Hephaestus
Hephaestus is the Greek god of blacksmiths, carpenters, artisans, metallurgy and volcanoes. Hephaestus' Roman equivalent is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera's parthenogenous child, he was cast off Mount Olympus, by his mother because of his deformity or, in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances. As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus, he served as the blacksmith of the gods, was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos. Hephaestus' symbols are a smith's hammer, a pair of tongs. Hephaestus is associated with the Linear B inscription, A-pa-i-ti-jo, found at Knossos; the name of the god in Greek has a root which can be observed in names of places of Pre-Greek origin, like Phaistos. Hephaestus is given many epithets; the meaning of each epithet is: Amphigúeis "the lame one" Kullopodíōn "the halting" Khalkeús "coppersmith" Klutotékhnēs "renowned artificer" Polúmētis "shrewd, crafty" or "of many devices" Aitnaîos "Aetnaean", owing to his workshop being located below Mount Aetna.
Hephaestus had his own palace on Olympus, containing his workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at his bidding. Hephaestus crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the gods, any finely wrought metalwork imbued with powers that appears in Greek myth is said to have been forged by Hephaestus, he designed Hermes' winged helmet and sandals, the Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Agamemnon's staff of office, Achilles' armor, Heracles' bronze clappers, Helios's chariot, the shoulder of Pelops, Eros's bow and arrows. In accounts, Hephaestus worked with the help of the chthonic Cyclopes—among them his assistants in the forge, Brontes and Pyracmon. Hephaestus built automatons of metal to work for him; this included tripods. He gave to the blinded Orion his apprentice Cedalion as a guide. In some versions of the myth, Prometheus stole the fire. Hephaestus created the gift that the gods gave to man, the woman Pandora and her pithos. Being a skilled blacksmith, Hephaestus created all the thrones in the Palace of Olympus.
The Greek myths and the Homeric poems sanctified in stories that Hephaestus had a special power to produce motion. He made the golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos in such a way that they could bite the invaders; the Greeks maintained in their civilization an animistic idea. This kind of art and the animistic belief goes back to the Minoan period, when Daedalus, the builder of the labyrinth, made images which moved of their own accord. A statue of the god was somehow the god himself, the image on a man's tomb indicated somehow his presence. According to Hesiod Hera gave birth to Hephaestus on her own as revenge for Zeus giving birth to Athena without her. According to Homer Hera is mentioned as the mother of Hephaestus but there is not sufficient evidence to say that Zeus was his father. According to Homer there is not sufficient evidence to say. Hera is not mentioned as the mother. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus Hera gave birth to Hephaestus alone. Pseudo-Apollodorus relates that, according to Homer, Hephaestus is one of the children of Zeus and Hera.
Several texts follow Hesiod's account, including Hyginus and the preface to Fabulae. In the account of Attic vase painters, Hephaestus was present at the birth of Athena and wields the axe with which he split Zeus' head to free her. In the latter account, Hephaestus is there represented as older than Athena, so the mythology of Hephaestus is inconsistent in this respect. In one branch of Greek mythology, Hera ejected Hephaestus from the heavens because he was "shrivelled of foot", he was raised by Thetis and the Oceanid Eurynome. In another account, attempting to rescue his mother from Zeus' advances, was flung down from the heavens by Zeus, he fell for an entire day and landed on the island of Lemnos, where he was cared for and taught to be a master craftsman by the Sintians – an ancient tribe native to that island. Writers describe his lameness as the consequence of his second fall, while Homer makes him lame and weak from his birth. Hephaestus was one of the Olympians to have returned to Olympus after being exiled.
