Why Hera? Greek goddess Hera: deceit and love
Goddess HERA (JUNO)
Types and attributes of the goddess Hera (Juno). - Goddess of the rainbow Iris. - The myth of the cuckoo of the goddess Hera. - The myth of the punishment of the goddess Hera. - The myth about the seduction of the goddess Hero of Zeus through the belt of Aphrodite. - Peacock - the bird of the goddess Hera: the myth of Io and the hundred-eyed Argus. - The daughters of Hera are the goddesses Hebe and Ilithyia. - A small lesson in the ancient Greek language: cuckoo in ancient Greek - tailbone in English.
Types and attributes of the goddess Hera (Juno)
Goddess Hera(in ancient Greek, or Juno in Latin), sister and wife, is that female type in ancient mythology that corresponds in its qualities and properties to the lord of the sky - the god Zeus (Jupiter).
The goddess Hera-Juno is, first of all, the patroness of marriages, the guardian of the family and family regulations, while the god Zeus-Jupiter is the guardian of public institutions. The ancient Greeks were the first to introduce monogamy (monogamy), while before them polygamy (polygamy) reigned everywhere. Therefore, the goddess Hera, as the patroness of monogamy, is among the Greeks, as it were, the personification of protest against polygamy.
In the poetic works of antiquity, the goddess Hera is represented as having a proud, stubborn and grumpy character; art always gives Hera a strict and majestic beauty. Already in the most ancient images the goddess Hera appears with a veil; At first this veil enveloped her entire figure. The ancient Greek sculptor Phidias in his Parthenon frieze depicted the goddess Hera with her veil thrown back. The main attributes of the goddess Hera are:
- cover,
- diadem,
- peacock,
- cuckoo.
Hera-Juno is always covered with clothing from head to toe, only part of her neck and arms are bare. The goddess Hera is tall, with calm and measured movements; Hera's beauty is stern and majestic. The goddess Hera has luxurious hair and large wide open eyes, why in myths Ancient Greece, in particular in the poems of Homer, Hera was called hairy-eyed(in ancient Greek - βοῶπις), that is, having cow eyes. “The hair-eyed lady Hera,” - this is what Homer says about the wife of Zeus in the Iliad: this is the stable epithet of the goddess in the Homeric epic.
The most remarkable and typical ancient image of the goddess Hera is considered to be the colossal statue of the ancient Greek sculptor Polycletus, sculpted by him for the temple in honor of the goddess Hera in Argos. This is how the Roman poet Martial describes the statue of Hera by Polykleitos: “Polykleitos, this Juno is a miracle of your art, the main basis of your glory - Phidias himself would envy your chisel. Her beauty is so majestic that at the top of Ida would not hesitate to recognize her superiority over all the goddesses, and they would have to admit themselves defeated. Polyclitus, if Jupiter had not loved his Juno, he would have loved yours!” The colossal statue of Juno, now in Rome, is considered the best image of the goddess Hera-Juno surviving to this day.
Rainbow goddess Iris
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Interpreters of the myths of Ancient Greece believed that the goddess Hera personified in the physical order moisture, or rather the humidity of the air, and therefore the goddess Iris, the personification of the rainbow, was considered in ancient myths as her servant. The goddess Iris dresses Hera and prepares her a bath. The main duty of the goddess Iris, according to ancient mythology, is to carry out the instructions of the queen of heaven. The goddess Iris rushes through the air with the speed of a swallow, and the road along which she runs is the arc that a rainbow describes.
In the art of antiquity, Iris is depicted as a winged young girl. Like the messenger of the gods, Iris has wings on her heels and a caduceus (the rod of Hermes) in her hands. Only a few very ancient ancient monuments have preserved images of the goddess Iris.
The myth of the cuckoo goddess Hera
The image of the cuckoo on the top of the scepter of the goddess Hera is explained by the following Greek myth.
Proud Hera for a long time did not agree to give in to Zeus’ requests to become his wife. Then the ruler of the gods, wanting to beg Hera, took the form of a cuckoo, caused a strong storm and, shivering from the cold, all wet, flew to the feet of the goddess, looking for shelter where he could hide.
