Zeus’ thunderbolt scorches all the monster’s heads on every side. Lashed by
Zeus’ blows, Typhoeus collapses crippled on a remote mountain, flames
shooting from his body and burning the earth. Finally he is flung into Tarta-
rus. It is remarkable to what extent his afflictions match those of Vr
̇
tra, whose
head is broken, who is scorched and burnt about, lies broken on a mountain,
and is hidden away in the darkness.
Hesiod then makes it clearer that Typhoeus is a figure of meteorological
significance by explaining that he is the source of wild, squally winds (869–
80). In a simile in the Iliad (2. 780–3) Zeus’ ‘lashing’ of Typhoeus appears as
something that still happens from time to time.
There is another famous encounter in which an Olympian god slays a
dragon. Apollo kills the Python at Delphi. At first sight this does not seem to
have much in common with the myths we have been comparing. Python is
just a pestilential serpent dealing death to people and animals in the area.
Apollo is no storm-god, and he kills the monster with arrows, not thunder-
bolts. But it is curious that in the Hymn to Apollo the creature is associated
with a spring at Delphi (300), and that immediately after killing it Apollo goes
back to the other spring where he had thought of establishing his shrine,
Telphousa, and covers it over with rocks (375–83). The association of these
motifs, blocking the flow of waters and killing the dragon, may be the frag-
mented relic of a myth similar to that of Indra and Vr
̇
tra.^66
Among Typhaon’s offspring Hesiod numbers the Lernaean Hydra that
Heracles slew with the help of Iolaos. Her name marks her as a water creature.
According to other literary accounts and artistic evidence, she was a serpent
with a huge body, many heads, and poisonous breath. There is no agreement
in the sources on the weapon that Heracles used against her, whether it was
a sword, a sickle, a club, a bow, or stones. But from the second half of the sixth
century it is a feature of the story that the clubbed or severed heads had to
be cauterized with fire to prevent their regrowth. Some say that one of the
creature’s heads was indestructible; Heracles cut it off and buried it under a
heavy rock (Apollod. 2. 5. 2. 5).
In antiquity the Hydra’s heads were interpreted as prolific water springs
that kept bursting out and flooding the countryside; if one was blocked,
others appeared, until Heracles burned the region and shut off the flow
(Serv. Aen. 6. 287, sch. Stat. Theb. 1. 384). This is the converse of Indra’s
achievement in releasing the pent-up waters by his killing of Vr
̇
tra. But
there are enough common motifs –– the great serpent occupying a watery
site, the smashing and scorching of heads, the covering with rock –– to suggest
(^66) Cf. Durante (1976), 47 n. 4.
258 6. Storm and Stream