In an archaic story, Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by making her a magical golden throne, when she sat on it, did not allow her to stand up. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go, but he refused, saying "I have no mother". At last, Dionysus fetched him, intoxicated him with wine, took the subdued smith back to Olympus on the back of a mule accompanied by revelers – a scene that sometimes appears on painted pottery of Attica and of Corinth. In the painted scenes, the padded dancers and phallic figures of the Dionysan throng leading the mule show that the procession was a part of the dithyrambic celebrations that were
Ananke
In ancient Greek religion, Ananke, is a personification of inevitability and necessity. She was depicted as holding a spindle. One of the Greek primordial deities or Greek primordial deities, the birth of Ananke marked the beginning of the cosmos, along with that of her brother and consort, Chronos. Ananke was considered as the most powerful dictator of circumstance; some times considered the mother of the Fates, she was thought to be the only being to have control over their decisions. According to the ancient Greek traveller Pausanias, there was a temple in ancient Corinth where the goddesses Ananke and Bia were worshiped together in the same shrine. Ananke who represents Fate or Necessity or Force is identified or associated with Aphrodite Aphrodite Ourania who represents celestial Love, as the two are considered two sides of the same power that dictates life, her Roman counterpart is Necessitas. "Ananke" is derived from the common Ancient Greek noun ἀνάγκη, meaning "force, constraint or necessity."
The common noun itself is of uncertain etymology. Homer refers to her being as necessity abstracted in modern translation or force. In Ancient Greek literature the word is used meaning "fate" or "destiny", by extension "compulsion or torture by a superior." She appears in poetry, as Simonides does: "Even the gods don’t fight against ananke". The pre-modern is carried over and translated into a more modern philosophical sense as "necessity", "logical necessity" or "laws of nature". In Orphic mythology, Ananke is a self-formed being who emerged at the dawn of creation with an incorporeal, serpentine form, her outstretched arms encompassing the cosmos. Ananke and Chronos are mates. Together they have crushed the primal egg of creation of which constituent parts became earth and sea to form the ordered universe. Ananke was the mother of the distributor of rewards and punishments; the Greek philosopher, Plato in his Republic discussed the parentage of the Moirai or the Fates in the following lines:And there were another three who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Moirai, daughters of Ananke, clad in white vestments with filleted heads and Klotho, Atropos, who sang in unison with the music of the Seirenes, Lakhesis singing the things that were, Klotho the things that are, Atropos the things that are to be...
Lakhesis, the maiden daughter of Ananke. While Aeschylus, the famous tragedian gave us an account in his Prometheus Bound where the Moirai were called the helmsman of the goddess Ananke along with the three Erinyes:Prometheus: Not in this way is Moira, who brings all to fulfillment, destined to complete this course. Only when I have been bent by pangs and tortures infinite am I to escape my bondage. Skill is weaker by far than Ananke. Chorus: Who is the helmsman of Ananke? Prometheus: The three-shaped Moirai and mindful Erinyes. Chorus: Can it be that Zeus has less power than they do? Prometheus: Yes, in that he cannot escape what is foretold. Chorus: Why, what is fated for Zeus except to hold eternal sway? Prometheus: This you must not learn yet. Chorus: It is some solemn secret that you enshroud in mystery. In the Timaeus, Plato has the speaker Timaeus argue that in the creation of the universe, there is a uniting of opposing elements and necessity, as elsewhere Plato blends abstraction with his own myth making: "For this ordered world is of a mixed birth: it is the offspring of a union of Necessity and Intellect.
Intellect prevailing over Necessity by persuading it to direct most of the things that come to be toward what is best, the result of this subjugation of Necessity to wise persuasion was the initial formation of the universe". The word "Ananke" is featured in Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame of Paris, written upon a wall of Notre-Dame by the hand of Dom Claude Frollo. In his Toute la Lyre, Hugo mentions Ananke as a symbol of love. Here is what Hugo had to write about it in 1866. Religion, nature; these three conflicts are, at the same time, his three needs: it is necessary for him to believe, hence the temple. But these three solutions contain three conflicts; the mysterious difficulty of life springs from all three. Man has to deal with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, under the form of the elements. A triple "ananke" weighs upon us, the "ananke" of dogmas, the "ananke" of laws, the "ananke" of things. In Notre Dame de Paris the author has denounced the first.
