I’ve actually been hoping someone would ask me this question for a while now :)
I love Hera’s myths because they do reveal a lot about her character. People always get hung up on how scary she is, but that’s actually just skimming the surface of the myth if you read it like that. When she curses the mortal lovers of Zeus, she is acting out of jealousy and anger, but that comes with the territory of being the Goddess of Marriage. Nobody seems to bat an eyelash when Artemis turns a mortal into a deer for claiming he was a better hunter than her, or when Athena rips up Arachne’s tapestry for claiming she was a better weaver than the goddess of weaving. What are these women doing, in Hera’s eyes, other than claiming that they are better wives than she, the Goddess of Marriage?
But I digress. Some of my favorite myths about Hera reveal other parts of her character. When she conspires to overthrow Zeus, she’s revealed to be cunning and wily. Who does she convince to help her? Poseidon and Athena? Athena, the golden child who supposedly would NEVER in a million years betray Zeus? Athena, the best ally Hera could ever have on Olympus besides Zeus himself? And Poseidon, the middle brother (whether by birth or by disgorgement)? Athena AND Poseidon, two Theoi who had (mythologically speaking) been at each others’ throats for eons? Would either of these Gods joined up with Hera if they had thought there wasn’t a chance of success? And even though they failed in their attempted coup, Ares couldn’t help commenting that he saw the fear in Zeus’s eyes. Zeus was fully aware of the precarious situation his wife had put him in. Because she is powerful beyond what we think of her as.
What is always displayed in modern representations of Hera is this weak, spoiled, fancy lady with a big ego and a bitchy streak. Look at the God of War series. She is presented as a drunk, lounging around in her gardens, just waiting for the player to break her dainty little neck. Nobody seems to remember the warrior who went up against Artemis more than once and fucking yanked the Huntress (who’s job it is to KILL THINGS) out of the clouds and showed her to her own ass every single time. Nobody wants to think about the woman who aided the Argonauts at every turn because one of the bastard sons of Zeus showed her kindness. Nobody talks about the fact that Zeus felt the need to hang her from the sky above the Abyss itself in order to quell the fire raging inside of her. These are some of my favorite myths about Hera, because they show her passionate strength and ferocity.
Even better though, are the myths that put her glorious beauty on display. She’s described as the most beautiful of goddesses. One of her epithets compares her to Aphrodite herself. As a wedding gift, Gaia herself gave Hera the golden apples of immortal life, which are tended by the Hesperides (nymphs of sunset).
Hera is the one wife that Zeus has kept by his side for-fucking-ever. When Ixion wanted to rape Hera, Zeus created a version of her from the clouds and punished him severely when he committed the act on the fake. Despite all of their problems, they love and adore one another. In fact, my absolute FAVORITE MYTH is the separation of Hera and Zeus.
Hera had finally gotten fed up with Zeus’s infidelity, and decided to leave him, heading to Stymphalos to stay. Despite all of his pleading, Zeus couldn’t get her to return to him, so he paid a visit to the mountain-god Kithaeron. Kithaeron told Zeus to make a wooden image, cover it up, and parade around with it, claiming to be celebrating his marriage to the daughter of Asopos. Zeus followed the advice and Hera heard about the marriage at once. She was so enraged that she immediately showed up and tore the veil off the image, hoping to beat someone’s ass for marrying her beloved, but when she found the wooden image instead of a bride, she was filled with affection for her husband and they reconciled. Zeus loves Hera so much that he is willing to do whatever it takes to get her back, and Hera loves Zeus even when she’s mad at him. Despite their differences and trials and tribulations, they adore each other. The goddess of marriage shows us time and time again what marriage really is. Not just the pretty parts, but the ugly, the exciting, the raw, the furious, the passionate, and the sweet. That’s why I love Hera.
Possibly the greatest Greek-myth trainers ever (and maybe the only).
Hero was a priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos. She fell in love with Leander, a young man from Abydos. Every night, Leander swam across the Hellespont to visit her, guided by a light from her tower. However, one stormy night, the waves overpowered Leander and the winds blew out Hero’s light. Leander drowned and Hero killed herself after seeing his dead body.
Queens and Princesses of Greek Mythology (insp.)
Hera / Antigone / Medea / Clytemnestra / Andromeda / Helen / Persephone
rhaegartarqaryen-deactivated201:
Mythology Meme: (1/7) Mortals ➝ Medea
In Euripides’s play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of Corinth, offers him his daughter, Glauce. The play tells of Medea avenging her husband’s betrayal by slaying their children.
