Danaë (Greek)

Danaë

Alternatvie Names:
Danaë, Δανάη

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In Greek mythology, Danaë (Ancient Greek: Δανάη, English translation: "parched") was a daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and Eurydice (no relation to Orpheus' Eurydice). She was the mother of Perseus by Zeus. She was sometimes credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium.

Disappointed by his lack of male heirs, Acrisius asked an oracle if this would change. The oracle told him to go to the Earth's end where he would be killed by his daughter's son. She was childless and, meaning to keep her so, he shut her up in a bronze tower or cave. But Zeus came to her in the form of golden rain, and impregnated her. Soon after, their child Perseus was born.

None too happy, but unwilling to provoke the wrath of the gods by killing his offspring, Acrisius cast the two into the sea in a wooden chest. The sea was calmed by Poseidon at the request of Zeus and the pair survived. They washed ashore on the island of Seriphos, where they were taken in by Dictys - the brother of King Polydectes - who raised the boy to manhood.

Later, after Perseus killed Medusa and rescued Andromeda, the oracle's prophecy came true.

He started for Argos, but learning of the prophecy instead went to Larissa, where athletic games were being held. By chance, an aging Acrisius was there and Perseus accidentally struck him on the head with his javelin (or discus), fulfilling the prophecy. Too shamed to return to Argos he then gave the kingdom to Megapenthes, son of Proetus (Acrisius' brother) and took over his kingdom of Tiryns, also founding Mycenae and Midea there.

Another version states that, angry that his grandfather tried to kill him and his mother, Perseus returned home and challenged Acrisius in his court. He took out Medusa's head from a sack and turned Acrisius and his court to stone.

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Danae by Titian

Danae by Rembrandt

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana%C3%AB
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Danae

Amazons (Ἀμαζόνες)

Amazons

Alternative Names (異名):
Amazons, Ἀμαζόνες, Amazónes

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The Amazons (Greek: Ἀμαζόνες, Amazónes, singular Ἀμαζών, Amazōn) are a nation of all-female warriors in Classical and Greek mythology. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia (modern territory of Ukraine). Other historiographers place them in Asia Minor or Libya.

Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea, who participated in the Trojan War, and her sister Hippolyta, whose magical girdle was the object of one of the labours of Hercules. Amazonian raiders were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art.

The Amazons become associated with various historical peoples throughout the Roman Empire period and Late Antiquity. In Roman historiography, there are various accounts of Amazon raids in Asia Minor. From the Early Modern period, their name has become a term for woman warriors in general.

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Worrior | Amazons |

Ariadne (Greek)

Ariadne

Alternative Names (異名):
Ariadne

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Ariadne, in Greek mythology, was daughter of King Minos of Crete and his queen, Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios, the Sun-titan. She aided Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur and later became the consort of the god, Dionysus.

Andromeda (Greek)

Andromeda

Alternative Names (異名):
Andromeda, Ανδρομέδη, Andromedē, 안드로메다

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Andromeda was a woman from Greek mythology who was chained to a rock to be a sacrifice to a sea monster as divine punishment for her mother's bragging. She was saved from death by Perseus, her future husband. Her name is the Latinized form of the Greek Ανδρομέδη (Andromedē). The etymology of the name is "to think of a man," from ανδρος (andros) "man" combined with μηδομαι (mēdomai) "to think, to be mindful of."

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Myth

In Greek mythology, Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, king and queen of the Phoenician kingdom Ethiopia.

Her mother Cassiopeia bragged that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, the nymph-daughters of the sea god Nereus and often seen accompanying Poseidon. To punish the Queen for her arrogance, Poseidon, brother to Zeus and God of the Sea, sent a sea monster, Cetus, to ravage the coast of Ethiopia and the kingdom of the vain Queen. The desperate King consulted the Ammon, the Oracle of Zeus, who announced that no respite would be found until the king sacrificed his virgin daughter Andromeda to the monster. She was duly chained to a rock on the coast.

Perseus, returning from having slain the Gorgon Medusa, found Andromeda and slew the monster Cetus. He set her free, and married her in spite of Andromeda having been previously promised to Phineus. At the wedding a quarrel took place between the rivals, and Phineus was turned to stone by the sight of the Gorgon's head (Ovid, Metamorphoses v. 1).

