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Thanatos

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Hesiod, Theogony 758 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :
“Nyx (Night) carries Hypnos in her arms, and he is Thanatos’ (Death’s) brother . . . And there [near the house of Nyx in the underworld] the children of gloomy Nyx have their houses. These are Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death), dread divinities. Never upon them does Helios, the shining sun, cast the light of his eye-beams, neither when he goes up the sky nor comes down from it. One of these [Hypnos], across the earth and the wide sea-ridges, goes his way quietly back and forth, and is kind to mortals, but the heart of the other one [Thanatos] is iron, and brazen feelings without pity are inside his breast.”

Where Haides is the Lord of the Death, Thanatos is the God or Daimon of Death itself. Though the occasional sacrifice was offered to Thanatos in specific, He was given no temples or public altars and shrines.

The differences between Theoi and Daimons in ancient Hellas seems a bit blurrier than some people believe, and one region’s Theos would be another’s Daimon, or even one person’s Theos would be…, and so on. This is why I don’t whinge about how the word “polytheism” somehow implies a lack of acknowledgement and/or honour given to spirits (and no, this is not a strawman, I’ve seen a few people claim this), and why, most importantly, I don’t describe my beliefs as “both polytheistic and animistic”, because traditional polytheism tends to imply a degree of belief in peripheral daimones. In Hesiod’s Theogony, the birth of Thanatos seems to imply a Daimonhood, but I don’t really have a concrete opinion of one way or the other in regards to Thanatos.

Basically, Thanatos’ existence as a separate entity from Haides is why I specifically describe Haides as “Lord of the Dead”, and ancient thought does seem to have a similar separation of Haides from being “God of Death” and instead describes Him as “God of the Underworld” or “God of the Dead”. Where Haides governs the dead, Thanatos delivers death. Thanatos also, even per Hesiod, seems to exist outside of Haides’ governance, and acts outside of Haides’ order.

Notes on Hekate of Boeotian mythos

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In Thebes, there was a woman named Galinthias. She was a midwife who delivered Herakles from the womb of Alkmene, her childhood friend. Alkmene’s pregnancy offended Hera, and cursed the young woman’s birth pains to never cease. Galinthias, worried her friend would be driven mad, first appealed to Hekate, who concluded that the curse was placed by another Deathless One, and She could not remove those, but perhaps appealing to the right Deity would earn the sympathies of the one Who could. Deciding No-One higher up than the Moirai, for even the other Theoi were bound to Their tapestry, Galinthias then appealed to the Moirai, Who Themselves were becoming exhaused by the sound of the laborous woman’s screaming, and removed the curse in order to hear Themselves think.

When Hera realised Alkemene had given birth to a son, Herakles, She spoke up that Her own curse had become removed because a silly girl took advantage of the Moirai in Their confusion. The Moirai concluded that Hera was technmically correct (the best kind of correct) and it was decided that Galinthias’ fate was to be transformed into a ferret, a creature that looks most absurd in mating and birth labour. Hekate, though, was sympathetic to Galinthias and the girl’s desires to remove Hera’s curse, and did not fault the girl for failing to discover that it was Hera who cast the curse, and therefore only Hera who could be appealed to lift it. Out of kindness, Hekate made the ferret one of Her sacred workers on Gaia’s face, and in Thebes, the animal was held in esteem as the nurse of Herakles, their native Heros.

By Hesiod’s account, Ouranos and Gaia begat Koios (the Titan Theos of the North, also “the Inquirer”) and Phoibê (the “Bright”, the Titan Theon of prophecy); Koios and Phoibê begat Perses (the Destroyer) and Asteria, the Titan Theon of the Stars, astrology, and necromancy. It is Perses and Asteria Who are the parents of Hekate.

As per the playwright Aeschylus, Phoibê is regarded as the previous oracular deity of Delphi, later succeeding Her reign and bestowing Delphi as a gift to Apollon, Her grandson via Leto. Phoibê is also associated with the moon. Asteria, after the Titan war, was pursued by Zeus, but She did not want Him, and so first transformed to a quail, then lept into the sea, swam out, and became the island of Delos, where Apollon was born.

