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#hesiod
My Greek mythology professor was talking about how yes, giving offerings and sacrifices is worship to the gods, but reading Hesiods poetry was a way to worship and connect to them as well.
So even if you can’t give physical offerings you can at least read about the gods as a way of worship
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lionofchaeronea · 7 months
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Hesiod and the Muse, Gustave Moreau, 1891
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nightmarebrigade · 5 months
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Things my classics professor has said about the Greek gods:
- Let’s just say Hera was not a girls girl
- Just because you’re faced with a minor inconvenience doesn’t mean you should swallow your wife (Zeus)
- Was Athena the original pick me girl? I’ll leave that up to you
- Now I’m not saying you should all go castrate your husbands, but we don’t judge Gaia okay?
- Leave him (Hermes) alone he’s just trying to play his lyre and steal some cows
- Athena is who Ares thinks he is
- Okay maybe sending the entire world into a famine was a lot, but also consider that maybe Zeus needed to fuck around and find out (about Demeter)
- Apollo is condoning murder six ways from Sunday
- It’s not Apollo’s fault that his sister is cooler
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divinationdrawings · 17 days
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"Fair wreathed Kytherea"
-Hesiod's Theogony, Gany translation
Aphrodite of the golden crown
The lustrous hand mirror
Seafoam from the cosmos rains down
The mist grows clearer
Kytherea blew in
From warm Cyprus winds
Enchanting the Seamen and Seafarers
I hope you enjoyed today's tale of legend and lore, come back next week and there will be even more
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depressed-linguist · 8 months
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‘three fair-cheeked Kharites…from whose eyes as they glanced flowed love that unnerves the limbs’
- hesiod, theogony
The Three Graces - detail from La Primavera, Sandro Botticelli (Uffizi Gallery, Firenze)
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mask131 · 3 months
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I have a question about Zeus and Kronos. SEVERAL actually. Their relationship gets more confusing the far you dig into it.
How did the ancient Greeks see their relationship? How did they see the whole conflict between the Gods and the Titans?
In modern works, Kronos and the Titans are almost always portrayed as evil, monstrous tyrants, and Zeus and the Olympians as the young heroes that bring them down.
However, in Greek Mythology, Kronos' reign was the Golden Age, an utopic and paradisiac time of peace, happiness and prosperity, and Zeus is the main responsible for bringing pain, disease, and death to humankind through Pandora.
And to make matters more confusing, patricide was a huge sin in ancient Greek culture.
Was Zeus and Kronos' story a heroic tale of order overcoming chaos, or a tragic "Paradise Lost" type of scenario? Is Zeus a hero for deposing his father, or fallen hero that only escaped divine retribution because he himself is a god? Who was in the right in the conflict between Olympians and Titans? How am I supposed to interpret Hesiod's Theogony?
This is a very complex question that opens the door to many, many possibilities. But long story short: in the Olympians vs Titans conflict, the Titans were definitively in the wrong, and yes we are supposed to root for the Olympians.
Remember, the Olympians are supposed to be the "big goods" of Greek mythology - or at least, mostly positive figures. The enemies of the Olympians are by extension our enemies because the Olympians represent order and civilization. The Gigantomachy is the best representation of that, as the Giants were literaly designed to kill and destroy and nothing else. Same thing with Typhon, chaos and terror embodied.