♛ HADES AND PERSEPHONE + BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: the life-bringer
The garden leaves embraced Persephone as she made her way through the roses to the sunflowers, to the lilies waiting at the end of her way. The daughter of Zeus and Demeter could be nothing but in love with nature, and her afternoons were not wasted anywhere else but at her garden, where her mother kept her, away from “the ones who wanted her so badly,” she said. But who would want someone like Persephone? She was no one special. She loved flowers, she loved the warm breeze against her skin, but she was no one. She knew nothing of the world, and if the gates to the one below remained closed, she never would.
When asked if she was happy, however, she complied. Why would she turn her beloved mother’s smile upside down? It would do no good. But as the sun died every night to let the moon live for her limited hours, Persephone wasted her sleep thinking about the possibilities and the things that could never be. Always vouch for the impossible, her friend Artemis had told her. It was easy for her to say. With a bow and arrow in hands and bravery in her chest, everything came easily. Artemis was a beast, a lion. She had the will, the had the power, the strength, the claws. Persephone was a flower, watered by her own tears.
The impossible awaited for her anyhow, if she wasn’t yet ready to go after it. Not even a week later, as the girl spotted a different breed of flowers just beyond the limits of her garden, her curiosity got the best of her. As she looked above her shoulder, her mother slash jailer was nowhere to be found, and on a quick move, she reached for it, but after that, she saw nothing. The branch was faulty you see, it gave out. Persephone fell along with it, deep into the darkness of the Underworld. But before she hit the ground, someone embraced her like the garden leaves did. Her eyes were already closed, she was unconscious, and for that Hades was glad. He wore his true form, and he did not want the beauty gifted to him by nature to see him that way. His skin was raw and pale, horns came out of the sides of his head, like a true damned creature that should never be granted to see the light. But there he was, holding light itself in his arms. It was love at first sight, he couldn’t know how he was able to tell, or how someone like him was even capable of such a feeling, but he knew it.
Persephone moved, not much, but she moved. At ease, Hades commanded that his servants took her to the best room available, that they gave her the best treatment, to show Persephone the kingdom that might as well be hers. And so they did. She woke up to fabulous meals, to countless dresses waiting for her to pick from, and nameless servants who were there only to please and obey. Not for a moment she thought about her mother or the flowers she was so used to; this was unknown territory, all she had dreamed of. The two servants — who she decided to simply call one and two — showed her everything that there was to be seen. The rivers, the mountains, the never ending stairs, even the throne that was empty as she passed. She sat gracefully on the fine marble and asked, “Who does this belong to?”
The creatures hesitated, but after a second, Two answered, “To the King, my lady. The King of the Underworld.”
“I want to meet him.”
One shook his head. “We can’t…”
“The moment I woke up you told me he wanted you to show me everything I asked you to. And here I am, Persephone, Daughter of Zeus and Demeter, asking you to see the one who set me free.”
Meanwhile on the Earth above, the mother she once loved so deeply searched for her in every shadow of every man. Without flowers nor food growing from the ground, the mortals were dying. What an irony, you see, for the land of the dead had never been more vivid. The ending to this fairytale is what many people would expect. After much struggle Hades agreed to meet with his love, and much to his surprise, she didn’t ask to be sent back. She didn’t run, she didn’t scream. He looked like the monster her mother painted him out to be at first, but as their lips touched, she saw him the way only she could. Beauty is nothing but what you make it out to be; for so long she thought of her garden as phenomenal, but now it paled it comparison to him, his kingdom, and all the possibilities that lied ahead. All she had to do was stay.
But she couldn’t.
Word around was that she would have many more people to rule if the number of the dead kept increasing. It was all her fault, their fault. She was Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter— the life-bringer. She brought life to the Underworld, to Hades, and now she had to do the same for the ones above. She knew she had to go back, but this was no goodbye. The throne was theirs to share, and so was their love.
All he left her with was a promise and a fruit. “I’ll be waiting,” and a pomegranate.
Who could ever learn to love a beast, they always wonder. But has the question “who could ever teach a beast how to love” ever been asked out loud?
MYTHOLOGY MEME: {1/1} PRIMORDIAL DEITIES
Ananke (Ἀνάγκη); the personification of destiny, necessity and fate as well as the primordial Greek goddess of compulsion. Along with Chronos, together they mark the beginning of the cosmos. Ananke is seen as the most powerful dictator of all fate and circumstance which meant that mortals, as well as the Gods, dared not to go against her.
