Episode 2Mother Forged a Blade. Who Will Take It?Cronus and Uranus
Episode 2. Ouranos, the starry Sky, has shoved his children deep inside the Earth. Their mother Gaia, groaning under the weight, forges a great gray sickle of adamant from her own body and asks which of them will take it up. The older brothers and sisters stay silent. Only the youngest and slightest of them, Cronus, steps forward.
Cronus and Uranus Explained: Gaia's Sickle in Hesiod's Theogony
The Original Myth: Theogony, Lines 139–182
The story of Cronus and Uranus comes from the Theogony, a Greek poem by Hesiod composed around 700 BCE. The title roughly means "the birth of the gods." The poem follows how the world passed from the first great powers of nature to the rule of Zeus. Lines 139–182 tell one of its most violent episodes: the Sky is overthrown by his own son.
Gaia, the Earth, has already borne many children to Ouranos (Uranus), the Sky. Now she bears three Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes and Arges, whose names point to thunder, lightning and a bright flash. They look like gods except for one round eye in the middle of the forehead, and Hesiod tells us ahead of time that they will one day give Zeus his thunderbolt. Then come three sons who are even more frightening: Cottus, Briareus and Gyges. Each has a hundred arms and fifty heads growing from his shoulders, and their strength has no measure.
Hesiod says the father hated these children from the very start. Each time one was born, Ouranos pushed it down into a hiding place deep inside the Earth, kept it from ever coming up into the light, and enjoyed his own cruelty. Gaia, packed full and squeezed from within, groaned and started to plot. She brought into being a gray metal called adamant, shaped a huge sickle from it, and called on her children to punish their father. He had been the first to do shameful things, she said.
Every one of them was struck with fear, and nobody answered, except Cronus. Hesiod gives him an epithet meaning crafty, or crooked in his thinking. Cronus promised to do it and said he did not care about a father with such a hateful name, repeating his mother's point that the father had started it. Gaia was overjoyed. She hid him in an ambush, gave him the long, jagged-toothed sickle and told him the whole plan. When Ouranos arrived, bringing Night with him, and stretched himself out over Earth to lie with her, Cronus reached out from his hiding place with his left hand. With the sickle in his right, he quickly cut off his father's genitals and threw them away behind him.
Main Characters
Gaia is the Earth itself, called huge in the poem. She is both a suffering mother and the mind behind the plan. Ouranos is the great Sky, and Hesiod gives him no motive except hatred of his offspring. Cronus is the one who acts. Just before this passage (lines 137–138), Hesiod calls him the youngest child, the most terrible one, and a son who hated his father. The Cyclopes and the three Hundred-Handers (Cottus, Briareus and Gyges) are the children whose births lead straight into the imprisonment. The other siblings, such as Oceanus, Hyperion, Iapetus, Rhea and Themis, are named a few lines earlier. Here they appear only as the silent, frightened group. The name "Titans" comes only after the attack, when Ouranos gives it to them (lines 207–210).
What the Myth Says: Background and Meaning
This episode is the first step in what scholars call a succession myth. Rule over the cosmos passes from Ouranos to Cronus, and later from Cronus to Zeus, and each time a son overthrows his father. Readers of the Theogony see a pattern here: the cruelty Ouranos shows his children comes back to him, and Cronus will later face the same danger from his own children. Many scholars have also compared Hesiod's story with older Near Eastern myths, especially the Hittite tale of Kumarbi, in which a sky god is overthrown in a similar way.
The repeated line, that the father was the first to do shameful things, is central. Both Gaia and Cronus say it, which presents the attack as payback rather than plain ambition. Gaia's part matters too. In Hesiod the Earth often decides who wins, and she later helps Rhea save the infant Zeus.
Some popular retellings add details Hesiod does not include here. Later sources, such as Apollodorus's Library, say Ouranos threw the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers into Tartarus. Hesiod only says he hid them deep inside the Earth. Some retellings also claim Ouranos feared a prophecy that a child would take his throne. In this passage, though, Hesiod says only that he hated them. Finally, there is a reading that the castration made the Sky draw back and so separated heaven from earth. This is a scholarly interpretation that the lines themselves do not state.