Now what was the problem with the Titans? Long story short, many things. But what we have to understand is that the Titans are being supposed to represent... yes chaos in a way, but also a more brutal, primitive form of the universe. Yes the Titans are gods like the Olympians - but they are not the same kind of gods. Older, rougher. For example take the Olympians - they are kings and queens over the principles they control. Poseidon rules over the sea but is not the sea ; Zeus' decisions control the weather but he is not the weather. When we go by the Titans, however, we have beings such as Helios who was the literal sun or Oceanos who was the literal ocean. The Titans reflect the primal forces of nature, the rough and brutal, less humanized elements, more personifications and embodiments than deities as we understand them today. So what was the object and purpose of the Titanomachy? The "taming" and ordering of the world. Some Titans sided with the Olympians, and thus became more human and more "ordered" and found a place for themselves within an organized world. Themis for example, who as the embodiment of the Law and of Justice, would of course choose the Olympians' side. Also note that, outside of Themis, none of the Titans reflected any concept or principle part of a civilization. The Titans were violence (Iapetos whose name means "piercer", and Kronos who castrated his own father), the Titans were animals (many are the titans with strong animal motifs), the Titans were the sea and the moon and the sun and the light and the earth... They were literaly born out of the sky and earth. But what came with the Olympians? When Zeus got onto the throne, he started creating new gods through his many marriages and alliances: he brought forth Apollo of the art, Athena of wisdom and peace, Artemis of the hunt of the wild, Hermes of all the sciences, and the Horai, and the Muses, and sometimes even the Moirai themselves. Zeus organized the world and brought many of the concepts we cherish so much today.
Not only was the problem with the Titans that they were primordial and brutal forces of nature, but the problem with the specific Titans that went at war against the gods is that they literaly refused to let fate be and time pass. Kronos' flaw and fault is the most common of all mythology: fighting an oracle, trying to destroy a prediction, trying to avoid his fate. He was foretold he would be overthrown by his son. Not destroyed, not mutilated, certainly not killed (because gods cannot die, they are immortal), but just overthrown. And he refused this. He refused to have his throne taken away from him - he refused to let generations change, to let youth come. He had obtained his throne for right reasons (he punished the sins of his father) and yet through bad means (mutilating his own father). As such he got the throne but was fated to let it go, and know a "lesser" version of what he had inflicted upon his father. But he refused this.
Not only that, but he actually ended up repeating the mistakes and crimes of his father Ouranos. By not just bringing a stasis, but by literaly causing a regression. Imprisoning back the Cyclops and Hekatoncheires he had set free ; and then swallowing back into his belly the children he brought forth, literaly reversing the natural cycle of time. So Zeus' war against Cronos was justified to allow the world to continue its own maturation, and evolve further. And from a world of brutality, barbary and regression, we reached an age of order and civilization.
Now let's take the second side of the problem - the whole "Ages of Mankind".
It should be recalled that the Ages of Mankind story comes from Hesiod's "Of Works and Days", not from his "Theogony". And "Of Works and Days" is not supposed to just be a cosmogony like the Theogony, but rather a didactic work. It isn't about mythology per se, as the true topic of the work is agriculture, and all sorts of advices on how to take care of your field, woven with philosophical and moralist lessons about the importance of hard work. The mythological story woven in the work is meant to be an illustration of why humanity has to work, and is tied to all sorts of socio-philosophico messages, making it closer to a fable in many ways. It should also be taken into account that the "Ages of Man" story is tied in "Of Works and Days" to the legend of Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora. A legend also told in "Theogony"... but with slightly different details. For example, in the Theogony the story is very misogynistic as the curse of Zeus is... literaly women. As in, women are evil, and that's it. The version of "Of Works and Days", slightly less misogynistic, is the one with the famous Pandora jar later turn Pandora 's box, and there the evil is contained within the jar and is all a convoluted plan to force the "clan" of Prometheus to end up cursing the humanity they favored. Hesiod was never afraid of contradicting himself - even within the Theogony you have opposite stories, such as how in one part the Moirai are aughters of Zeus and Themis, in another daughters of Nyx that predated Zeus.
Anyway, all of that being said, I want to point out something important: in the Ages of Man storyline by Hesiod, Zeus is not supposed to be the one that caused the misery of mankind. At least not directly. It is true that the Golden Age and the first humanity is said to have existed/been formed under the rule of Cronos, while the Silver Age, which was a downgrade, occured when Zeus arrived on the throne. But the text does not say that Zeus was the one who caused the downgrade of humanity. There is definitively a change, an evolution, but it doesn't mean it is Zeus that "corrupted" humanity. In fact, the text does say that Zeus kept around the first humanity as powerful spirits to help, guide and enrich the following humanity. And Zeus' "rule" is not all bad, as there is a mention of one of the humanities brought forth under him being the Heroic Age, which is considered one of the best humanities after the Golden Age. The legend isn't actually about Zeus "ruining" humanity in any way, as the message Hesiod tries to give here is rather that humanity is living through a sort of natural decline... Yes, Hesiod was quite pessimistic, and honestly you can hear a bit of the old as time rant "Young people are doing everything bad, the world is getting worst and worst, wasn't it better before?". You can literaly hear Hesiod doing his youth-hating-grandpa-rant through his tale.
