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PART ONE
Eos was the Greek
personification of the Dawn, the daughter of the Titans Hyperion
and Theia and the sister of Helios (Sun) and Selene (Moon). At
the close of each night, rosy-fingered, saffron-robed Eos rises
from her couch in the east and mounts her chariot drawn by the
horses Lampus and Phaethon. Her godly duty is to ride to Mount
Olympus and announce the approach of her brother Helios.
When
Helios appears Eos becomes Hemera (Day) and she journeys along
with him on his travels until, now transformed into Hespera
(Dusk), she announces their safe arrival on the western shores
of the great Ocean.
By Astraeus she was the mother of the Four
Winds:
Boreas, Eurus, Zephyrus and Notus; and also of Phosphorus and
some say even the Stars. She was depicted as a goddess whose
rosy fingers opened the gates of heaven to the chariot of the
Sun.
Her legend consists almost entirely of her intrigues. She first
slept with Ares; this earned her the wrath of Aphrodite who
punished her by causing her to have a constant longing for young
lovers. Eos secretly and shamefacedly began to seduce these
youths, who included Orion, Cephalus, Cleitus and Tithonus (See
Bullfinch below).
In Greek art, Eos and Hemera (Day) are one and the same.
Aurora is
the Roman personification of the Dawn and the Roman equivalent
of the Greek goddess Eos.
According to one myth, her tears cause the dew as she flies
across the sky weeping for one of her sons, who was killed.
AURORA & TITHONUS By THOMAS BULLFINCH
The goddess of the Dawn (Eos), like her
sister the Moon, was at times inspired with the love of mortals.
Her greatest favourite was Tithonus son of Laomedon, king of
Troy. She stole him away, and prevailed on Jupiter (Zeus) to
grant him immortality; but, forgetting to have youth joined in
the gift, after some time she began to discern, to her great
mortification, that he was growing old. When his hair was quite
white she left his society; but he still had the range of her
palace, lived on ambrosial food, and was clad in celestial
raiment. At length he lost the power of using his limbs, and
then she shut him up in his chamber, whence his feeble voice
might at times be heard. Finally she turned him into a
grasshopper.
Memnon was the son of Aurora and Tithonus. He was king of the
AEthiopians, and dwelt in the extreme east, on the shore of
Ocean. He came with his warriors to assist the kindred of his
father in the war of Troy. King Priam received him with great
honours, and listened with admiration to his narrative of the
wonders of the ocean shore.
The very day after his arrival, Memnon, impatient of repose, led
his troops to the field. Antilochus, the brave son of Nestor,
fell by his hand, and the Greeks were put to flight, when
Achilles appeared and restored the battle. A long and doubtful
contest ensued between him and the son of Aurora; at length
victory declared for Achilles, Memnon fell, and the Trojans fled
in dismay.
Aurora (Eos), who from her station in the sky had viewed with
apprehension the danger of her son, when she saw him fall,
directed his brothers, the Winds, to convey his body to the
banks of the river Esepus in Paphlagonia. In the evening Aurora
came, accompanied by the Hours and the Pleiads, and wept and
lamented over her son. Night, in sympathy with her grief, spread
the heaven with clouds; all nature mourned for the offspring of
the Dawn. The AEthiopians raised his tomb on the banks of the
stream in the grove of the Nymphs, and Jupiter caused the sparks
and cinders of his funeral pile to be turned into birds, which,
dividing into two flocks, fought over the pile till they fell
into the flames. Every year at the anniversary of his death they
return and celebrate his obsequies in like manner. Aurora
remains inconsolable for the loss of her son. Her tears still
flow, and may be seen at early morning in the form of dew-drops
on the grass.
Unlike most of the marvels of ancient mythology, there still
exist some memorials of this. On the banks of the river Nile, in
Egypt, are two colossal statues, one of which is said to be the
statue of Memnon. Ancient writers record that when the first
rays of the rising sun fall upon this statue a sound is heard to
issue from it, which they compare to the snapping of a
harp-string. There is some doubt about the identification of the
existing statue with the one described by the ancients, and the
mysterious sounds are still more doubtful. Yet there are not
wanting some modern testimonies to their being still audible. It
has been suggested that sounds produced by confined air making
its escape from crevices or caverns in the rocks may have given
some ground for the story. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, a late
traveller, of the highest authority, examined the statue itself,
and discovered that it was hollow, and that "in the lap of the
statue is a stone, which on being struck emits a metallic sound,
that might still be made use of to deceive a visitor who was
predisposed to believe its powers."
The vocal statue of Memnon is a favourite subject of allusion
with the poets. Darwin, in his "Botanic Garden," says:
"So to the sacred Sun in Memnon's
fane
Spontaneous concords choired the matin strain;
Touched by his orient beam responsive rings
The living lyre and vibrates all its strings;
Accordant aisles the tender tones prolong,
And holy echoes swell the adoring song."
(Book I., 1. 182)
Thomas Bullfinch - 'The Golden Age
of Myth & Legend'
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