Typhon facts for kids
Typhon (Greek Τυφῶν), also Typhoeus, Typhaon, and Typhos, was the final son of Gaia in Greek mythology. He attempted to destroy Zeus after Zeus imprisoned the Titans. Zeus won and sent Typhon to be trapped under Mount Etna. Typhon was the father of the Nemean lion, Cerberus, and the Gorgons. He was married to Echidna. Meanwhile, all of the Greek gods (except for Hermes and Zeus) had fled to Egypt. In Egypt, many of the gods made themselves turn into animals to hide from Typhon. They reproduced, and the Egyptian gods and goddesses were born.
Mythology
Appearance
Typhon was a giant that was so tall that his head touched the stars. His torso was that of a man, but his legs were coils of vipers that would hiss and attack as he moved. His main head had on it 100 snakeheads who would make different sounds of animals. His eyes were glowing red and would terrify everyone who looked upon them, and he had what was called a savage jaw which would breathe fire. His body had hundreds of different wings on it and his hands were made up of 100 snake coils just like his legs.
Battle with Zeus
Typhon challenged Zeus for rule of the cosmos. The earliest mention of Typhon, and his only occurrence in Homer, is a passing reference in the Iliad to Zeus striking the ground around where Typhon lies defeated. Hesiod's Theogony gives the first account of their battle. According to Hesiod, without the quick action of Zeus, Typhon would have "come to reign over mortals and immortals". In the Theogony Zeus and Typhon meet in cataclysmic conflict:
[Zeus] thundered hard and mightily: and the earth around resounded terribly and the wide heaven above, and the sea and Ocean's streams and the nether parts of the earth. Great Olympus reeled beneath the divine feet of the king as he arose and earth groaned thereat. And through the two of them heat took hold on the dark-blue sea, through the thunder and lightning, and through the fire from the monster, and the scorching winds and blazing thunderbolt. The whole earth seethed, and sky and sea: and the long waves raged along the beaches round and about at the rush of the deathless gods: and there arose an endless shaking. Hades trembled where he rules over the dead below, and the Titans under Tartarus who live with Cronos, because of the unending clamor and the fearful strife.
Zeus with his thunderbolt easily overcomes Typhon, who is thrown down to earth in a fiery crash:
So when Zeus had raised up his might and seized his arms, thunder and lightning and lurid thunderbolt, he leaped from Olympus and struck him, and burned all the marvellous heads of the monster about him. But when Zeus had conquered him and lashed him with strokes, Typhoeus was hurled down, a maimed wreck, so that the huge earth groaned. And flame shot forth from the thunderstricken lord in the dim rugged glens of the mount, when he was smitten. A great part of huge earth was scorched by the terrible vapor and melted as tin melts when heated by men's art in channelled crucibles; or as iron, which is hardest of all things, is shortened by glowing fire in mountain glens and melts in the divine earth through the strength of Hephaestus. Even so, then, the earth melted in the glow of the blazing fire.
Defeated, Typhon is cast into Tartarus by an angry Zeus. Most accounts have the defeated Typhon buried under either Mount Etna in Sicily, or the volcanic island of Ischia, the largest of the Phlegraean Islands off the coast of Naples, with Typhon being the cause of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
Confused with the Giants
Typhon bears a close resemblance to an older generation of descendants of Gaia, the Giants. They, like their younger brother Typhon after them, challenged Zeus for supremacy of the cosmos, were (in later representations) shown as snake-footed, and end up buried under volcanos.
While distinct in early accounts, in later accounts Typhon was often considered to be one of the Giants. The Roman mythographer Hyginus (64 BC – 17 AD) includes Typhon in his list of Giants, while the Roman poet Horace (65 – 8 BC), mentions Typhon, along with the Giants Mimas, Porphyrion, and Enceladus, as together battling Athena, during the Gigantomachy. The Astronomica, attributed to the 1st-century AD Roman poet and astrologer Marcus Manilius, and the late 4th-century early 5th-century Greek poet Nonnus, also consider Typhon to be one of the Giants.
Images for kids
-
Depiction by Wenceslas Hollar
See also
In Spanish: Tifón (mitología) para niños
