Num mundo que não pertence aos românticos

🍐🐄 Hera Pais, the cow eyed bride🪵🏛

 "I sing of golden-throned Hera whom Rhea bare. Queen of the immortals is she, surpassing all in beauty: she is the sister and the wife of loud-thundering Zeus, -- the glorious one whom all the blessed throughout high Olympus reverence and honour even as Zeus who delights in thunder." -Homeric Hymn to Hera

"The presence of a cuckoo seated on the sceptre [of Hera] they explain by the story that when Zeus was in love with Hera in her maidenhood he changed himself into this bird, and she caught it to be her pet [in order to seduce her]." - Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 17. 4

I’m currently reading "The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the Iliad" by Joan V. O’Brien. She argues, sometimes speculatively, about the early cult origins of Hera, but I still find it very interesting.

The book suggests that Hera’s early rites in Samos might have portrayed her as arriving annually on a horse drawn chariot at a confluence of waters, where her bathing and binding to a cultic tree were believed to renew all life, presenting her as a goddess of the seasons.

There also seems to be an argument that she had a connection to the Potnia Theron, based on the large animals associated with her and the artifacts found at her temples, such as lions, griffins, and sphinxes. Her association with domestic animals like cows and horses could suggest that she was seen as a tamer of beasts, and her yoking of the bull may be parallel marriage and the "taming and yoking" of the bride.

I find this especially interesting because it aligns with my view of Hera as a goddess who makes things perfect.

In some traditions, it seems that she was worshipped in different life stages with epithets such as Hera Pais (the young maiden before marriage) Hera Teleia (the married woman) Hera Chēra (the widow or separated woman)

Character designs for my upcoming book "Lockettopia: The Trojan War Cycle."

PARIS' death is not told by Homer, but appears later in the Posthomerica, where Paris is mortally wounded by Philoctetes using the poisoned arrows of Heracles. Dying, he is carried to Oenone, the nymph he abandoned for Helen, who alone can heal him. Bitter and betrayed, she refuses, so Paris dies not just from the wound, but from the consequences of his choices.

Many scholars agree that originally Hera was independent of Zeus and only gradually became his wife, but speculation about what the pre-marriage to Zeus Hera was like and who (if anyone) was her „original” partner differ (and are more or less believable).

Some have suggested she was originally paired with a figure named „Heros”, etymologically linked to Hera's name. The Heros-Hera pair would have represented the quintessential marital and ancestral divine couple in the Mycenaean world, and the patrons of the Mycenaean power centers. More about this in Walter Pötscher (1961) „Hera und Heros”. It's a quite interesting read.

Others have suggested Herakles as her earlier consort. His relationship with Hera would have represented a gynaecocratic marriage belonging to a „pre-Achaean” matriarchal (the idea dates from a time when the concept of matriarchal prehistory was very popular among classicists) community. Arthur B. Cook (1906) „Who was the wife of Zeus?” is one work that discusses this theory.

Another idea is that she might have been paired with local river gods, such as Imbrasos at Samos. Involves Hera being interpreted as an earth fertility goddess (which is a concept some other scholars reject). More about this in Joan V. O'Brien (1993) „The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero and The Goddess in The Iliad”.

A different belief is that she must have had no partner at all; she would have been a consortless, independent „virgin mother goddess” originally. More about this in Marguerite M. Rigoglioso (2010) „Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity”. (I didn't care much for this book and didn't find many of the arguments within it particularly convincing when I read it some years ago, but that is where you can find the evidence, such as it is, discussed.)

And you can come across some other conjectures besides these. Such as the binding of Hera's statue with lygos branches at Samos supposedly representing the goddess' (sexual) union with the tree itself (Kipp, 1974). I even vaguely remember reading about a possible Hera-Poseidon pairing as well.

Whether or not she would have had another husband if she never came to be considered the wife of Zeus depends on how essential the identity of wife is to her being. The etymology for her name proposed by Pötscher, for instance, makes her „the (marriage) ripe woman”. In this view, by her very nature she represents the woman ready to get married and the young wife. Another suggested etymology (Willi, 2010) would make her the „female partner” par excellence, the woman who is attached/attaches herself. But other suggested etymologies exist as well, and so does the idea that she could have been an unmarried goddess in the beginning.

Also Clytemnestra 3 pages earlier:

clytaemnestra vs cassandra vessel and THERE'S STICKERS OF IT