The compassionate goddess Hera, touched by the unhappy appearance of the bird, picked it up and warmed it on her chest. Then Zeus took on his usual appearance, and Hera, who was probably influenced by such an original declaration of love, became Zeus’s wife.
Since then, as if in memory of this mythological incident, the cuckoo is one of the distinctive features goddess Hera.
The myth of the punishment of the goddess Hera
Despite the fact that, according to ancient mythology, the goddess Hera-Juno is the founder and patroness of marriages and married life, her married life takes place in almost constant disputes and disagreements with Zeus, who has to stop and even punish Hera.
Especially in the Iliad, the first monument of ancient Greek literature, the goddess Hera is given a grumpy, stubborn and obstinate character. Hera is proud of her high virtues and her conjugal rights; she makes demands on Zeus that he cannot and does not want to fulfill. The goddess Hera often contradicts the ruler of the gods - her husband Zeus. Since she cannot achieve anything by force, for the most part the goddess Hera resorts to cunning.
One day, in collaboration with God (Neptune), Hera decided to deprive Zeus of supreme power. They even managed to put Zeus in chains, but Thetis, one of the Nereids, called upon the terrible giant Briareus to help Zeus, the very sight of which forced Hera to abandon her plan. An angry Zeus hung Hera on a golden chain between heaven and earth, hanging a heavy anvil at her feet. Correggio depicted this ancient myth about the punishment of Hera-Juno in one of his paintings, now in Parma.
The myth of the seduction of the goddess Hero of Zeus through the belt of Aphrodite
The ancient Romans called Ilithyia the goddess Lucina and often confused her with Juno, who sometimes bore the same name among the Romans and was considered the goddess of childbirth and the guardian of childhood. A beautiful Roman statue in the Vatican, which survives to this day, depicts Juno-Lucina nursing the god Mars.
ZAUMNIK.RU, Egor A. Polikarpov - scientific editing, scientific proofreading, design, selection of illustrations, additions, explanations, translations from ancient Greek and Latin; all rights reserved.
For the guardian of marriage and the hearth, Hera, there are no competitors in power and authority. Only Hera dares to argue with Zeus the Thunderer, and sometimes even deceive him.
The Greek goddess Hera is distinguished by her noble, majestic beauty. Among the Olympians, she sits in the very center, next to her husband. Its obligatory attribute is like power - a diadem or crown.
Next to the throne of Zeus stands her throne, as if spouses are equal to each other. The Greek goddess Hera, like her husband, rules over thunder and lightning, and she is also subject to storms and fogs.
Patroness of the family
The Greek goddess Hera was the patroness of family and marriage. Her job was to take care of the inviolability of the bonds of marriage, of the connections between spouses, she also sends offspring to the human race and helps women in labor. According to legends, the pomegranate fruit was dedicated to Hera as a symbol of fertility. The Greek goddess Hera was the mistress of the starry sky, and one of her sacred birds, often depicted near her, was a peacock, whose numerous “eyes” on its tail symbolized the sky.
Hera was worshiped as the protector of women. Her cult was popular on mainland Greece, as well as on the islands of Samos and Crete. It is quite possible that the Greek goddess Hera was the first in whose name a covered, enclosed sanctuary was built. Later, the Heraion, one of the largest Greek temples in general, was erected in its place.
Hera is capricious and jealous. Because of this, she constantly has conflicts with her husband. However, she knows how to achieve her goal not only in quarrels and scandals. The beautiful Hera, when other methods do not help, uses her charm. Sometimes she “takes to wear” Aphrodite’s magic belt, and becomes especially irresistible. She appears before the eyes of her husband, and the Thunderer recalls the ancient days of matchmaking, when he tried to achieve the love of the proud goddess, and the night of their sacred marriage. Zeus remembers his irresistible love for his wife, and during his hours of solitude he is unable to refuse her anything.