With these three fatalities which envelop man is mingled the interior fatality, that supreme ananke, the
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek poet thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is regarded as the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject. Ancient authors credited Homer with establishing Greek religious customs. Modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought, archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping; the dating of Hesiod's life is a contested issue in scholarly circles. Epic narrative allowed poets like Homer no opportunity for personal revelations. However, Hesiod's extant work comprises several didactic poems in which he went out of his way to let his audience in on a few details of his life. There are three explicit references in Works and Days, as well as some passages in his Theogony that support inferences made by scholars; the former poem says that his father came from Cyme in Aeolis and crossed the sea to settle at a hamlet, near Thespiae in Boeotia, named Ascra, "a cursed place, cruel in winter, hard in summer, never pleasant".
Hesiod's patrimony there, a small piece of ground at the foot of Mount Helicon, occasioned lawsuits with his brother Perses, who seems, at first, to have cheated him of his rightful share thanks to corrupt authorities or "kings" but became impoverished and ended up scrounging from the thrifty poet. Unlike his father, Hesiod was averse to sea travel, but he once crossed the narrow strait between the Greek mainland and Euboea to participate in funeral celebrations for one Athamas of Chalcis, there won a tripod in a singing competition, he describes a meeting between himself and the Muses on Mount Helicon, where he had been pasturing sheep when the goddesses presented him with a laurel staff, a symbol of poetic authority. Fanciful though the story might seem, the account has led ancient and modern scholars to infer that he was not a professionally trained rhapsode, or he would have been presented with a lyre instead; some scholars have seen Perses as a literary creation, a foil for the moralizing that Hesiod develops in Works and Days, but there are arguments against that theory.
For example, it is quite common for works of moral instruction to have an imaginative setting, as a means of getting the audience's attention, but it could be difficult to see how Hesiod could have travelled around the countryside entertaining people with a narrative about himself if the account was known to be fictitious. Gregory Nagy, on the other hand, sees both Pérsēs and Hēsíodos as fictitious names for poetical personae, it might seem unusual that Hesiod's father migrated from Asia Minor westwards to mainland Greece, the opposite direction to most colonial movements at the time, Hesiod himself gives no explanation for it. However around 750 BC or a little there was a migration of seagoing merchants from his original home in Cyme in Asia Minor to Cumae in Campania, his move west had something to do with that, since Euboea is not far from Boeotia, where he established himself and his family; the family association with Aeolian Cyme might explain his familiarity with eastern myths, evident in his poems, though the Greek world might have developed its own versions of them.
In spite of Hesiod's complaints about poverty, life on his father's farm could not have been too uncomfortable if Works and Days is anything to judge by, since he describes the routines of prosperous yeomanry rather than peasants. His farmer employs a friend as well as servants, an energetic and responsible ploughman of mature years, a slave boy to cover the seed, a female servant to keep house and working teams of oxen and mules. One modern scholar surmises that Hesiod may have learned about world geography the catalogue of rivers in Theogony, listening to his father's accounts of his own sea voyages as a merchant; the father spoke in the Aeolian dialect of Cyme but Hesiod grew up speaking the local Boeotian, belonging to the same dialect group. However, while his poetry features some Aeolisms there are no words that are Boeotian, his basic language was the main literary dialect of Homer's Ionian. It is probable that Hesiod wrote his poems down, or dictated them, rather than passed them on orally, as rhapsodes did—otherwise the pronounced personality that now emerges from the poems would have been diluted through oral transmission from one rhapsode to another.