Afterward, we have to consider the whole Prometheus-Pandora-Zeus triangle... And this is where things get tricky and dual. Now I can't possibly embrace the full scope of the implications of the Prometheus legend. There is a reason he is such an inspiring and powerful figure even today - and Prometheus is one of the most complicated entities of all of Greek mythology. But here is the thing I wanted to say... Yes Hesiod does say and explain that Zeus created all sorts of evil he inflicted upon humanity because he was unhappy with being deceived by Prometheus. In "Of Works and Days" it is an especially strong point because the entire text is about explaining why humanity has to work so hard, and why labor is needed by humanity, and why if we have benevolent deities we must still be burdened by chores and toil. And in general this is an answer to the very same problem that the Genesis of the Bible poses: Why would a benevolent god inflict us a life of suffering? Why do we have to work to eat and why isn't the superior power providing us, if they love us so much?
In the Biblical text, this is explained by the original sin, and by all this being a punishment for humanity's original flaw. But in the Greek texts we have something very different - as it is inflicted... to punish Prometheus? That's what Hesiod's text tells us and/or implies, by making the equation "Zeus got tricked by Prometheus, he got mad, and as a result he unleashed evils on humanity". This is what led to so many readings of Zeus as some sort of petty tyrant who wounded humanity to just get back at Prometheus. And this is partially true in Hesiod's myth... But not the whole truth. Because Hesiod insists on a very important fact: he stands as both a human speaking to other humans, and thus he cries over the misfortune of humanity and our suffering, and he explains it comes from Zeus and thus it is why it is unescapable... But he also stands as a devout Greek, as a herald of the gods' words, as someone inspired by the Muse - meaning he also has to point out that Zeus was in the right. This is why, when you compile the dual legends in "The Theogony" and "Of Works and Days", you get a very ambiguous Prometheus, more of a anti-villain by Ancient Greeks standards.
For example, the idea that Zeus got mad upon discovering he had been cheated by Prometheus is a misconception when it comes to the Hesiodic text. When you read Hesiod's text in the Theogony, what does it say? It says that Zeus was not fooled by Prometheus' trick, during the partition of the cow (when it was time to decide which part of food ent to the gods, which part went to humanity). No, Zeus, as king of the gods and superior god, is all-knowing and all-seeing, and the text does say he did knew of Prometheus' trick as soon as he laid eyes on the divided cow. He did play along with Prometheus' trick, but he got massively angry - not at being cheated, no... he got angry at the idea that Prometheus had rigged the game, and had tried to deceive him. See this as some sort of betrayal - he entrusted Prometheus with doing a fair share, and he discovers the Titan had rigged the game. Similarly, when Prometheus stole the fire, Zeus got angry because it was a theft - a theft opposing his law and decisions, an act of rebellion against his position as a king - and yes he would dislike humanity, because now they literaly had a stolen good that they were not supposed to have. Remember that Zeus is a god of justice whose deal was punishing criminals and enacting the law - so of course, a cheater, a scammer and thief like Prometheus would displease him, especially when he is not just a rebel that opposes Zeus' very rule... but also who threatens the cosmic order.