It is through Asteria that Hekate inherited the gift of necromancy and oracles from the dead. Some ancients also may have believed that Asteria was also worshipped as a goddess of prophetic dreams.

Though Hesiod names the mother of Kirke as Perseis (Destroyer) and Her father as Helios; Diodoros Siculus names Kirke’s parentage as that of Hekate and Aeëtes. Some also regard Perseis as an epithet of Hekate, though it seems Hesiod gives Perseis a genealogy distinct from Hekate, and Perseis’ mother is Tethys (“Nurse”) and Okeanos. It’s therefore easy to see Perseis and Hekate as one-in-the-same, as these themes are recurring and may be considered too lofty for an Okeanid. Light bearing. Destroyer. Nurse. Sight.

If one is to syncretise Kirke then as a daughter of Hekate Perseis, this undoubted maintains Hekate’s associations with practising witchcraft rather than merely casting spells and curses Herself for the mortals who supplicate Her.

By Hesiod, Kirke is the mother of Odysseus’ immortal son Latinus, father/ruler of the Tyrsenoi, who have since been identified with the Etruscans, and also Telegonos, Whose story is the subject of the now-lost Telegony, which only exists in summary.

The Scholia of Pindar seem to identify Hekate and Perseis with the name Khariklo (“Graceful Spinner”) who is identified in these notes as the daughter of Perses and Okeanos — and also a daughter of Apollon. Even without meditating on this, this gives the appearance of further linking Hekate and Apollon.

These notes also revive previous themes, as Khariklo is identified as the wife of the Centaros Kheiron, the mentor of a young Dionysos and also Asklepios.

The Story of Hesiod

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Once upon a time, in ancient Boeotia, there was a man named Hesiod. He lived with his father in the town of Askra, which Hesiod hated. Originally, Hesiod’s father was from Cyme, a city in Aeolis once claimed to be Aeolis’ largest and most important city — so I can see why Hesiod hated it in Askra, which was small, rural, and largely insignificant. In fact, there was very little that Hesiod didn’t hate. He hated Askra. He hated his brother. He hated women — and just wasn’t too fond of people, as a general rule, as well.

Hesiod did, though, seem to get enjoyment in some form from the things most people disliked, if only because it gave him a smug sense of superiority. He liked work, especially hard manual labour. Actually, I think that was about it. Then one day, he realised that, even more than work, he loved the Theoi. One day, Hesiod’s up on Mount Helikon, tending sheep and hating everything, and a Moisa visited him, as he was out being perfectly happy, with his own little cloud of hateful feelings hoovering above him (as one does, when one’s first, middle, last, or only name is Hesiod), and the Goddess whispered beautiful metres into his ear. “Could it be?” He thought. “Is there truly something more wonderful in life than misery?”

“Indeed,” said the Moisa with a nod, before commanding Hesiod to write it all down.

First Hesiod wrote the Theogony, a grand epic poem of no fewer than 1022 lines, detailing the geneology of the Theoi and the universe They brought together — from Everything’s humble origins as little more than a speck within the great vast tendrils of Khaos’ formless tresses (yes, She is like a Lovecraftian Old One) to the woman Pandora. Pandora was likely inspired by Hesiod’s now long-forgotten ex-wife, Synthykhe1 — she was one of those educated bitches from Thespiai and was the youngest of her family, with three other sisters, so her dowry was, like, two chickens and a used featherbed, and she didn’t dig Askra too well, so she took off one day when Hesiod and his brother were being weiners at each-other, leaving ol’ Hesiod even more broken and joyless than he was before — and that’s a mighty accomplishment. Now she’s a famous hetaera, and making fat cash. Basically, all those “educated Thespian bitches” stereotypes that Hesiod could think of, he put into Pandora so that he could use her as a literary device to support his notion that women can’t be trusted. Or something. Hesiod’s got issues.

Hesiod’s also got family problems. After his father died, he and his brother ended up in a dispute over the estate, and so Hesiod put a big chunk of that (also thinly-veiled) into one of the longest asides ever in his next major poem, Works & Days, and tried to make it some kind of morality lesson. On the good side, we all can rest easy now knowing that whatever family issues we’ve got, people won’t be reading our brother’s side of things for the next 2800 years. Serious, man: Hesiod’s got subscriptions.