Andromeda followed her husband to Tiryns in Argos, and together they became the ancestors of the family of the Perseidae through the line of their son Perses. Perseus and Andromeda had six sons Perseides, Perses, Alcaeus, Heleus, Mestor, Sthenelus, and Electryon, and one daughter, Gorgophone. Their descendants ruled Mycenae from Electryon down to Eurystheus, after whom Atreus attained the kingdom, and would also include the great hero Heracles. According to this mythology, Perses is the ancestor of the Persians.

After her death she was placed by Athena amongst the constellations in the northern sky, near Perseus and Cassiopeia. Sophocles and Euripides (and in more modern times Corneille) made the story the subject of tragedies. The tale is represented in numerous ancient works of art.

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Constellations

Andromeda is represented in the northern sky by the constellation Andromeda which contains the Andromeda Galaxy.

Four constellations are associated with the myth. Viewing the fainter stars, visible to the naked eye, the constellations are rendered as:

A large man wearing a crown, upside down with respect to the ecliptic. (The constellation Cepheus)
A smaller figure, next to the man, sitting on a chair. As it is near the pole star, it can be seen the whole year, although sometimes upside down. (The constellation Cassiopeia)
A maiden, chained up, facing/turning away from the ecliptic. (The constellation Andromeda), next to Pegasus.

A sea monster just under the ecliptic. (The constellation Cetus)

The king of Ethiopia Cepheus and the Cassiopeia queen thank Perseus for freeing their daughter Andromeda, La Délivrance d'Andromède (1679) Pierre Mignard, Louvre.Other constellations related to the story are:

Perseus
The constellation Pegasus, who was born from the stump of Medusa's neck, after Perseus had decapitated her.

The constellation Pisces, which may have been treated as two fish caught by Dictys the fisherman who was brother of Polydectes king of Seriphos where Perseus and his mother Danaë were stranded.

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Reference

Apollodorus, Bibliotheke II, iv, 3-5.
Ovid, Metamorphoses IV, 668-764.
Edith Hamilton, Mythology, Part Three, 204-207.

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Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Mythology

Atlas

Atlas

Atlas was the son of Iapetus. Unlike his brothers Prometheus and Epimetheus, Atlas fought with the other Titans supporting Cronus against Zeus. Due to Cronus's advance age Atlas lead the Titan's in battle. As a result he was singled out by Zeus for a special punishment and made to hold up the world on his back.

Persephone (Greek)

Persephone

Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. After her abduction by Hades she became his wife and Queen of the underworld.

Iris (Greek)

Iris

In Greek mythology, Iris (Ἴρις) is the personification of the rainbow and Hera's personal messenger. As the sun unites Earth and heaven, Iris links the gods to humanity. She travels with the speed of wind from one end of the world to the other, and into the depths of the sea and the underworld.

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In myths

According to Hesiod's Theogony, Iris is the daughter of Thaumas and the air nymph Electra. Her sisters are the Harpies, Aello, Celaeno and Ocypetes.

Iris is frequently mentioned as a divine messenger in the Iliad which is attributed to Homer, but does not appear in his Odyssey, where Hermes fills that role. Like Hermes, Iris carries a caduceus or winged staff. By command of Zeus, the king of the gods, she carries a ewer of water from the Styx, with which she puts to sleep all who perjure themselves. Goddess of sea and sky, she is also represented as supplying the clouds with the water needed to deluge the world, consistent with her identification with the rainbow.

According to Apollonius Rhodius, Iris turned back the Argonauts Zetes and Calais who had pursued the Harpies (her sister-beings) to the Strophades ('Islands of Turning'). (This eventful 'turning' may have resulted in the islands' name.) The brothers had driven off the monsters from their torment of the prophet Phineas, but did not kill them upon the request of Iris, who promised that Phineas would not be bothered by the Harpies again.

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Iris is married to Zephyrus, who is the god of the west wind. Their son is Pothos (Nonnus, Dionysiaca). According to the Dionysiaca of Nonnos, Iris' brother is Hydaspes (book XXVI, lines 355-365).

In Euripides' play Heracles, Iris appears alongside Madness, cursing Heracles with the fit of madness in which he kills his three sons and his wife Megara.

In some records she is a sororal twin to the Titaness Arkhe (arch), who flew out of the company of Olympian gods to join the Titans as their messenger goddess during the Titanomachy, making the two sisters enemy messenger goddesses. Iris was said to have golden wings, whereas Arkhe had iridescent ones. She is also said to travel on the rainbow while carrying messages from the gods to mortals. During the Titan War, Zeus tore Arkhe's iridescent wings from her and gave them as a gift to the Nereid Thetis at her wedding, who in turn gave them to her son, Achilles, who wore them on his feet. Achilles was sometimes known as podarkhes, or "wing-footed with Arkhe's wings". Not much is written about Iris' twin sister.