I said it before - in Ancient Greece everything was about balance ad harmony. Humanity had to be "balanced". And the actions of Prometheus literaly placed humanity out of balance. When the partiton of food came, Prometheus rigged the game so that humanity would have the best part. As a result, Zeus had to inflict an "handicap", a "flaw" to humanity so that they wouldn't be too overpowered. This was the removal of the fire. But then Prometheus stole the fire back, making humanity over-powered again. And so Zeus decided to bring the ultimate "handicap", the ultimate "flaw", the ultimate "evil" that would never go away... Because that's another thing with this legend. Zeus never takes away what had been given by the gods. When the partition of food was done, Zeus did not fight it. Zeus removed the fire yes, but when Prometheus gave it back, he did not remove it again. Once something is gifted, it cannot just be snatched back - again, Zeus respects the laws, the promises, the customs. A choice is a choice, a gift is a gift. Which is why, to weaken humanity, Zeus had to GIVE something instead of remove it. And this gift was A) in Theogony, Pandora. Because the Theogony's misogynistic take on the Pandora myth is that SHE was evil because women are by nature evil and ruin humanity. B) in Of Works and Days, the gift of the jar containing all the evils and misfortunes. Which, as I said, was a clever plan to have Prometheus' own family balance his over-powering of humanity by having THEM bring upon humanity something bad. As a way to even things out. When Hesiod evokes the person that brought misfortune upon humanity, when he describes the source of all the evils mankind has to suffer through, he doesn't speak of Zeus... He speaks of Epimetheus. Or of Pandora. But not Zeus. Zeus isn't the "culprit" in Hesiod's texts - rather it is either Pandora (for, misogynistic time, women are inherently curious and curiosity - and women in general - is evil), or Epimetheus (for being a dummy who gets seduced by pretty appearances, doesn't think of anything before acting, accepts any shining gift and is too naive for his own good, trusting both his enemies and the people he doesn't know). Oh yes, the human in Hesiod will cry and lament that Zeus is persecuting humanity... But he will make it clear it was the fault of Prometheus and Epimetheus (Pandora doesn't get much of the "culprit" treatment" because she is either seen as A, the evil Epimetheus brought into the world, B, just a tool and extension of Zeus' own will, and so not an actual "culprit").
The final piece of the puzzle that allows us to understand a bit more the tale of Hesiod is that we have to recall what was the worst crime ever in Ancient Greece. Hubris: for humanity to believe itself equal or above the gods. This was the manifestation of the Greeks' immense fear of unbalance and disharmony, when the low humans tried and believed themselves to be above their natural condition, about to rival with the immortals who were perfect in body and mind (well... absolutely perfect in the religion, much more flawed in the myths and literary works). And all the actions of Prometheus worked on bringing forward humanity close to hubris. By giving them a food better than the gods', by leaving them the full mastery of fire - especially since at the time it was the early humanity, the "golden age", those long-lived, happy, careless, ageless humans that were basically Tolkien's elves - Prometheus was literaly building rivals for the gods. Remember that what Prometheus did was seen as an act of rebellion and disobediance towards Zeus' order, ruling and position... Betrayal of his king, so to speak. Zeus had to inflict on humanity something so that they wouldn't get too overpowered or too similar to gods - he had to inflict on them something that would remind them that they were mortals, not gods, and that the world did not belong to them.
And THIS is where the "Silver Age" problems come from. As I said before, when Hesiod uses Cronos and Zeus to evoke the Golden and Silver Age, he uses them more as chronological markings than anything. By making the Golden Age Cronus' era, Hesiod places this humanity in the far, far, far away distant past, in a time beyond what is mythical - in a time before the actual organized time of the gods people knew, before what humans understood of humanity. And Hesiod insists in his texts that the ills and the worries brought by either Pandora's presence among humanity (Thegony) or by the jar of Pandora (Of Works and Days) are what caused humanity's downfall as they started aging, and falling sick, and losing their happiness, and living shorter... So long story short, it isn't because Zeus became king of the gods that the Golden Age became the Silver Age. It is rather because of the chain of events started by Prometheus - it is because of all the punishments Zeus had to took against the rebellious and cheating Prometheus that the original humanity became another. So... while yes, Zeus did send the evil, the texts of Hesiod also make it clear it is kind of Prometheus' fault. Hence the anti-villain status: yes he tried to favorite and help humanity, and thus is our hero... But he also tried to destroy the order of the world and is the reason we were cursed in the first place, so he is still a villain. Mind you, in the times after Hesiod the Greeks would come to gain a much more positive view of Prometheus - but I am focusing here only on Hesiod since it is what the question is about.