He also wrote Ehoiai, or The Catalogue of Women, another geneology — but that only survives in fragments. Another complete work often ascribed to Hesiod is Shield of Herakles, but modern scholars dispute its authorship, some believing it’s about two centuries too new, and too imitative of Homer’s style. Still, some disagree with this modern notion and continue to attribute this one to Hesiod, even though it isn’t that good, when compared to the other two that survive intact.

Some people then claim that Hesiod and Homer competed in a poetry contest, but aside from the fact that Homeric Greek is an Aeolian dialect, there really isn’t much to support that, aside from local tradition, which had a bronze tripod at the shrine to the Moisai at Mt. Helikon that was claimed to have been won by Hesiod in the contest — local traditions also claimed dinosaur bones as those of griffons and demigods, so clearly oral traditions are no more reliable than journalism. Still, it’s possible.

In Hesiod’s later life, we don’t know much from him, but we have a few accounts claiming he was murdered for adultery. I think it was actually cos people finally got tired of listening to how much he hates everything. Hesiod’s got issues, and some people are just prone to snapping like that, put in such close proximity to that kinda pressure. Like, one day, Hesiod’s neighbour is out doing his thing, minding his own business, and then here comes Hesiod, with his moralising, and his prizes, and going on about the economy like he did — and his neighbour knows it’s never gonna end because why? Because Hesiod’s got issues. It was bound to happen.

Then legend has it that Hesiod’s body was cast into the sea and returned to the shores by dolphins (probably after the dolphins did unspeakable things to his corpse — a dolphin will totally perv on you, if you let him, sometimes even if you don’t). Then, his body was put upon a pyre and his ashes entombed with honour at Askra, even though he clearly hated the place, but I guess they figure no better-fitting sentence for being a total wenus than to give him a place of honour in the place he despised most of all. Either way, the hamlet loved him, and so they interred his ashes with honour. Then the Thespians showed up some time later, probably cos of a war or maybe just because Thespiai is wicked-awesome, and the Askrans moved to Orchomenus on the advice of an oracle, and took Hesiod’s ashes with them, and interred them in the town’s agora and was honoured as a heros of Orchomenus’ town hearth, as well. This is Hesiod’s last known resting spot, but clearly the spot isn’t there anymore —thanks, Christians2— and thus ends the story of Hesiod, The Heros Who Hated Everything (and Had to Tell the World About It).

1: I may have just made her up.
2: most likely.

30 Day Paganism Meme: Day 13 ~ Pantheon – Adonis & the Flower Boys

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I love Adonis.

Though there’s Peanut Gallery commentary decrying any worship of Him and Kybele in a Hellenic context as “un-Hellenic”, it’s pretty obvious that Their cults had been thoroughly Hellenised by the time of Hesiod (if you haven’t seen people making such ridiculous claims, consider yourself lucky; in fact, I consider myself a lesser person for even mentioning it). I find myself especially fascinated with Ptolemy Hephaestion frequently linking His love as shared with Aphrodite and Apollon, which may seem unusual to those who are only familiar with the versions of Aponis’ mythos that link Him with Aphrodite and Persephone.

“Adonis, having become androgynous, behaved as a man for Aphrodite and as a woman for Apollon.” – Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History Bk5 (as summarized in Photius, Myriobiblon 190)

There’s a fragment from Hesiod that describes Adonis as the son of Phoenix (son of Amyntor), and most primary sources name His mother as Smyrrhna, who had a metamorphosis into the tree from which myrrh resin is harvested.

In myth and in cult, there are many easy comparisons to Dionysos — from a position in life-death-rebirth cults, his apparent links to sexuality, vegetation, and Khthonic deities (especially Persephone), academic and ancient syncretic likening to Osiris, and the public face of His cult was decidedly female (though this is where things begin to differ — male Dionysians existed in ancient times as much, if not more, than in modern — male Adonians, at least in the ancient Hellenic world [I haven't a clue about the Phonecian or Syrian world where it's clear His cult originated], seem apparently non-existent and, even in modern times, seem few, at best). But at least in the Hellenic world, it’s very clear that they are not the same — in some mythology, Aphrodite bore Adonis a daughter, Beroe, who is one beloved of Dionysos.