Pausanias asserted that Boeotians showed him an old tablet made of lead on which the Works were engraved. If he did write or dictate, it was as an aid to memory or because he lacked confidence in his ability to produce poems extempore, as trained rhapsodes could do, it wasn't in a quest for immortal fame since poets in his era had no such notions for themselves. However, some scholars suspect the presence of large-scale changes in the text and attribute this to oral transmission, he composed his verses during idle times on the farm, in the spring before the May harvest or the dead of winter. The personality behind the poems is unsuited to the kind of "aristocratic withdrawal" typical of a rhapsode but is instead "argumentative, suspicious humorous, fond of proverbs, wary of women." He was in fact a misogynist of t
Zeus
Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter, his mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun and Thor. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is said to have fathered Ares and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom the Iliad states that he fathered Aphrodite. Zeus was infamous for his erotic escapades; these resulted in many divine and heroic offspring, including Athena, Artemis, Persephone, Perseus, Helen of Troy and the Muses. He was respected as an allfather, chief of the gods and assigned the others to their roles: "Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, all the gods rise in his presence."
He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". Zeus' symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty; the god's name in the nominative is Ζεύς. It is inflected as follows: vocative: Ζεῦ. Diogenes Laërtius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name, Ζάς. Zeus is the Greek continuation of *Di̯ēus, the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky called *Dyeus ph2tēr; the god is known under this name in the Rigveda, deriving from the root *dyeu-. Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology; the earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek, di-we and, di-wo, written in the Linear B syllabic script.
Plato, in his Cratylus, gives a folk etymology of Zeus meaning "cause of life always to all things," because of puns between alternate titles of Zeus with the Greek words for life and "because of." This etymology, along with Plato's entire method of deriving etymologies, is not supported by modern scholarship. Cronus sired several children by Rhea: Hestia, Hera and Poseidon, but swallowed them all as soon as they were born, since he had learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overthrown by his son as he had overthrown Uranus, his own father, an oracle that Rhea heard and wished to avert; when Zeus was about to be born, Rhea sought Gaia to devise a plan to save him, so that Cronus would get his retribution for his acts against Uranus and his own children. Rhea gave birth to Zeus in Crete, handing Cronus a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallowed. Varying versions of the story exist: According to Hyginus ) Zeus was raised by a nymph named Amalthea. Since Saturn ruled over the Earth, the heavens and the sea, she hid him by dangling him on a rope from a tree so he was suspended between earth and sky and thus, invisible to his father.
According to Pseudo-Apollodorus ) Zeus was raised by a goat named Amalthea in a cave called Dictaeon Antron. A a company of soldiers called Kouretes danced and clashed their spears against their shields so that Cronus would not hear the baby's cry. After reaching manhood, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge first the stone his siblings in reverse order of swallowing. In some versions, Metis gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or Zeus cut Cronus's stomach open. Zeus released the brothers of Cronus, the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes, from their dungeon in Tartarus, killing their guard, Campe; as a token of their appreciation, the Cyclopes gave him thunder and the thunderbolt, or lightning, hidden by Gaia. Together, his brothers and sisters and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, in the combat called the Titanomachy; the defeated Titans were cast into a shadowy underworld region known as Tartarus. Atlas, one of the titans who fought against Zeus, was punished by having to hold up the sky.
After the battle with the Titans, Zeus shared the world with his elder brothers and Hades, by drawing lots: Zeus got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, Hades the world of the dead. The ancient Earth, could not be claimed. Gaia resented. Soon after taking the throne as king of the gods, Zeus had to fight some of Gaia's other children, the monsters Typhon and Echidna, he left Echidna and her children alive. When Zeus was atop Mount Olympus he was appalled by human sac
Antonio Canova
Antonio Canova was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists, his artwork was inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival, but avoided the melodramatics of the former, the cold artificiality of the latter. In 1757, Antonio Canova was born in the Venetian Republic city of Possagno to Pietro Canova, a stonecutter. In 1761, his father died. A year his mother remarried; as such, in 1762, he was put into the care of his paternal grandfather Pasino Canova, a stonemason, owner of a quarry, was a "sculptor who specialized in altars with statues and low reliefs in late Baroque style". He led Antonio into the art of sculpting. Before the age of ten, Canova began making models in clay, carving marble. Indeed, at the age of nine, he executed two small shrines of Carrara marble. After these works, he appears to have been employed under his grandfather. In 1770, he was an apprentice for two years to Giuseppe Bernardi, known as'Torretto'.
