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Greek Creation Myth

Creation myths are stories of how the world was created and when and how people began to inhabit it. These stories differ across religions and cultures. Read ahead.
Manali Oak
The Greek creation myth describes what Greeks believe was the reason for the universe to be born. Its how they interpret the world's creation. The story begins in darkness.
All was dark and empty before the world was created. The only being that existed was a bird called Nyx, a female bird with black wings. She laid a golden egg and sat on it for years.
Life began to evolve in the egg and out came Eros. Eros was the God symbolizing love. He was also known as the Protagonas. It is also said that Eurynome, the goddess of everything wanted to make order out of the chaos.
By coupling with the snake Ophion, she gave birth to Eros. Some believe that she coupled with the North wind and Eros was born. It is said that Eurynome separated the sky from the earth and created Nymphs, Furies, and Charites, as also innumerable beasts and monsters.
Eros began to call the sky Uranus and he called the Earth, Gaia. Uranus and Gaia fell in love with each other. Children born to them were called Titans. Their children were giants. They grew old and became grandparents.
One of their sons Cronus swallowed his children. Cronus' wife Rhea protected the youngest child. He was Zeus. She raised Zeus in a place far away. He returned home when he was a man and stood against his cruel father. He wanted his siblings back.
Zeus' wife tricked Cronus to consume an emetic. Cronus vomited the children he had gulped. All of them, under the leadership of Zeus, battled against their father Cronus. They emerged victorious.
Zeus created life on Earth with the help of his brothers and sisters. He became the king but ill-treated his subjects. He turned a deaf ear to their complaints. He hated anything that was not beautiful.
Prometheus and Epimetheus were Zeus' sons. Many myths say that Prometheus combined the aspects of various creatures and molded them to form a new race of the common man. Later, he gave mankind the gift of fire by stealing it from the Gods. He trained man to live.
Angry about this act of Prometheus, Zeus commanded that his son Prometheus be chained to a mountain and arranged for a huge bird to injure him everyday. He sent Hephaestus to torture Prometheus.
Later, a beautiful woman came into being. She was named as Pandora. She became Epimetheus' wife. All the Gods gifted Pandora. Zeus presented her a box, which he ordered to never be opened. But curiosity killed the cat. She could not resist opening the box and out fell all the evils.
Epimetheus rushed to shut the box but by then all the evils had fallen out. They still plague the human race. That night they heard a voice saying, "Let me out, I am hope". Some say that the only gift to stay in the box was hope while others believe it was released.
The world's conception began with the creation of the God of love. In the end of the creation process, life was cursed with pain, sorrow, greed, and other sins. There was one thing on which life thrived and still does-hope.