Epithets

Iris had numerous poetic titles and epithets, including Chrysopteron (Golden Winged), Podas ôkea (swift footed) or Podênemos ôkea (wind-swift footed), and Thaumantias or Thaumantos (Daughter of Thaumas, Wondrous One). Under the epithet Aellopus (Αελλόπους) she was described as swift-footed like a storm-wind. She also watered the clouds with her pitcher, obtaining the water from the sea.

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Representation

Iris is represented either as a rainbow, or as a young maiden with wings on her shoulders. As a goddess, Iris is associated with communication, messages, the rainbow and new endeavors. She is the goddess of the rainbow.

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Deities in the Iliad | Greek goddesses | Messenger goddesses | Greek mythology

Io (Greek)

Io

In Greek mythology, Io (pronounced /ˈaɪ.oʊ/ or /ˈiː.oʊ/, in Ancient Greek Ἰώ [iːɔ́ː]) was a priestess of Hera era in Argos, a nymph who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. Her mistress Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him. Heifer Io was loosed to roam the world, stung by a maddening gadfly sent by Hera, and wandered to Egypt, thus placing her descendant Belus in Egypt; his sons Cadmus and Danaus would thus "return" to mainland Greece.

Io's father is generally given as Inachus, a river god credited with inaugurating the worship of Hera in the countryside round Argos, thus establishing her as an autochthonous spirit of the Argolid and thus by her nature the nymph of a spring, a naiad.

The myth is told most anecdotally by Ovid, in Metamorphoses. According to Ovid, one day, Zeus noticed the maiden and lusted after her. As Io tells her own story in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, she rejected his whispered nighttime advances until the oracles caused her own father to drive her out into the fields of Lerna. There, Zeus covered her with clouds to hide her from the eyes of his jealous wife, Hera, who nonetheless came to investigate. In a vain attempt to hide his crimes, Zeus turned himself into a white cloud and transformed Io into a beautiful white heifer. Hera was not fooled. She demanded the heifer as a present.

Hera tethered Io to the olive-tree in the temenos of her cult-site, the Heraion, and placed her in the charge of many-eyed Argus Panoptes to keep her separated from Zeus. Zeus commanded Hermes to kill Argus; Ovid added the detail that he lulled all hundred eyes to sleep. Hera then forced Io to wander the earth without rest, plagued by a gadfly (Οίστρος or oestrus: see etymology of "estrus" ) to sting her into madness. Io eventually crossed the path between the Propontis and the Black Sea, which thus acquired the name Bosporus (meaning ox passage), where she met Prometheus.

Prometheus had been chained on Mt. Caucasus by Zeus for teaching Man how to make fire and tricking him into accepting the worse part of a sacrifice while the mortals kept the better part (meat); every day, a giant eagle fed on Prometheus' liver. Despite his agony, he comforted Io with the information that she would be restored to human form and become the ancestress of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles. Io escaped across the Ionian Sea to Egypt, where she was restored to human form by Zeus. There, she gave birth to Zeus's son Epaphus, and a daughter as well, Keroessa. She later married Egyptian king Telegonus. Their grandson, Danaos, eventually returned to Greece with his fifty daughters (the Danaids), as recalled in Aeschylus' play The Suppliants.

The myth of Io must have been well-known to Homer, who often calls Hermes Hermes Argeiphontes, "Hermes Argus-slayer." Walter Burkert notes that the story of Io was told in the ancient epic tradition at least four times of which we have traces: in the Danais, in the Phoronis— Phoroneus founded the cult of Hera, according to Hyginus' Fabulae 274 and 143— in a fragment of the Hesiodic Aigimios, as well as in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus fragment supplementing the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. A mourning commemoration of Io was observed at the Heraion of Argos into classical times.

The mythic events concerning Io were transplanted, no doubt by colonists from Argos, to various far-flung sites in the Hellenic world.

The ancients connected Io with the Moon, and in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, where Io encounters Prometheus, she refers to herself as "the horned virgin", both bovine and lunar.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(mythology)

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Egypt in Greek mythology | Metamorphoses in Greek mythology | Mortal parents of demigods in Classical mythology | Greek mythological priestesses | Mortal women of Zeus