Cuckoo
Hera was willful and proud. According to , for a long time She did not respond to the courtship and persuasion of Zeus. Finally, the Lord of Olympus could not stand it and resorted to a trick. During a walk, a beautiful motley cuckoo began to follow Hero. The goddess liked her, and she tried to catch her. The bird surprisingly easily fell into her hands, but when Hera pressed the cuckoo to her chest, it suddenly turned into Zeus - now it was not the goddess who was hugging the bird to herself, but Zeus, the beautiful Hera. Finding herself in the arms of the Thunderer, Hera could not refuse. After this, the cuckoo also became one of her sacred symbols and since then her scepter has been adorning her. The marriage of Zeus and Hera was solemnly celebrated by all the gods.
Alas, Hera often has to endure insults from her husband. The Greek goddess Hera guards the bonds of marriage and their inviolability on earth, and on Olympus she notices that her own husband often runs “to the left”, to mortal women. Hera is angry, terribly offended by her husband, but she can’t do anything about it. All that remains for the goddess to be content with is revenge on those women whom her loving husband has bestowed with his favor.
Conspiracy and Retribution
One day even Hera’s endless patience came to an end. She persuaded the other gods of Olympus to go against their aegis-powerful husband, everyone promised her support. They crept up to the sleeping Thunderer and tied him up. Despite all his power, Zeus could not break the shackles. Hera was triumphant. But, as they say, heavy footsteps were heard, and Olympus shuddered when a huge hundred-armed monster stepped on it - the giant Briareus, sent by the goddess Thetis. He easily freed Briareus Zeus from his chains. And for Hera, the time has come for reckoning.
Angry Jupiter was merciless! He hung his wife on golden chains between heaven and earth, and tied heavy copper anvils to her feet. No one dared to stand up for the queen of heaven. Except for Hephaestus, for which he was thrown to the ground by an enraged Zeus. Only then did Hera free herself from the chains, when she swore by the waters of the Styx - the river of the dead - that she would never again encroach on the power of her husband. She kept her word, but this did not stop her from reproaching her husband for his countless betrayals.
Hera, in Greek mythology queen of the gods, goddess of air, patroness of family and marriage. Hera, the eldest daughter of Kronos and Rhea, raised in the house of Oceanus and Tethys, is the sister and wife of Zeus, with whom she, according to Samian legend, lived in a secret marriage for 300 years until he openly declared her his wife and queen of the gods. Zeus honors her highly and communicates his plans to her, although he keeps her on occasion within the limits of her subordinate position.
Hera, mother of Ares, Hebe, Hephaestus, Ilithyia. He is distinguished by his power, cruelty and jealous disposition. Especially in the Iliad, Hera shows grumpiness, stubbornness and jealousy - character traits that passed into the Iliad, probably from the most ancient songs glorifying Hercules. Hera hates and persecutes Hercules, as well as all the favorites and children of Zeus from other goddesses, nymphs and mortal women.
When Hercules was returning by ship from Troy, she, with the help of the god of sleep Hypnos, put Zeus to sleep and, through the storm she raised, almost killed the hero. As punishment, he tied the insidious goddess to the ether with strong golden chains and hung two heavy anvils at her feet. But this does not prevent the goddess from constantly resorting to cunning when she needs to achieve something from Zeus, against whom she cannot do anything by force.
In the struggle for Ilion, she patronizes her beloved Achaeans; the Achaean cities of Argos, Mycenae, Sparta are her favorite places; She hates the Trojans for the trial of Paris. The marriage of Hera with Zeus, which initially had a spontaneous meaning - a connection between heaven and earth, then receives a relation to the civil institution of marriage. As the only legal wife on Olympus, Hera is the patroness of marriage and childbirth. A pomegranate apple, a symbol of marital love, and a cuckoo, the messenger of spring, the season of love, were dedicated to her. In addition, the peacock and crow were considered her birds.
"Zeus and Hera", cameo, 1st century.
The chief place of her cult was Argos, where stood her colossal statue, made of gold and ivory by Polycletus, and where the so-called Heraea were celebrated in her honor every five years. In addition to Argos, Hera was also honored in Mycenae, Corinth, Sparta, Samos, Plataea, Sikyon and other cities.