The best metaphor I would have would be : all those incidents we have today when we favorize and protect one species in an ecosystem because it is "cute"... and by doing so, we ruin the entire ecosystem. This is literaly what Prometheus did, as the trickster-rebel, and what Zeus had to fight as the god of order and balance. (And again, we have an Hesiod that is literaly doing grandpa rants about how the "good ol' times" were better and the "youth today is crap", so of course he would offer us a myth where the established order and ruling monarchy is praised, while the rebellious opposition is demonized... with the nuance that the rebellious opposition protected us humans, and thus we have this very ambiguous territory.) It is no wonder that in modern fiction dealing with Prometheus, a question arises that was first brought forward by commentators of Greek myths: did Prometheus act out of excessive love for humanity, or more to get at Zeus? Both options are possible: in "The God Beneath the Sea" for example Prometheus is this tragic figure of someone who loved too much humanity and tried to protect it at all costs... But in the French novel "Prometheus the revolted" by Janine Teisson, he is more presented as a cunning, exploitative schemer that uses humanity as a tool to discreetly try to get back at Zeus, because while he sided with him, he could never fully accept his new king due to his older Titan alliegeance. Which interpret is correct? We can't tell, because the older record is just very ambiguous...
As a final, final note, we have to bring in more "outside-the-text" context to the whole situation. Because these stories were told within a society that had an established hierarchy, an established religion and established morals differing from our own, hence why we can lack some key information to get the nuance. For example, in "Of Works and Days", Hesiod cries and laments about one of the punishments of Zeus against humanity - hiding the grain of plants below the earth, and forcing humans to work to grow their crops and their food. A punishment which is nuanced when you remember something from Greek religion that the text does not speak about: Zeus was one of the favorite gods of farmers and crop-growers, and seen as their ally, because he was a god of fertility and agriculture. Zeus was the god of weather - but of good, fertile, helpful weather. Zeus sent the fertile rain that made the plants grow and the earth alive ; and he also sent all the sunlight needed for fruits to mature and plants to be healthy. This was in fact part of his dicotomy with Hades - Hades kept the grain under the earth to protect it, and then Zeus helped it grow into a plant above the soil. (And yes, this is tied to the Persephone legend in some ways). When you know that, you realize that Zeus might have cursed humans with having to work hard and search hard for their food... But he also clearly helps them to do so by sending the weather needed for the crop to grow well.
Just like how he is said to destroy the various humanities of the Ages of Man one by one to punish them or due to other incidents... But he then grants them some pretty sweet things. Like how the Golden Age humans became Greek-equivalent of guardian angels, benevolent semi-divine entities, or how the men of the Silver Age were said to be among the "Blessed" in the afterlife, and supposedly to dwell in some sort of paradise...
Of course the issue is infinitely more complex, and there's entire books written about this, so this is just a fragment of synthesis. But to return to the original question... Cronos, and the other Titans, were not at fault for oppressing humanity or being tyrants, no. From what Hesiod gives us to read, the Titans in fact had nothing to do or didn't care about humanity in the first place - since before Zeus' time we have no record of any god mingling with humans. We'd have to wait for the Olympians for humanity to become "interestng" or even "desirable" in the yes of the gods. No, Kronos' true crime was a cosmic one. The Titans had to be overthrown because they refused the natural flow of time and the natural evolution of the world, because they repeated the same oppression they had delivered the world from (Ouranos'), because they had enforced a stagnation and even a regression, perfectly symbolized by the image of the father swallowing the babies as soon as they are out of their mother's belly. The gods do grow - but they grow trapped within their father's stomach in a perverse, reverse pregnancy, and in a mirror of how Ouranos' lust also prevented life from spreading forth into the world. And we'd have to wait for Zeus to force a new "birth", through making his father vomit, for the gods to finally be able to accomplish their purpose in life - change the world and make the universe go forward...