Afterwards, he was under the tutelage of Giovanni Ferrari until he began his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. At the Academy, he won several prizes. During this time, he was given his first workshop within a monastery by some local monks; the Senator Giovanni Falier commissioned Canova to produce statues of Orpheus and Eurydice for his garden – the Villa Falier at Asolo. The statues were begun in 1775, both were completed by 1777; the pieces exemplify the late Rococo style. On the year of its completion, both works were exhibited for the Feast of the Ascension in Piazza S. Marco. Praised, the works won Canova his first renown among the Venetian elite. Another Venetian, said to have commissioned early works from Canova was the abate Filippo Farsetti, whose collection at Ca' Farsetti on the Grand Canal he frequented. In 1779, Canova opened his own studio at Calle Del Traghetto at S. Maurizio. At this time, Procurator Pietro Vettor Pisani commissioned Canova's first marble statue: a depiction of Daedalus and Icarus.
The statue inspired great admiration for his work at the annual art fair. At the base of the statue, Daedalus' tools are scattered about. With such an intention, there is suggestion that Daedalus is a portrait of Canova's grandfather Pasino. Canova arrived in Rome, on 28 December 1780. Prior to his departure, his friends had applied to the Venetian senate for a pension. Successful in the application, the stipend allotted amounted to three hundred ducats, limited to three years. While in Rome, Canova spent time sketching the works of Michelangelo. In 1781, Girolamo Zulian – the Venetian ambassador to Rome – hired Canova to sculpt Theseus and the Minotaur; the statue depicts the victorious Theseus seated on the lifeless body of a Minotaur. The initial spectators were certain that the work was a copy of a Greek original, were shocked to learn it was a contemporary work; the regarded work is now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London. Between 1783 – 1785, Canova arranged and designed a funerary monument dedicated to Clement XIV for the Church of Santi Apostoli.
After another two years, the work met completion in 1787. The monument secured Canova's reputation as the pre-eminent living artist. In 1792, he completed another cenotaph, this time commemorating Clement XIII for St. Peter's Basilica. Canova harmonized its design with the older Baroque funerary monuments in the basilica. In 1790, he began to work on a funerary monument for Titian, abandoned by 1795. During the same year, he increased his activity as a painter; the following decade was productive, beginning works such as Hercules and Lichas and Psyche, Tomb of Duchess Maria Christina of Saxony-Teschen, The Penitent Magdalene. In 1797, he went to Vienna, but only a year in 1798, he returned to Possagno for a year. By 1800, Canova was the most celebrated artist in Europe, he systematically promoted his reputation by publishing engravings of his works and having marble versions of plaster casts made in his workshop. He became so successful that he had acquired patrons from across Europe including France, Russia, Poland and Holland, as well as several members from different royal lineages, prominent individuals.
Among his patrons were Napoleon and his family, for whom Canova produced much work, including several depictions between 1803 and 1809. The most notable representations were that of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker, Venus Victrix, portrayal of Pauline Bonaparte. Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker had its inception after Canova was hired to make a bust of Napoleon in 1802; the statue was begun in 1803, with Napoleon requesting to be shown in a French General's uniform, Canova rejected this, insisting on an allusion to Mars, the Roman god of War. It was completed in 1806. In 1811, the statue arrived in Paris, but not installed. In 1815, the original went to the Duke of Wellington, after his victory at Waterloo against Napoleon. Venus Victrix was conceived as a robed and recumbent sculpture of Pauline Borghese in the guise of Diana. Instead, Pauline ordered Canova to make the statue a nude Venus; the work was not intended for public viewing. Other works for the Napoleon family include, a bust of Napoleon, a statue of Napoleon's mother, Marie Louise as Concordia.