His cult likely came into the Hellenic mainlaind through Kypris, the birthplace and local name for Aphrodite, and by about the 6th Century BCE, was already well-known in Hellas. This is not insignificant: This not only cements a relationship with Aphrodite’s cult, it also really shows the aforementioned Peanut Gallery where to stick it — MWAHAHAHAHA!!! :-D

Seriously, folks, at this point in time, I think it’s safe to admit that the Adonis cult was thoroughly Hellenised. The academia really try to “un-Hellenise” Adonis, and indeed, many of these arguments seem to make sense, until you get into several glaringly apparent facts:

1) Adonis is a central part of Aphrodite’s Hellenic mythology — and I word it this way because a ssignificant amount of Her mythology and cult is clearly “imported”, comparative mythologises easily link Aphrodite to nearly every Near Eastern Goddess from the Babylonian Ishtar to the Zoroastrian Anahita. If one is going to conclude that Hellenic polytheists should worship only Hellenic deities, then there is an awful lot of archaeology that could easily reason that Aphrodite’s cult is not “indigenous” to Hellas any more than that of Adonis’.

2) It’s absolutely likely that Adonis’ cult was “imported” at the same time as Aphrodite — and even the much-touted Walter Burkert, apparently Greek Religion is a veritable gospel to some people, sure seems to agree with this idea:

The cult of the dying god Adonis is already found to be fully developed in Sappho’s circle of young girls around 600 [BCE]; indeed, one might ask whether Adonis had not from the very beginning come to Greece along with Aphrodite. For the Greeks it was well-known that he was an immigrant from the Semetic world, and his origins were traced to Byblos and Cyprus. His name is clearly the Semetic title adon, Lord. For alll that, there is in Semetic tradition no known cult connected with this title which corresponds exactly to the Greek cult, to say nothing of a counterpart to the Greek Adonis myth. (pp176-177)

Indeed, investigating Near Eastern mythology, the closest deity with a cult matching the Adonis cult is we see named is “Tammuz”, not Adonis. Perhaps “Adonis”, in this instance, is merely a loan-word made name?

3) The name Adonis, while clearly being the sticking point for identifying His cult as “foreign”, as a language arts major I can clearly see as a mere convention on the same level as “Kytheria” or “Kypris” as a name for Aphrodite — and one clearly accepted as “Greek enough” for many scholars for centuries — indeed, Thomas Taylor takes “Kypris = Aphrodite (= Venus)” for granted in translating the Orphic hymns — and indeed, Cyprus was Hittite land until fairly late Bronze Age; which would be roughly the period estimated for the import of Aphrodite and Adonis cults. Indeed, in most mythological traditions, Cyprus is also the birthplace of Adonis, not merely His cult — so it obviously flabbergasts that somehow this can make Aphrodite “Hellenic enough”, but not Adonis.

One can clearly only begin to imagine the whys and such for the reluctance to accept Adonis cult as “Hellenic enough”, when all evidence clearly shows that it is so. One idea may simply revert to etymology — though clearly acceptable early on in the Hellenisation of Adonis cult practise, later it became a sticking point due to what would now be called racism or nationalism — kinda the same logic “birthers” use to accuse President Barak Obama of being born well-outside U$ soils, in spite of all clear evidence to the contrary. Another idea being that since His cult, in ancient times, was dominated by women to the point of apparently becoming female-only kept the cult well outside the “mainstream” of the civic religion, and so, in a sense, “foreign” to ancient writers, who tended to be men — it could therefore arguably be sexism that kept the Adonis cult regarded as “foreign”; if one considers that many often wrote of the Adonis cult and its symbols with a hint of derision (it’s arguable that the old idea of “green leafy salad = women’s food” is an idea started in ancient Hellas — not only is lettuce sacred to Adonis, but one writer once joked [or perhaps seriously believed] that lettuce causes male sterility), this hypothesis makes a lot of sense on paper.

But perhaps I digress….