As a final note, and I think this is something Jean-Pierre Vernant said (but a lot of what I said above comes from Jean-Pierre Vernant): Zeus overthrowing Cronos is a symbol of the rule of brute strength and violent tyranny being stopped. How did Cronos reached the throne? By castrating his father. How did he maintain his rule? By imprisoning his siblings and devouring his own children. What happened when he was challenged? A cosmic war. And Cronos ruled alone as sole king over the universe. But when Zeus came into the world... He was first of the gods, yes, but he still shared the world with his brothers, so that there were three "kings of the world". His first instinct was to ave sex once he was king, yes, but he didn't just "have sex". He symbolically or officially married the most important goddesses (Themis, the Law/Justice, Mnemosyne, Memory, Metis, Prudence/Wisdom) to bring forth the embodiments of order and peace: the Horai, the Charites, the Muses, the Moirai, Athena... And, unlike Cronos who had imprisoned his siblings as soon as he was king, Zeus accepted and rewarded his allies among the Titans, making entities such as Themis, Helios or Hecate first-rank deities in the new pantheon. AND, while he did overthrow his father, it was in the result of a long war, without any brutal mutilation, and what he merely did was imprison him - and perhaps even latter forgave him and released him according to some stories. So we are definitively into a much better rule than the predecessor.
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blackswaneuroparedux · 9 months
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Αι μεν ηδοναί θνηταί αι δε αρεταί αθάνατοι.
Periander of Corinth
Pleasures are mortal while the virtues are immortal.*
In Greek mythology, the Three Graces were more commonly known as the Charites, although today, the Roman name, the Graces, is more often used. The Charites, or Graces, were three sisters, minor goddesses, and daughters of Zeus and the Oceanid Eurynome.
Hesiod, in the Theogony, named the Three Graces as, Aglaea, Thalia and Euphrosyne. The role of these goddess in Greek mythology was to spread goodwill, pleasure and mirth; and were also goddesses of song and dance, a role that would overlap with that of the Muses.
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diioonysus · 6 months
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it's so funny when i see people talk about greek mythology, then when someone asks what source, and they say ovid! if i gotta hear that man's name when greek mythology is being referenced, i will scream. MAN IS NOT A GREEK POET! I WILL TAKE HESIOD, SAPPHO, HOMER, ANYONE WHO IS OF ANCIENT GREEK ORIGIN!
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en-theos · 7 months
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ok so something DELICIOUS is going on in theogony 594-602. it's the part of the story where Pandora, the first woman, is introduced and sent to humankind as a plague, and hesiod makes one of his first similes in the text and compares humans to bees, and specifically compares women to drones, who according to him do nothing all day but eat the food the worker bees bring in, alongside making honeycombs.
now here comes the fun part, which the real bee lovers probably caught: drones are classified by us as male bees. it's a faulty classification in general because bee genders are more based on hive function than on reproduction, but it IS true that it's the drones who fertilize the queen. in fact, their main function is reproduction, and they are indeed fed by worker bees.
all of which to say is that hesiod is reversing our conception of bee gender and human gender roles, and he's right on the money that Greek (noble) women are considered nothing but a tool for reproduction one must endure and maintain. and then he blames 'em for it. funny how that works!
anyway cool hesiod your bees look gnc as fuck.
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deathlessathanasia · 3 months
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For how often one hears about Zeus's seven marriages in Hesiod's Theogony, it's worth noting that Hesiod actually only calls two of those seven goddesses wives, probably suggests marriage for a third, but gives not the slightest indication that the other four unions were marriages. Let's take a look at the text.
"Zeus as king of the gods made Metis his first wife (alochos), wisest among gods and mortal men".
"Second he married sleek Themis, who bore the watchers, Lawfulness, Justice, and flourishing Peace … and the Fates, to whom Zeus the resourceful gave the most privilege" The word Hesiod actually uses is "ἠγάγετο" = lead, carry, fetch, bring. So no explicit mention to marriage is made, though it makes sense to interpret it as such, as Zeus leading Themis to Olympos in the way a wife is supposed to be brought home. In the only instance of someone taking a spouse before the regime of Zeus in the Theogony, Perses is said to have brought/led (ἠγάγετ᾽) Asteria "to his great house to be called his dear wife (akoitis)", so the same word used in reference to Zeus and Themis here explicitly refers to marriage earlier in the text.