What the Manga Changes or Adds
Episode 2 of Three Crowns of Heaven follows Hesiod's sequence closely: the hidden children, Gaia's groaning, the gray adamant sickle, the silence, and Cronus stepping forward. Where the poem is brief, the manga adds its own material. Hesiod gives the siblings' reaction in a single line, saying fear seized them all and nobody spoke. Their faces, glances and private thoughts in the manga are invented for the story.
The manga calls Cronus the youngest, which matches Hesiod, and also the slightest, which does not come from the poem. Hesiod says nothing about Cronus's size and actually calls him the most terrible of the children. The dialogue between mother and son is also expanded. In the original, each of them speaks only a few lines, and both speeches end with the same accusation against the father.
Other visual choices are artistic decisions too. These include what the dark world inside the Earth looks like, where the ambush takes place, the exact shape and shine of the sickle beyond large, long and jagged, how human Gaia and Ouranos look, and how the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers are drawn. Any detailed instructions Gaia gives Cronus and any cry from Ouranos come from the manga, since Hesiod only says she explained the whole plan.
Where to Read It
To go back to the source, look for Hesiod's Theogony, lines 139–182, with lines 133–138 just before for the list of the older siblings. The passage is short, so you can read it in a few minutes in any translation. Right after it, lines 183–206 tell what grew from the severed parts: the Furies, the Giants and the ash-tree nymphs came from the drops of blood, and Aphrodite was born from the sea foam.
If you'd like to watch the story unfold first, GREEK MYTHOLOGY: Three Crowns of Heaven is free to read on Manga Portal. Every episode is free and you don't need an account. Episode 2 ends just as the sickle changes hands, and the next episode picks up with what the cut sets in motion.
Characters in this episode
Gaia
The Earth goddess and mother of the hidden children, who makes the adamant sickle and plans the attack on her husband.
Ouranos (Uranus)
The Sky god, who hates his children from birth and keeps them locked deep inside the Earth.
Cronus (Kronos)
The crafty youngest son, the only one who accepts his mother's sickle and overthrows his father.
Brontes, Steropes and Arges (the Cyclopes)
Three one-eyed sons of Earth and Sky who will later give Zeus his thunderbolt.
Cottus, Briareus and Gyges (the Hundred-Handers)
Three huge sons, each with a hundred arms and fifty heads, who are among the children Ouranos imprisons.
The other siblings (later called Titans)
Older children such as Oceanus, Hyperion and Rhea, who stay silent with fear when Gaia asks for help.
FAQ
Why did Cronus castrate Uranus?
In Hesiod's Theogony, Uranus hid his children inside the Earth and would not let them out, which caused Gaia great pain. Gaia made a sickle and asked her children to punish him, and only Cronus agreed. Both mother and son say the father was the first to act shamefully.
Why did Uranus imprison his children?
Hesiod says only that Uranus hated them from the beginning and took pleasure in hiding them away. The idea that he feared a prophecy about losing his throne comes from later retellings, not from this passage. In Hesiod, a prophecy like that is told to Cronus later, about his own children.
What was Cronus's sickle made of?
Gaia made it from gray adamant, a legendary and extremely hard material that she brought into being herself. Hesiod describes the sickle as large, long and jagged-toothed, but he does not say exactly what adamant is.
Who are the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers?
They are children of Gaia and Uranus. The Cyclopes (Brontes, Steropes and Arges) each have one round eye and later make Zeus's thunderbolt. The Hundred-Handers (Cottus, Briareus and Gyges) each have a hundred arms and fifty heads.
What happened after Uranus was castrated?
Hesiod says the Earth took in the drops of blood and gave birth to the Furies, the Giants and the ash-tree nymphs. The severed parts drifted on the sea, and Aphrodite was born from the foam around them. Uranus then gave his children the name Titans.