In 1802, Canova was assigned the post of'Inspector-General of Antiquities and Fine Art of the Papal State', a
Eros
In Greek mythology, Eros is the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid, he is described as one of the children of Aphrodite and Ares, with most of his siblings, was a part of group, consisting of winged love gods. However, sometimes he is described as one of the primordial gods, but he is most identified with Phanes; the Greek ἔρως, meaning "desire," comes from ἔραμαι "to love", of uncertain etymology. R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. Eros appears in ancient Greek sources under several different guises. In the earliest sources, he is one of the primordial gods involved in the coming into being of the cosmos, but in sources, Eros is represented as the son of Aphrodite, whose mischievous interventions in the affairs of gods and mortals cause bonds of love to form illicitly. In the satirical poets, he is represented as a blindfolded child, the precursor to the chubby Renaissance Cupid, whereas in early Greek poetry and art, Eros was depicted as an adult male who embodies sexual power, a profound artist.
A cult of Eros existed in pre-classical Greece, but it was much less important than that of Aphrodite. However, in late antiquity, Eros was worshiped by a fertility cult in Thespiae. In Athens, he shared a popular cult with Aphrodite, the fourth day of every month was sacred to him. Eros was one of the Erotes, along with other figures such as Himeros and Pothos, who are sometimes considered patrons of homosexual love between males. Eros is part of a triad of gods that played roles in homoerotic relationships, along with Heracles and Hermes, who bestowed qualities of beauty and eloquence onto male lovers. According to Hesiod's Theogony, one of the most ancient of all Greek sources, Eros was the fourth god to come into existence, coming after Chaos and Tartarus. Homer does not mention Eros. However, one of the pre-Socratic philosophers, makes Eros the first of all the gods to come into existence; the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries featured Eros as a original god, but not quite primordial, since he was the child of Night.
Aristophanes, influenced by Orphism, relates the birth of Eros: "At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night and the Abyss. Earth, the Air and Heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Darkness, from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Love with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest, he mated in the deep Abyss with dark Chaos, winged like himself, thus hatched forth our race, the first to see the light." In myths, he was the son of the deities Aphrodite and Ares: it is the Eros of these myths, one of the erotes. Eros was associated with athleticism, with statues erected in gymnasia, "was regarded as the protector of homosexual love between men." Eros was depicted as carrying a lyre or bow and arrow. He was depicted accompanied by dolphins, roosters and torches. “We must have a word with Aphrodite. Let us go together and ask her to persuade her boy, if, possible, to loose an arrow at Aeetes’ daughter, Medea of the many spells, make her fall in love with Jason...”
"He smites maids’ breasts with unknown heat, bids the gods leave heaven and dwell on earth in borrowed forms." "Once, when Venus’ son was kissing her, his quiver dangling down, a jutting arrow, had grazed her breast. She pushed the boy away. In fact the wound was deeper. Enraptured by the beauty of a man." "Eros drove Dionysos mad for the girl with the delicious wound of his arrow curving his wings flew to Olympus. And the god roamed over the hills scourged with a greater fire.” The story of Eros and Psyche has a longstanding tradition as a folktale of the ancient Greco-Roman world long before it was committed to literature in Apuleius' Latin novel, The Golden Ass. The novel itself is written in a picaresque Roman style. Eros and Aphrodite are called by their Latin names, Cupid is depicted as a young adult, rather than a child; the story tells of the struggle for trust between Eros and Psyche. Aphrodite was jealous of the beauty of mortal princess Psyche, as men were leaving her altars barren to worship a mere human woman instead, so she commanded her son Eros, the god of love, to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest creature on earth.