"Eurynome, a daughter of Oceanus with lovely looks, bore him the three Graces, Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and fair Thalia." No indication of marriage here.
"And he came to the bed of Demeter abundant in nourishment, and she bore the white-armed Persephone." No mention of marriage here either, and possibly meaningful that Zeus is the one who goes to her bed rather than vice versa. Well, not actually meaningful, but it sure doesn't sound like a marital or long-term relationship.
"Again, he took love of Memory with her lovely hair, from whom the Muses with their golden diadems were born, nine of them…" + "[the Muses] were born in Pieria to Memory, queen of the foothills of Eleutherae, in union with the father, the son of Kronos; … Nine nights Zeus the resourceful lay with her, going up to her holy bed far away from the immortals." So Zeus loved (ἐράσσατο) Mnemosyne, and visited her, to her own home and apart from the other gods, for nine nights. No part of this indicates a marriage.
"Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis the archer, lovely children above all the celestials, in shared intimacy with Zeus who bears the aegis." Again, no mention of marriage. Similar language is used to describe Zeus's sexual unions with Semele and Alkmene.
"Last of all he made Hera his fertile wife (akoitis), and she bore Hebe and Ares and Eileithyia, sharing intimacy with the king of gods and men." The language used to describe the sexual union is the same, except that Hera is also made a wife.
Is it possible to interpret all of these unions as marriages? Certainly, but that's just not something Hesiod actually claims. It is just as possible to only consider Metis, Themis and Hera as actual wives, or even just Metis and Hera, though personally I'd consider all three. Notice, too, that only these three have their positions on the list specified and clearly identified: first, second and last.
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death-before-ilion · 2 days
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Fundamental sources
Greek mythology is recorded in numerous texts, covering multiple centuries, locations, traditions and variations. Many of these ancient sources are lost to us, or fragmentary. This leaves us with an incomplete (albeit vast) and oftentimes incoherent collection of written sources on which to base my own work.
The sources which are considered by the ancient Greeks themselves as foundational and central to Greek mythology are essentially : the early Greek epic poets (amongst which is, of course, Homer), Hesiod (author of the famed Theogony, not counted as an epic poet) and the Homeric Hymns (called Homeric because they are written in the same language, style and meter as the Iliad and Odyssey). These texts were written down between the 8th and the 5th centuries BC, and are based on oral material that goes much further back.
Of the early epic poems, only the Iliad and the Odyssey attributed to Homer still survive, considered by the ancient Greeks as the pinnacle of their literature. Of all the other epics, only fragments and (if we're lucky) summaries remain. The Trojan Cycle was made of the following works :
The Cypria, which describes the origin and early years of the Second Trojan War
The Iliad, which tells of the wrath of Achilles and the death of Hector
The Aethiopis, which describes the intervention of Amazons and Ethiopians in the war, and the death of Achilles
The Little Iliad, a dense work that covers events from the funeral of Achilles to the episode of the Trojan horse
The Sack of Troy, which, as its title suggests, tells the events from the Trojan horse to the desctruction of the city and the anger of Athena
The Return from Troy, in which the Greek heroes return home, with tragic developments, such as the murder of Agamemnon and the revenge of Orestes
The Odyssey, tells the return of Ulysses, the longest and most adventurous return of all Greek heroes
The Telegony, that covers further adventures of Ulysses until he is killed by Telegonus, his son by Circe
To this we can add a Theban Cycle (covering the life of Oedipus, both Theban Wars and the revenge of Alcmaeon) and a few additional epics (including a Titanomachy I would have loved to read). Chances are high that there were many more, lost to us even by name.
Hesiod left us three complete works and a number of fragments, the most important of which is the Theogony, which describes how the universe began and the early history of the gods.
Lastly, the Homeric Hymns, of which three may be later additions, are poems or songs that praise the gods, each hymn being dedicated to a specific god.