I was initially attracted to Adonis as an extension of the “flower boys” — His floral associations include roses (in some versions of the mythos), windflower / anemone poppies, and the “adonis” genus of flowering plant. I make no secret of my veneration of Narkissos as a Daimone and Hyakinthos as hemitheos. Even Krokos, Paeon, and Orchis have found their ways into the mythos I hold dear. The “flower boy” myths intrigue me on many levels: For starters, think about what a flower is — not what it represents in this culture, but what it is. It’s a part of certain plants, but which part? The genitals. In a certain light, it can seem kind of perverse how much cut flowers —severed plant genitals— play a part in (especially heterosexual) romance, courtship, and marriage. The boy gives the girl a cluster of severed, essentially hermaphroditic genitals to show he likes her. A few centuries ago, especially the middle classes, the boy’s visit would then only really last as long as it took for girl to pluck the protective petals from around the reproductive centre. Near the end of the wedding ritual, where people especially like to be surrounded by these hermaphroditic plant parts, the bride throws another bushel of genitals on her friends, with the hope that the cycle will start anew.

And if that’s not enough for you to handle? In many flowers, it’s the especially phallic-looking bit in the centre that’s the “female” part of this hermaphrodite.

It’s clear that Western culture is seriously obsessed with sex and sex organs — even when it tries to pretend it’s not, it’s filling children, especially girls, with an onslaught of symbols of fertility and virility and Martha Stewart is joyfully arranging severed genitals in various vases, often with the especially phallic lady-bits, right there on daytime telly (that woman seriously seems to love her lilies and callas — which aren’t lilies, they’re arums, and their “male bits” are typically attached to the “female bit” — now THINK ABOUT THAT).

I find it hard to get close to Aphrodite. Not for lack of trying, mind, but perhaps she senses something about me (In Real Life™, I tend to be generally more comfortable getting emotionally close with men, while women I tend to befriend more casually — and the few exceptions to this kind of prove the rule, in their own unique ways), and either decides to maintain that distance, or simply appoints any and all contact to be through one of “Her Boys”: Either Eros, Whom I’ve already become especially close to, or Adonis, another Flower Boy for my bouquet.

Narkissos, I consider especially precious. My own views of His mythology apparently differ from the mainstream, and the versions of His mythos I hold most dear (and indeed, there are dozens of ancient re-tellings and re-imaginings — the Battlestar Galactica franchise has had fewer re-interpretations by a wide margin) seem rather obscure, even if they’re versions that still seem to maintain the dominant trappings of the popular versions. To me, He is a holy daimon: A spirit of self-love, and a protector of those unloved. His namesake flower is sacred to Him, as are mirrors and reflecting pools; the species narcissus poeticus is especially sacred, as this is the exact flower He gave form to. He comes to you in a form reminiscent of you see yourself, perhaps a daimon of the Ego Ideal. He is the son of a nymphe and river god of Thespiae. His spurned lover, Ameinias, became anise; you can help to heal the tears Narkissos shed for both His own cruelty and for Ameinias with an offering of anise. Also, a bit of anise in a coffee for a reading may shed light on who loves you. Popularly, at least historically, He seems to have an especial link with gay man, and “narcissism” was initially used as a term for the “sexual perversion” of male-male love.

Hyakinthos’ flower, contrary to modern assumptions, is the delphinium larkspur. He is the son of the Moisa Goddess Kleio and Magnes’ son Pieros (Magnes being the first, now legendary, king of Magnesia, and a son of Zeus), and in some mythological traditions, He is either brother or cousin to Daphne — and perhaps the common-enough urge to link their myths is part of the collective consciousness trying to remind people of this (presumably?) once-ancient connection. By Spartan tradition, Hyakinthos is identified with the Thessalian Hymenaios, the God of marriage and the wedding bed, carrying associations with virginity, True Love, and legitimate partnership — again, I have to voice flabergastion that at the fact that so many modern Hellenic polytheists insist that only heterosexual partnerships have a right to spiritual or ritual legitimacy. Did Apollon not love Hyakinthos in the mythos? Is a god’s love not legitimate? Is the love felt by a mortal somehow unture? (If so, then logically, no marriage with a base of love, which is indeed what the overwhelming majority of Western marriages are, can possibly be ritually legitimate within Hellenismos — and I seriously doubt that very many people would want to get behind a fringe religion with self-proclaimed “authorities” who endorse a return to strictly-arranged het marriages based in social-climbing and dowries.) Or would people rather wax philosophical about “symbolism” and “metaphor” in myth rather than accept that the best symbol of a thing is the thing itself — and the mythos she the thing itself as a deep love and bond that was met with a tragic end. Though mortals may be imperfect, even flawed things can be true, legitimate — death is the greatest, most glaring flaw that mortals have, when compared to the Theoi, but our deaths are overwhelmingly true, a truth that is glaringly obvious.