But instead, Eros falls in love with Psyche himself and spirits her away to his home. Their fragile peace is ruined by a visit from Psyche's jealous sisters, who cause Psyche to betray the trust of her husband. Wounded, Eros leaves his wife, Psyche wanders the Earth, looking for her lost love, she approaches Aphrodite and asks for her help. Aphrodite imposes a series of difficult tasks on Psyche, which she is able to achieve by means of supernatural assistance. After completing these tasks, Aphrodite relents and Psyche becomes immortal to live alongside her husband Eros. Together they had a daughter, Voluptas or Hedone (meaning phys
Moirai
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Moirai or Moerae known in English as the Fates, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny. Their number became fixed at three: Clotho and Atropos, they controlled the mother thread of life of every mortal from birth to death. They were independent, at the helm of necessity, directed fate, watched that the fate assigned to every being by eternal laws might take its course without obstruction. Both gods and men had to submit to them, although Zeus's relationship with them is a matter of debate: some sources say he can command them, while others suggest he was bound to the Moirai's dictates. In the Homeric poems Moira or Aisa are related to the limit and end of life, Zeus appears as the guider of destiny. In the Theogony of Hesiod, the three Moirai are personified, daughters of Nyx and are acting over the gods, they are daughters of Zeus and Themis, the embodiment of divine order and law. In Plato's Republic the Three Fates are daughters of Ananke, it seems that Moira is related with Tekmor and with Ananke, who were primeval goddesses in mythical cosmogonies.
The ancient Greek writers might call this power Moira or Ananke, the gods could not alter what was ordained: "To the Moirai the might of Zeus must bow. In earliest Greek philosophy, the cosmogony of Anaximander is based on these mythical beliefs; the goddess keeps the order and sets a limit to any actions. The ancient Greek word moira means a portion or lot of the whole, is related to meros, "part, lot" and moros, "fate, doom", Latin meritum, "reward", English merit, derived from the PIE root *mer, "to allot, assign". Moira may mean portion or share in the distribution of booty, portion in life, destiny, portion of the distributed land; the word is used for something, meet and right. It seems that the word moira did not indicate destiny but included ascertainment or proof, a non-abstract certainty; the word daemon, an agent related to unexpected events, came to be similar to the word moira. This agent or cause against human control might be called tyche: "You mistress moira, tyche, my daemon."The word nomos, "law", may have meant a portion or lot, as in the verb nemein, "to distribute", thus "natural lot" came to mean "natural law".
The word dike, "justice", conveyed the notion that someone should stay within his own specified boundaries, respecting the ones of his neighbour. If someone broke his boundaries, thus getting more than his ordained part he would be punished by law. By extension, moira was one's portion or part in destiny which consisted of good and bad moments as was predetermined by the Moirai, it was impossible for anyone to get more than his ordained part. In modern Greek the word came to mean "destiny". Kismet, the predetermined course of events in the Muslim traditions, seems to have a similar etymology and function: Arabic qismat "lot" qasama, "to divide, allot" developed to mean Fate or destiny; as a loanword, qesmat'fate' appears in Persian, whence in Urdu language, in English Kismet. When they were three, the Moirai were: Clotho spun the thread of life from her Distaff onto her Spindle, her Roman equivalent was Nona, a goddess called upon in the ninth month of pregnancy. Lachesis measured the thread of life allotted to each person with her measuring rod.
Her Roman equivalent was Decima. Atropos was the cutter of the thread of life, she chose the manner of each person's death. Her Roman equivalent was Morta. In the Republic of Plato, the three Moirai sing in unison with the music of the Seirenes. Lachesis sings the things that were, Clotho the things that are, Atropos the things that are to be. Pindar in his Hymn to the Fates, holds them in high honour, he calls them to send their sisters Hours, Eunomia and Eirene, to stop the internal civil strife: Listen Fates, who sit nearest of gods to the throne of Zeus, weave with shuttles of adamant, inescapable devices for councels of every kind beyond counting, Aisa and Lachesis, fine-armed daughters of Night, hearken to our prayers, all-terrible goddesses, of sky and earth. Send us rose-bosomed Lawfulness, her sisters on glittering thrones and crowned Peace, make this city forget the misfortunes which lie on her heart. In ancient times caves were used for burial purposes in east
