The Battle of Typhon and Zeus
By Courtney, Zoe, Carson, & Zach
Plot Summary
Typhon wanted to destroy the immortals and take their place. He was so scary that all the immortal gods fled to Egypt. Zeus stayed to fight for his place as king of immortals. Typhon came to fight with Zeus. Zeus did not flee, he stood up on Mount Olympus to fight with his fearful enemy. He hurled a thunderolt at Typhon. Typhon laughed at the thunderbolts and catching the next one Zeus threw he hurled it back, and after that a whole cascade of rocks and mountain tops. Zeus dodged them, and snatched up the great sickle of adamant with which in the beggining of time Cronos had maimed his father the sky. With this weapon, harder and sharper than the sharpest iron he attacked the monster. As Typhon and Zeus wrestled and struggled together, Typhon made one last tremendous effort to take the sickle from Zeus. Then he twined the snaky coils of his body around Zeus and held him prisoner for a moment. With a couple of swift blows, Typhon cut the immortal sinews from Zeus' arms and legs leaving him helpless on Mount Olympus. Typhon also wounded and bleeding from many cuts, crawled into a cave in northern Greece of Thrace and hid the sinews away deep in the cave. Then Zeus remembered prince Cadmus was at this moment wandering among the hills of Thrace in search of his sister, Europa. They disguised Cadmus as as shepard, and Hermes built a little house for him not far from Typhon. Cadmus set the pipes of Pan to his lips once more and played the wild, sweet notes such as come from no other pipes in the world. Typhon gave Cadmus the sinews as long as he promised to play him songs on the pipes. After Cadmus put Typhon to sleep he snuck back to Zeus. Zeus healed himself and flew to the cave where Typhon slept and locked him up on the island of Sicily under the volcano Mount Etna.
Features of Typhon
- Tyhon is immortal
- Typhon, the last of the Titans, was hid by Earth until he grew to his full size and the Earth could hide him no more.
- He was the biggest and most frightful Titan
- He had dragon wings
- He was terrible to look at, for from his shoulders grew a hundered heads, with dark, flickering serpent tongues with flaming eyes
- Each head uttered a voice of its own
- When he walked through the ocean the water came up to his knees
- His hands were so strong he could lift mountains