And again, we come back to blues — immortal blues for Love Himself. From “…something borrowed, and something blue,” to “L’amour est Bleu” (perhaps is is not insignificant that this song rose to fame via the Hellenic singer Vicky Leandros? LOL). The first I saw Hyakinthos, I knew the Spartans were onto something with their associations with Hymenaios, for the first time I saw Hyacinth (in a dream, mind), He was at a small pool or spring, sitting on a rock at the centre of a thick round of His flower, peacock feathers tied into His hair (giving allusions to Hera, a Goddess whose domains include marriage), and Apollon identifying this breath-taking youth as His beloved Hyakinthos, who He “fought the West Wind for, and won”. Their love, as I see it, is a wedded one that is renewed annually with Hyakinthos’ death and rebirth. He is therefore arguably, too, an Erote of Love Renewed, of Tragic Love, and a god of rebirth from tragedy.

Because of my interest in Boeotian traditions, especially of Thespiae and the surrounding area, I often revert back to Hesiod. Hesiod names a beautiful Thessalian boy beloved of Apollon, Hymenaios — or at least this is the Evlyn-White translation of the relevant fragment. The pseudo-Apollodoros notes a Thessalian Hyakinthos was seduced by Apollon away from Philammon, and that this Thessalian youth was accidentally slain by discus. Clearly this mythology is an example of one-in-the-same, simply with different names. At this point, I’m convinced, and urge: Whether you call Him Hyakinthos or Hymenaios, call on Him to bless the bond of love.

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30-Day Paganism Meme: Day 2, Beliefs – Cosmology

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From the World English Dictionary:

cosmology (kɒzˈmɒlədʒɪ) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]

—n
1. the philosophical study of the origin and nature of the universe
2. the branch of astronomy concerned with the evolution and structure of the universe
3. a particular account of the origin or structure of the universe: Ptolemaic cosmology

So, because I’m not a astro-physicist, I’m mainly going to concern myself with Def. 1 & Def. 3. I’m also going to state outright that this is my own personal interpretation, based largely on Hesiod, but other bits are taken from other places (some of which originally started as “Unverified Personal Gnosis”, but later elevated to “Confirmed Personal Gnosis” when I stumbled upon primary sources that described it).

…

First there was Khaos, void, absense of being. Some think She was literally nothing, a cosmic blank slate that anything could spontaneously generate itself in, but that makes no sense, because everything comes from something — I think She looked a little bit more like a Shoggoth, with Everything inside of Her, everything that was to come immediately after Her, and everything that wouldn’t happen for millions of years, like you and I, we were all just little randon strands of DNA floating about within her, waiting to happen — even, and including Eros and the Moirai, for nothing seems more chaotic than Love and Fate.

Now Khaos, like most feminine beings, soon found Herself lonely, as She was all that existed, but She also knew that She had this great wealth of everything in the universe within Her, even all that is still unknown to us mortals. She had but only one thing to do to relieve Her loneliness: Unleash the universe; and She took this task with great joy when it occurred to Her that She was not only without distinguishable form, but also Timeless and Eternal — unleashing the universe wouldn’t destroy Her, but it would simply let it all grow and evolve and enjoy Her gift of the Universe with Her. It was then that She evolved into Kosmos, for everything that was once one with Her formless form now was one in its own right, even if most of it had aeons to go to find its form.

The first to form from the gift of Khaos were Nyx and Erebos (Night & Darkness), the former female, the latter male, though otherwise identical, and within Nyx was an egg, and with the companionship She had from Erebos, and from the others who soon arose from Khaos’ gift —Gaia, Tartaros, The Moirai— the egg was born, and quickly broke open, and from it, full-formed, came Eros, who took His shell, intending to make a great gift from its pieces.