One helen is sufficient good looks to launch one thousand ships, and to cause the destruction by fire of an entire city. The objective standards of Ship Launching and Arson may now be used to analyze feminine beauty. […] The table below will be of assistance:
- Attohelen (ah) 10-18 helens: Light up a Lucky While Strolling past a Shipyard
- Femtohelen (fh) 10-15 helens: Burn a Dinner Candle & Spit a Toothpick into a Water Glass
- Picohelen (ph) 10-12 helens: Barbecue a Couple of Steaks & Toss an Inner Tube Into the Pool
- Nanohelen (nh) 10-9 helens: Send the Old Man on a Canoe Trip & Build a Good Roaring Blaze in the Fireplace
- Microhelen (µh) 10-6 helens: Christen a Motor Boat & Start a Grass Fire
- Millihelen (mh) 10-3 helens: Launch One Homeric Warship & Burn Down a House
- Centihelen (ch) 10-2 helens: Incinerate a City Block & Launch Christopher Columbus’ Entire Fleet: The “Niña” (40 tons), the “Pinta” (50 tons) and the “Santa Maria” (100 tons)
- Decihelen (dh) 10-1 helens: Torch the Central Business District of Oakland, California, & Launch the Clipper Ship “Flying Cloud” (1783 tons)
- Helen (h): Raze One City & Launch the WWI US Battleship “Delaware” (20,000 tons)
- Dekahelen (dah) 10 helens: Oversee the Incendiary Bombing of Ten Cities and Launch the Aircraft Carriers “Theodore Roosevelt” (91,487 tons) and “Dwight D. Eisenhower (91,487 tons)
- Hectohelen (hh) 102 helens: Instigate a Major Modern Conflict & Launch the Oil Platform “Stratfjord B” (with ballast, 899,360 tons), the Supertanker “Seawise Giant” (624,038 dead- weight tonnage); the Oil/Ore Carrier “World Gala” (282,460 dwt tonnage) and the Bulk-Ore Tanker “Hoei Maru” (208,000 dwt tonnage)
- Kilohelen (kh) 103 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Million Greek Warships & Spark a Nuclear Confrontation
- Megahelen (Mh) 106 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Billion Greek Warships & Blow Up the World
- Gigahelen (Gh) 109 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Trillion Greek Warships & Destroy the Solar System
- Terahelen (Th) 1012 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Thousand Trillion Greek Warships and Make Serious Inroads on the Welfare of the Galaxy
It is to be hoped that beauty exceeding the Hectohelen class evades even the most ambitious.
"modern greek mythology: astraios
in the beginning we held the universe in our mouths and stardust dripped bloody from our lips / we were celestial and we were hungry and we were magic x
The installation artist Tatiana Blass addresses the myth of Homer’s Odyssey. Penelope was the wife of Odysseus and waited twenty years at the beach on her husband while he enjoyed his adventures. In order not to be distracted by annoying admirers of waiting, she looked for meaningful work. She wove a shroud for three years for her stepfather. Penelope promised to select a candidate when she had done, because no one believed in the return of her husband. But secretly she bound parts of the shirt on again at night choose to have no other and to remain faithful to their adventurers.
The installation is located in the chapel of São Paulo Morumbin. Blass lives and works in Brazil. The loom is located where the altar was supposed to be. On one side is a long red carpet spread out throughout the threads that lead into the loom are completely confused on the back. The red yarn is fed through holes in the wall outside, where it covers the whole garden. One wonders, similar to Penelope’s story, whether the piece is being woven or untied.
dear love, hades
mortals may retell our story,
as one of brutality and violation;
but, we both know
that all you have shown me,
is unending love and tenderness.the olympians judged you,
as a captor and offender.
alas, when the judgement was cast,
the truth was told;
that our story
was not one of rape and bribery,
but of two beings, who
were missing a half of themselves.
the world was against us,
yet-
the flames of our love
never extinguished.dear love, hades
the fates once told me
i would find the greatest love
ever known to man kind;
as i look back on that,
i’ve realized, what i found is much greater-
i have found the greatest love
ever known to the gods.
dear love, hades
i love you.-letters from persphone (l.y.)
modern myths: hermes (requested by transgendermercutio)
They have pearly-white teeth, the most charming smile of all the Gods. The best sweet-talker, too, dressing up the bad news as the good.
They are blood and sweat and tears. Coughing up bile on your doorstep. Pulling arrows out of their back without stopping. But they’ll get that message to you if it kills them.
William Adolphe Bouguereau’s Psyche and Cupid (details)