." Some illustrations were grand two-page spreads in color, and little cartoons occupied some of the margins, so there were always details to discover. For example, the two robot servants who assist Hephaestus the lame god of metal work are followed by a little robot dog.

The D'Aulaires left subtext that a child could grow into understanding. They convey sexuality in terms that satisfy a child's need to know what's going on without getting too far ahead. For instance, we read that Gaea the Earth felt lonely before Sky "rose over her" and "smiled...twinkling with his countless stars, and they were joined in love. Soon young Earth became Mother Earth...." That made sense to me at age five. The illustration is chaste and sweet -- I love the star-struck smile on Gaea's face and the gentle intensity of Sky's gaze -- but the composition would make a good cover for a steamy romance novel. [Image: Ingrid and Edgar Parin D'Aulaires - Earth and Sky]

From there the D'Aulaires simply trace the ramifications of Earth and Sky's family tree. From the reign of Earth's children the Titans and the peopling of the world, we see the rise of Zeus, his brothers and sisters, and his offspring. Each Olympian gets a couple of pages for an origin story and some characteristic tale. Once the twelve gods are established on Olympus, the D'Aulaires move on to tell about the Olympians' half-god offspring, finishing the book with breezy digests of epic tales concerning Jason's Argonauts and Helen of Troy's war.

For this particular small child, the D'Aulaires presented scary things in forms that made them more interesting than scary. Like many small children, I was scared of spiders, so I was both repelled and fascinated when Athena transforms the arrogant weaver Arachne into an arachnid, punishment for the mockery of Zeus in her tapestry [Image: Arachne and her depiction of Zeus and swan in lecherous pursuit; Athena stands behind.]

Always afraid of death, I found comfort in stories of Hades. Like me, he seems shy and no athlete. He was shrouded in mystery like the ghosts and vampires I always liked, and he seemed to be a decent sort: although he did kidnap Persephone, daughter of the harvest goddess Demeter, he made a fair deal to let his wife visit the surface half the year. I liked the seasons as expressions of her mother's cycles of grief and joy before I learned about orbits and the tilt of the earth. [Image: Hades and Persephone]

There's no sugar-coating the truth at the end of the book: "Everything must come to an end." On a barren landscape, they show fragments of mighty Zeus's statue and his crumbled temple. "The Muses fell silent," but the stories live on in song and the constellations turning above -- a play on the literal meaning of "universe," being a "turning" of the sky-globe. [Image: The final pages of D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths.]

Accepting this truth, too, was a growing point for me. I remember crying around age eight when the full meaning hit me.

Around that time, I saw the same idea expressed in an episode of that new TV series Star Trek that has been my favorite ever since, in which the god Apollo, last of an extra-terrestrial race, has to accept that earthlings have outgrown their need for the gods. "The one God is enough for us," Captain Kirk says. [Image: Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Imposing in stature with a resonant voice enhanced by reverb, actor Michael Forest made an impressive "Apollo." The title is from Shelley's poem about the death of John Keats, whom he likens to the mythical Adonis.]

That the D'Aulaires' tales all connected to the same "universe" may be why this book holds its special place in my imagination. Fairy tales and ghost stories didn't seem to connect the same way. Of course, now "universes" are near-universal for their marketing potential.

I enjoy seeing how the Greek universe intersected with the Star Trek universe, the DC Universe (through Wonder Woman and Shazam), and even the JC (Jesus Christ) Universe: the Acts of the Apostles show Paul and Barnabas being mistaken for Hermes and Zeus at Lystra, and causing a riot at Ephesus, a company town famous for Artemis merch.