With Eros in Their presence now, Nyx and Erebos saw each-other as beautiful, and soon used what was in Them to create Hemara and Aither (Day & Light), and soon followed Eris, Nemesis, Moros, the Keres, Thanatos and His twin Hypnos, The Oneroi, and others, for the Moirai had already started Their work, which neither mortal nor immortal can ever go against, and the time for joys to come from darkness is always fleeting. From Gaia came Ouranos, who She created to be Her mate, and the two soon bore the Titan Gods and Goddesses, the Kyklopes, and the Hekatonkheires (storm giants). The Titans loved Their mother, and so They gave Her great things: Helios gave Her the Sun, so that Hemara would visit all of Her surfaces, and Selene gave Her the Moon, so that Nyx would visit the alternating surfaces.

The thing with the Titans and Olympians, you probably already know, and so the scaly things came first, and as the furry things were being discussed, Eros took His old shell pieces and gave Gaia the gift of the feathery things, because now that there were so many deathless ones, His heart was filled with joy, and so He invented song, even though later, the Moirai would decide that it was Apollon and the Mousai who would perfect song through Man.

When Aphrodite was born of the blood and semen Khronos cut from Ouranos’ groin, Eros and Himeros were there to receive Her.

…and there’s about where I’m brain-farting on all else, and it’s starting to turn more into theogeny than cosmology.

To wrap up, we’re in the Hesiodic Bronze Age, if I’m to be believed; and maybe I shouldn’t be believed, cos I got distracted yesterday and put off doing this today until I was high on malnourishment? Feel free to ask me anything that seems important to you that isn’t addressed cos I trailed off there.

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Phanes / Eros Protogenos vs. Eros Ouranios

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Phanes is an interesting figure in Hellenic mythology, and I say this because He seems to exist solely to the Orphic cosmology, while pan-Hellenic interpretatio (for lack of a better term) suggests that “Phanes” is simply the Orphic name for the deity Whom Theoi.com recognises as Eros Protogenos or “Elder Eros” while defining Eros as Son of Aphrodite or “Younger Eros” as a different Deity. Not being “Orphic” in my beliefs or practises, I don’t use the name “Phanes” in my worship — in fact, the Orphic ideal of asceticism, abstinence (basically), seems diametrically opposed to my own philosophical views that indulgence, in certain degrees of moderation, bring us not only the joys of this life (both personal and interpersonal) but aid us to the joys of the next life and, possibly, can bring us closer to certain understandings of the Theoi and, thus, the Universe. (Needless to say, I don’t get on, philosophically, very well with Neo-Orphics and other ascetic-minded Hellenistai, but such is life.)

Of course, my own gnosis-driven (and at least some of which is verified, interestingly, via Aristophanes) theology isn’t wholly Hesiodic, as it sometimes “feels” (to me). I believe that, through Khaos, Nyx (Night) and Erebos (Darkness) simply came into existence, and this makes Them equals, though Nyx had the slight advantage of being pregnant at the time she sprang, adult and fully-formed, into existence. As much as I like the imagery of the “world egg”, I don’t think it’s really for me to say if this is, in fact, how Eros was born, but I like the imagery because it sort of detaches Him from the essential “darkness” of Nyx. I do believe that, however He was born, He sprang fully-formed as an eternal Ephebos, young man in ancient Greek, and that this is important in how He’s depicted, because it’s significant in that it is during the prime of our youths, aged approximately 16-30, when we are at our most passionate and most driven to create with full force. Now, I say “the darkness of Nyx because that is what Night before Day, Stars, or Moonlight basically was — it was the presence of Eros that inspired Nyx and Erebos to see not only the beauty in each-other, but inspired Them toward passion, and to makes more beautiful beings, each with Their own place. First were created of these combined Dark forces were The Moirai (Fates), Whom I believe number more than simply three (more on this at a later date), and who basically assign lots and places to both Theoi and Man alike. Then the celestial bodies, Hemara (Day), Aether (Light), and from those two were born Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon), the Astaera (Stars), Eos (Dawn), and Gaia (Earth); and these Protogenoi gave Nyx and Erebos (Night and Darkness) significance, for now with Beings that counter Them in force and domain, the place of Nyx and Erebos now has meaning.

