Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Chiron.
Let’s get into it. Centaurs are mythical half-man,
half-horse amalgamations. From the waist down their bodies are that of a horse, and their torso,
arms, and head are that of a man; and in some less conventional portrayals, so too were the fronts of
their legs. They live in mountains and forests, preferring by far the wild and rugged terrain of
unfettered nature over so called civilized places where masonry and carpentry replace tree and crag.
They subsist exclusively on raw food, especially raw meat, and they become entirely unmanageable
when they indulge in alcohol, as well see. Chiron is a centaur, but as reckoned compared
to his own species, he’s quite the aberration. Generally speaking, centaurs, in Greek mythology,
are raucous, rowdy, and prone to revelry. Yes, they have a passion for alcohol and boisterous
feasting, but more disruptive is the tendency for those activities to devolve into raiding,
marauding, and the abducting of comely women. There are several stories in which drunk and
disorderly centaurs must be fought off by heroes, like at Pirithous wedding, where
a group of centaurs were in attendance. At first, everything went as planned. Food and wine flowed,
and there was much carousing and merriment; but when the centaurs became intoxicated,
the celebration took an unhappy turn. They began seizing women. One galloped away with the bride
in hand, and Theseus later killed him. A fierce battle ensued in which the centaurs were beaten,
and this, in turn, fomented a larger-scale conflict whereby all of the centaurs
were forced out of Thessaly. Juxtaposed with that image is Chiron:
healer, sage, man of compassion and culture, and trainer of heroes. He was a prodigious healer, by
some accounts the first to incorporate the use of herbs in medicine. Additionally, he was a singular
talent in a broad array of other disciplines, like martial arts, ethics, hunting, acrobatics,
music, and prophecy, which comes as no surprise given who his teachers were, the divine twins,
Artemis and Apollo, who imparted their unsurpassed skill and knowledge. However, as told in another
tradition, the dynamic is presented oppositely so that Chiron is the teacher and Artemis and Apollo
the mentees. Because of his mental acuity, his physical prowess, and the many skills and areas
of knowledge he had mastery of, it was common for people to want him to tutor their children.
As such, many of the greatest heroes of Greek mythology were once his pupils, including: Jason,
Asclepius, Actaeon, the twins Castor and Pollux, and most famously, Achilles.
In one account, Thetis, a sea goddess and one of the 50 Nereids, was given to Peleus
so that neither Zeus nor Poseidon would sire by her sons more powerful than themselves;
however, in another, it was Chiron who both advised Peleus to marry Thetis and showed him
how to force her to marry him by preventing her from changing forms and escaping him.
At their wedding, Chiron gifts Peleus with a spear of ash wood. And later, Peleus walks
in on Thetis placing their son, Achilles, in a fire, tempering him to imbue immortality.
Not understanding what was happening and believing his wife’s actions to be murderous,
Peleus disrupts the process and Thetis flees back to the sea. Afterwards, Peleus gives Achilles into
Chiron’s care, to be mentored and trained. Concerning Chiron’s parentage,
there are many traditions. One claims Zeus was his father, another that he was born to Cronus,
the king of the Titans, and to Philyra, one of the Oceanids and a second-generation Titan;
supposedly, when Rhea, Cronus’ wife, found out about this extramarital affair, Cronus assumed the
form of a stallion to hide from her, and in this form he mounted Philyra, the genesis of Chiron’s
half-man, half-horse appearance. However, the most interesting and most elaborate version has him as
a descendant of Centaurus, the progenitor of virtually the entire centaur species,
who was born to Ixion and Nephele, a version that certainly warrants being looked at in more detail.
Ixion is an infamous name in Greek mythology. He’s known, depending on the version, as either
the first murderer or the first to be guilty of kin-slaying. Basically, He’s ancient Greece’s
equivalent of Cain, the son of Adam and Eve who murdered his brother Abel - just replace brother
with father-in-law. His crime was reprehensible, certainly, yet it would ultimately pale in
comparison to the punishment he would be subjected to, which was to be tortured for all of eternity.
Basically, Ixion wouldn’t pay the bride-price he owed his father-in-law. When his father-in-law
seized his prized mares as collateral, Ixion agreed to pay, but as events would prove, this
was but empty words. Instead of paying, he set a trap, the result of which was his father-in-law
perishing in a fiery pit. Contriving the death of such a close relative put a curse on Ixion's name.
He became a pariah, shunned by both high and low. No one would purify him of his blood guilt,
so his life degenerated into a perpetual state of isolation and self-loathing; that is, until
Zeus eventually takes pity on him, cleansing him of his past sins, even inviting him into his own
home and offering hospitality - seat and sup in the very house of the gods. Despite absolving
him of his past sins and setting him on the path of redemption, Ixion was possessed by lecherous
impulses. Apparently having no interest in self-preservation, he made several unwanted
advances on Hera, with whom he was utterly taken. Hera reported this to Zeus, who devised a cunning
plan to ascertain the truth of his wife’s words. Using a cloud, he created a doppelganger of Hera,
and he sent this automaton into Ixion’s chamber to see what the man would do. Lacking scruples or
sense, and overcome with lust, he copulated with the cloud replica, her name Nephele, and from
their union came two things: Centaurus, the first ancestor of all centaurs, was born, and Ixion was
tied to a flaming wheel, on which he spun for all eternity in the cavernous dark of Tartarus.
Centaurus wasn’t a centaur; rather, he was a misshapen man, one who found solace and sanctuary
in solitude, removed from people and society. Yes, seclusion suited him, but he still had needs,
and since there were no women around, he copulated with the mares of Mount Pelion,
becoming the original progenitor of the centaur race.
To me, Chiron as the son of Cronus and Philyra seems the best fit, for he was immortal:
something usually seen as a blessing, but in Chiron’s unfortunate case, something that became
an unbearable curse. Chiron was accidentally wounded by one of Hercules’ poisoned-tipped
arrows, arrows that the hero coated in the venom of the Lernaean Hydra after he defeated it.
The poison was of incredible potency, even the most superficial wound inflicting agony before
quickly killing, so Chiron was racked by it, his whole body torn by the most excruciating pain;
but because he was immortal, his life would not end, no matter how desperately his body and mind
begged for it. Of his ultimate end, there are many tellings: In one, Zeus takes pity on him and,
with his godly powers, helps Chiron transcend his own flesh by setting him in the sky
as a constellation; in another, he and Prometheus swap destinies, exchanging essences, if you will,
with Chiron becoming mortal, thus, able to die, and Prometheus becoming immortal.
And that’s it for this video! If you enjoy the content please
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