In the context of my work, these sources will be taken as having the highest authority. Later sources will be accepted if they provide additional material that completes or extends the earlier texts, or if they help resolve an obvious inconsistency or impossibility.
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anistrange · 1 year
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Folks here trying to clean Hades's image of constant demonization because "He's not like that in myth 😭" but when they bump onto the teenager Perseus trying to save his mother suddenly "He's unredeemable because he slew girlboss™ Medusa although he never interacted with her before and by extension he and Andromeda should suffer all the retribution from us 😡"
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lionofchaeronea · 6 months
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For even now, when someone of mortals living on earth Seeks favor, duly performing comely sacrifices, He calls on Hecate; and great honor follows him Quite easily—him, that is, whose prayers the goddess readily Receives; and she grants him wealth, since this power is hers. καὶ γὰρ νῦν, ὅτε πού τις ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων ἔρδων ἱερὰ καλὰ κατὰ νόμον ἱλάσκηται, κικλῄσκει Ἑκάτην. πολλή τέ οἱ ἕσπετο τιμὴ ῥεῖα μάλ᾽, ᾧ πρόφρων γε θεὰ ὑποδέξεται εὐχάς, καί τέ οἱ ὄλβον ὀπάζει, ἐπεὶ δύναμίς γε πάρεστιν.
-Hesiod, Theogony 416-420
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thetudorslovers · 2 months
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Harpies were generally depicted as birds with the heads of maidens, faces pale with hunger and long claws on their hands. The harpies seem originally to have been wind spirits (personifications of the destructive nature of wind). Their name means 'snatchers' or 'swift robbers', and they were said to steal food from their victims while they were eating and carry evildoers (especially those who have killed their families) to the Erinyes. When a person suddenly disappeared from the Earth, it was said that he had been carried off by the harpies.
Pottery art also depicting the harpies featured beautiful women with wings. Ovid described them as human-vultures.
To Hesiod, they were imagined as fair-locked and winged maidens, who flew as fast as the wind:
"[T]he Harpyiai (Harpies) of the lovely hair, Okypete (Ocypete) and Aello, and these two in the speed of their wings keep pace with the blowing winds, or birds in flight, as they soar and swoop, high aloft."
In this form they were agents of punishment who abducted people and tortured them on their way to Tartarus. They were depicted as vicious, cruel, and violent.
The harpies were called "the hounds of mighty Zeus" thus "ministers of the Thunderer (Zeus)". Later writers listed the harpies among the guardians of the underworld among other monstrosities including the Centaurs, Scylla, Briareus, Lernaean Hydra, Chimera, Gorgons and Geryo.While Roman and Byzantine writers detailed their ugliness.
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waiting-eyez · 10 months
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A day is sometimes our mother,
sometimes our stepmother.
(Hesiod)
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irate-iguana · 1 year
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Archaic/Classical Greek Authors and Whether I Could Win Against Them in a Fight (Part 1)
Homer: This one depends on how I interpret the question. Homer as he’s thought of in the classical world? Absolutely I could take on a (probably fictional) old blind poet. Homer as in all the people who likely had a role in constructing The Iliad and The Odyssey? I do not stand a chance against that mob.
Hesiod: Oh yeah no problem. I’ll just, like, flutter my eyelashes or throw a bucket of bath water at him and he’ll run away screaming like the woman-fearer he is.
Sappho: Yes I could win against her in a fight, but why would I want to? I don’t have any beef with Sappho. I’d much rather befriend her.
Herodotus: This one’s going to be close, you guys. On the one hand, as a man in Classical Greece he has military training. On the other hand, I have a more balanced diet and most importantly, rage on my side. I think ultimately, his greater experience in combat will tip the scales.
Thucydides: Fuck no. That man fought a war against Sparta and survived. He caught the Plague of Athens and lived to tell the tale. His Greek sentences alone make me want to die. He would squash me like a bug.
Xenophon: Ah, Xenophon, nobody’s favourite author. Again, he has a ton of military experience. Could kill me easily. What an underwhelming end, to be killed by Xenophon of all people.
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