Deep Ties

  Helen of Troy - Wikimedia Commons “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/ And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?” Christopher Marlowe – Dr Faust Helen was born in Sparta, believed to have been fathered by Zeus with Leda. Her siblings include Pollux and Castor, and Clytemnestra, who later became her sister-in-law as well, due to circumstances. Helen was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. When she was of marriageable age, her father Tyndareus, was worried about how to choose a suitable groom for her. Her beauty attracted myriad suitors and Tyndareus did not want to offend any of them. Odysseus was one of them, but he came with little wealth. Besides, he was already in love with Penelope and hence, he suggested that once the decision was made about Helen’s future husband, the others would take an oath to provide military aid to the lucky man in case Helen was abducted, an oath which would prove to be useful in the ensuing Trojan War. Tyndareus chose Menelau...

                                                                                             The Gorgons - YouTube The original Gorgon was a female created by Gaea, the Earth’s personification, to aid the Titans in their war against the Greek gods. In 700 or 800 BCE, Homer made the first mention in both his classics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, of the three Gorgon sisters, as hideous monsters. However, in the first century BCE, Ovid, the Roman poet, described the Gorgons as beautiful women whose amazing beauty tempted men. The only problem was that the men would die if they looked at their faces. The three sisters were Stheno or Sthenna (the Mighty), Euryale (the Far Springer) and Medusa (the Queen), all of whom were supposed to have snakes for hair, alon...

                                                                                           The Three Fates - Science Source The three fates or Moirai in Greek mythology are the personifications of Destiny, each of them being responsible for the fate of all beings. They were depicted as three sisters, sometimes as old women, and at other times as young goddesses. Their responsibility was to ensure that every being, human and divine, lived out their lives, and their destiny, according to the laws laid down by the universe, destiny being represented as a thread being spun from a spindle. Thus, one could call the fates enforcers of destiny. The Fates were sometimes known as the daughters of Nyx (Night) in some accounts. In others they were called the daughters of...

  Eros - The Cleveland Museum of Art - Unsplash When the name of Eros is mentioned, the image that comes up is that of a beautiful young boy with a bow and quiver full of arrows. Eros was considered the Greek god of love and sexual favours. Apparently, he had two types of arrows – one was the golden, sharp tipped variety that could make people fall in love when used, and a blunt one that could go the opposite way – make people immune to advances of love. Legend goes that Apollo once mocked Eros. To teach him a lesson, Eros shot a golden arrow at him, making him fall hopelessly in love with the wood nymph, Daphne. He then shot a blunt arrow at Daphne, turning her immune to the god’s advances, a worthy revenge indeed. Apollo and Daphne                                                                       ...

                                                                                                             Demeter In Greek mythology, the myth of Demeter and Persephone brings out the love of a mother for her daughter. Demeter was the Olympian goddess of harvests and agriculture, with total control over grains, plants, food and the fertility of the earth. She was also considered the goddess of health, birth and death. Demeter was the second child of the Titans, Rhea and Cronus, and lived in Mount Olympus. Her siblings were Hestia, Hera, Zeus and Poseidon. When Zeus overthrew Cronus and became the King of the gods, Demeter turned into one of the major goddesses in Mount Olympus. Demeter’s beautiful daughter, Pe...

   Image by  u_0xqcqp9f6q  from  Pixabay Charon is known as the Ferryman of Hades (the Underworld) whose duty was to carry the souls of the dead after they had completed their funeral rites across the Acheron and Styx, the rivers that were a boundary between the living and the dead worlds. Legend goes that those souls who could not pay the fee, or had not received their funeral rites, would have to wander along the shores of the Styx for a hundred years before they could cross the river. Charon was the son of Erebus and Nyx (Night). He was often depicted as a rough Athenian seaman dressed in a foul reddish-brown garb, haggard cheeks and an unkempt beard. Dante referred to him in his Divine Comedy as having “eyes of fire”. He held his ferryman’s pole or oar in his right hand and used his left hand to receive the souls that he needed to ferry. Charon is not evil, just gloomy, which was not surprising given the atmosphere in the Underworld. His cloak was adorned ...