Art represents Hera as tall, slender woman, with majestic posture, mature beauty, a rounded face bearing an important expression, a beautiful forehead, thick hair, large, strongly open “ox” eyes. The most remarkable image of her was the above-mentioned statue of Polykleitos in Argos: here Hera sat on a throne with a crown on her head, with a pomegranate apple in one hand, with a scepter in the other; at the top of the scepter is a cuckoo. On top of the long chiton, which left only the neck and arms uncovered, there is a himation thrown around the waist.
In Roman mythology, Hera corresponds to Juno.
Thunderer, the main god of Olympus. She is usually depicted with a scepter, diadem, cow or peacock. She brought Zeus many children, including, although Zeus also loved to take a walk on the side. She punished her rivals and their children, and even Zeus was sometimes afraid of her anger. She represents the ideal of motherhood, being beautiful, statuesque and very smart.
Majestic, regal, beautiful Hera was the goddess of marriage. Her name is believed to mean "Great Lady" female uniform Greek word hero. Greek poets, when addressing her, called her “hair-eyed” - a compliment to her huge and beautiful eyes. Her symbols were the cow, Milky Way, a lily and a peacock with an iridescent bushy tail, whose eyes symbolized the vigilance of Hera. The sacred cow has been an image that has long been associated with the Great Mother - the nurse who provides food for everyone. And the Milky Way - our galaxy (from the Greek word gala, "mother's milk") - reflects the belief, more ancient than the cult of the Olympians, that the Milky Way came from the breasts of the Great Goddess - the Queen of Heaven. This then became part of Hera's mythology: when milk spurted from her breasts, the Milky Way was formed. Drops of it that fell to the ground became lilies - flowers that symbolized another pre-Hellenic belief in the self-fertilizing power of the female genital organs. The symbols of Hera (and her conflicts with Zeus) reflect the power she once held as the Great Goddess, whose cult predated Zeus. In Greek mythology, Hera had two opposing aspects: she was solemnly worshiped in ritual as a powerful goddess of marriage, and at the same time she was denigrated by Homer as a vindictive, contentious, jealous and quarrelsome woman.
In general, among those who read Homer (regardless of which side they were on - the Aecheans or the Trojans), Hera, of all the goddesses, evokes the most unpleasant feelings. It can safely be called one of the main reasons for the war - a means of revenge for an insulted and angry woman. During it, Hera incited Zeus and other gods in every possible way, making the war more and more unfair (on the side of the Greeks, as we remember, there was an advantage both in terms of heroes and gods who sympathized and directly helped the Danaans).
Among the Romans, Hera was known as Juno, and it is interesting that she retained all the same qualities (remember how Juno hated Aeneas, the hero who fled from Troy after her death; however, there was also an elemental jealousy of Venus, whose son Aeneas was mixed in) ).
Genealogy of the goddess Hera
Hera Volookaya is the child of Rhea and Kronos. She was swallowed by her father shortly after birth, as were her four siblings. When she was freed from her captivity, she was already a young girl who was given to the care of her mother's parents, two nature deities, Ocean and Typheis, who raised her at the end of the world, becoming her wonderful and loving parents.
Hera grew up to be a charming goddess. She attracted the attention of Zeus, who by that time had defeated Kronos and the Titans and became supreme god Olympus. (It doesn’t matter that he was her brother - the Olympians have their own own rules or the absence of them when it comes to close relationships.) To achieve intimacy with an innocent girl, Zeus turned himself into a small bird trembling from the cold, over which Hera bent. To warm the frozen creature, Hera placed it on her chest. Then Zeus threw off the guise of a bird, returned to his male form and tried to take possession of her by force. His efforts were unsuccessful. She resisted his amorous advances until he promised to marry her.
The honeymoon, as the myth goes, lasted three hundred years.
When the honeymoon is over, it is truly over. Zeus returned to his promiscuous premarital lifestyle (he had six wives* and many offspring before he married Hera). Zeus cheated on her again and again, causing vengeful jealousy in the deceived Hera. Hera's rage was directed not at her unfaithful husband, but at the "other woman" (who was most often seduced, raped or deceived by Zeus), at children conceived by Zeus, or at innocent bystanders.
