Hesiod's Theogony is certainly the authoritative source for the Greek creation story today even though it wasn't necessarily in his time. I think it is important to remember that Greek culture in ancient times was highly patriarchal and remains so to a certain extent today. Women in Greek society were regarded as possessions and would pass from father to husband along with a substantial dowry. Women were often not allowed outside of the home except on holidays or perhaps to go to market. The woman's life was very restricted and the husband or father had complete control over their life or death. It is no wonder that we see these values reflected in the stories of Greek authors.
Like all creation myths Theogony charts the creation of order from chaos and the voyage from preconsciousness to life and consciousness. Often in creation stories we will see two things happening at the same time which share an inverse relationship to each other. The first thing we may see is the ordering and structuring of the world and/or universe out of a primordial chaos. The primeval darkness and chaos is symbolic of the womb from which we are all born and the darkness to which we return. Therefore the world is often associated with the mother or goddess. She contains the potential for all things and from her all things come and return. She is the womb and the tomb.
As the world becomes more ordered often humanity moves further from the source of creation and is alienated from the divine. This will make more sense when we read "Works and Days" and "Prometheus Bound". There may be a brief “Golden Age” in these stories but they eventually end in darkness. In most creation stories there is inevitably a fall from grace, a first death and birth and the beginning of "time".
The source of all creation is eternal. Eternity is a place without time and where there is unity of all things. Therefore as we have seen with Hesiod and will see with other myths; as the forms of creation drop out of eternity they split into opposites and we see the first sexual procreation and the beginning of time. This is a common theme among all creation stories and we will see the sex and death are the correlates of temporality. That is to say that a function of life in time is the need to procreate and die. Since we are no longer eternal with the Gods we must become temporary. The Greeks get started very early with this and we see Ouranos and Gaia creating children and just as quickly it seems there is a castration and release of the procreative powers of the God.
Later we see Kronos attempting to maintain control as well by eating his children in an effort to maintain his dominance and ensure that he is not supplanted. Eventually he is outwitted by Zeus with the help of his mother and the world comes to order once again under a new ruler. Zeus's control of the universe is supreme and although he is often challenged by his first wife Hera we are assured that his reign will be forever.
I'm going to skip the short blurb about Prometheus as we will spend some time on this later in the week. I'll also come back to the story of Pandora as well when we read Works and Days.