How does this figure in with “Younger Eros”?

Well, if blogging has taught me nothing else, it’s that I’m prone to going off on tangents….

So, as per Hesiod, in Theogeny, it’s depicted that when Aphrodite sprang from the foam created in the sea by the blood and seed from the loins of Ouranos, that She was joined shortly thereafter by Eros and Himeros. As sourced on theoi.com, it is stated:

[link]
Hesiod, Theogony 176 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or 7th B.C.) :
“Eros (Love), and comely Himeros (Desire) followed her [Aphrodite] at her birth at the first and as she went into the assembly of the gods.”
[Hesiod may be suggesting that Eros and Aphrodite were born of Aphrodite at her birth. Indeed, according to Sappho, Ouranos was the father of Eros by Aphrodite, which suggests she was imagined born pregnant with the god. Nonnus says this explicitly.]

This is one of those areas where translations of Hesiod differ, even if the “suggestion” that some readers see is one that seems corroborated by other sources. In the Second Edition (1983, 2004) translation of Hesiod: Theogeny, Works & Days, Shield by Apostolos N. Athanassakis (a chairholder in Hellenic Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara) translates things differently from the manner afforded by H.G. Evelyn-White (a 1914 translation) in a manner that I feel can be telling:

[line 195]… Both gods and men
call her Aphrodite, foam-born goddess, and fair-wreathed Kythereia;
Aphrodite because she grew out of aphros, foam, that is,
and Kythereia because she touched land at Kythera.
She is called Kyprogenes, because she was born
[line 200]in sea-grit Cyprus, and Philommedes, fond of a man’s genitals,
because to them she owed her birth. Fair Himeros and Eros
became her companions when she was born and when she joined the gods.

I find this “telling” because in Evelyn-White’s translation, he says that Eros and Himereos followed Aphrodite, which definitely could imply parentage to one who has only read that translation. Athanassakis, on the other hand, simply states that They became Her companions, without any implication of parentage.

Of course, it can also be “telling” that the Athanassakis translation is the first translation of Theogeny that I ever read.

Regardless, I do find the celebration of the Athanassakis translations of Hesiod and the Orphic hymns by both scholars of Hellenic studies and Hellenic polytheists alike to be the most significant aspect in determining if the Hellenic pantheon really does have Two Eros. I have concluded that there are not; where Himeros came from matters less to me than the fact that He simply exists, and that, like Aphrodite and Eros, He presides over another aspect of Love and its creative force. Though my cultus is paid more-directly to Eros than to Aphrodite, in the grand cosmological scale, I see Them as generally equals in regard to the interactive love between mortals, and to interpret this line from Theogeny as one of implied parentage not only confuses the reader as to why Hesiod decided that either a) there were two Theoi of the same name (something that he never did of any other name) or b) Eros was somehow re-born of Aphrodite without explanation, but it also relegates Eros to a lesser position, one that is ultimately subservient to Aphrodite despite being made, by the same author, to be a Pretty Big Deity only a few dozen lines previous.

Now, in Orphic cosmology, the idea of Two Eros seems, at first, to be one that is a non-issue — Phanes (Protogonos, in the Athanassakis translation of the Orphic hymns, ©1977, out-of-print) “is” the “Elder Eros” and “Eros” is the “Younger Eros”, so this keeps things easy, yes? I’d be inclined to agree with that, if not for the fact that The Orphic Hymn to Eros (#58) seems to be to a Theos oddly reminiscent of the one who is mentioned in The Orphic Hymn to Protogonos (#6) with less details.

If you, gentle reader, still prefer to conclude that there are Two Eros, or that Phanes is a separate Theos and not merely a title of Eros under His epithet Protogenos (something I mentally insert to make heads or tails of conversations with Neo-Orphics), then by all means, believe so, as such is entirely within your rights. This is merely where my gnosis has led me: There is only One Eros, but He is a complex Theos, to say the least, and that all worship to Eros or whatever name He will answer to (which may or may not include Phanes) ultimately goes to Eros.