Typhoeus or Cosmic Regression (Theogony821 – 880)

Abstract

The Typhonomachy (Theogony 821 – 880) has long been deemed an anomalous and inorganic intrusion into the Hesiodic text. The main reason for such a judgment is that the Typhoeus episode is an unnecessary and redundant doublet of the Titanomachy that precedes. In addition, Gaia’s role in giving birth to the monster seems to contradict her benign role both before (624 – 628) and after the Typhoeus episode (883 – 885). Looking afresh at the passage through the wider lens of the cosmogonic program of the Theogony allows us to grasp its function within the overall economy of the poem. Typhoeus, offspring of Gaia and Tartarus, takes us back to the very origins of cosmogony. The Typhonomachy brings us to a critical temporal crossroad where a recrudescence of the primeval irrupts into and threatens the evolved universe. If at issue in the Titanomachy was the kingship in Heaven, at stake in the Typhonomachy is the very existence of the cosmos itself.