Discover Bastet, the beloved cat goddess of Egypt, protector of homes, women and children, once a fierce lioness of the solar Eye of Ra | Mythopouch Previous Egyptian Next > Bastet Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s (Bast / Baast) Pronunciation BAS-tet Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Bast, Baast, Ubaste, Ailuros (Greek), "Goddess of the Ointment Jar," "The Tearer," "Lady of Bubastis" Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Egyptian Region Category Deity Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Female Time Period c. 2890 BCE - 4th century CE (Old Kingdom through Ptolemaic periods) Symbol Cat Tags egyptian, god, home, protection, fertility, cats Introduction - Overview Bastet is among the most beloved and widely venerated goddesses of the Egyptian pantheon, celebrated as the divine protector of the home, the guardian of women and children, and the patron of fertility, music, dance, and joy. Her most distinctive attribute - the feline head of a domestic cat - represents one of the most fascinating transformations in Egyptian religious history. Originally, Bastet was a fierce lioness-headed warrior goddess known simply as Bast, a solar deity associated with the destructive power of the sun god Ra and the vengeful Eye of Ra. Over the course of millennia, particularly during the Twenty-second Dynasty (c. 945-715 BCE), she underwent a remarkable evolution: from savage lioness to graceful domestic cat, reflecting profound shifts in Egyptian society, warfare, and domestic life. This transformation gave her a dual nature that made her uniquely accessible - both a gentle nurturer and, when provoked, a formidable protector. The city of Bubastis in the Nile Delta served as the epicenter of Bastet's cult, and her annual festival there was renowned throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. Herodotus, the Greek historian who visited Egypt in the 5th century BCE, described the Bastet festival as one of the most lavish celebrations in Egypt, attracting hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who traveled by river barge, playing music, dancing, and drinking wine in joyful abandon. The very name "Bubastis" derives from the Egyptian Per-Bast - "House of Bastet" - underscoring the goddess's identity as a divine guardian of the household and all that it contained. Yet Bastet's protective sphere extended far beyond the physical walls of a house; she safeguarded the secrets of women, presided over childbirth and fertility, and warded off evil spirits and contagious diseases. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Bastet The evolution of Bastet from lioness warrior to domestic cat goddess reflects broader changes in Egyptian civilization. In her earliest form as Bast, she was a deity of ferocious solar power, one of several goddesses - alongside Sekhmet, Hathor, and Mut - who could embody the Eye of Ra, the violent instrument of the sun god's vengeance. In this role, Bast fought the chaos serpent Apep and defended Ra against his enemies. Her earlier lioness form represented the aggressive, protective force necessary to guard Egypt's borders and maintain cosmic order against the forces of isfet (chaos). But as Egypt's military and political landscape shifted, and as the intimate, nurturing qualities of the domestic cat became more culturally emphasized, Bastet gradually shed her lioness ferocity in favor of feline grace. In her fully developed form, Bastet is depicted as a woman with the head of a domestic cat, or simply as a seated cat wearing golden earrings and jewelry. The domestic cat's natural behaviors - its tender care of kittens, its vigilant protection of the home against vermin and snakes, its graceful and seemingly mysterious demeanor - provided a powerful natural analogy for Bastet's divine functions. Egyptians kept cats in their homes as living embodiments of the goddess, and the killing of a cat, even accidentally, was reportedly punishable by death under certain periods of Egyptian law. When a household cat died, family members would shave their eyebrows as a sign of mourning; cats were frequently mummified and buried with votive offerings, sometimes in vast cat cemeteries containing tens of thousands of feline mummies. Bastet's iconography incorporates several significant symbols. The sistrum, a sacred rattle-like musical instrument used in religious ceremonies, connects her to music, dance, and celebration - her festivals were occasions of uninhibited joy rather than solemn ritual. The ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life, links her to fertility and the life-giving forces of regeneration. The Eye of Ra symbolizes her retained protective and avenging power, a reminder that beneath her gentle domestic exterior, the ferocity of the lioness could still be awakened. The lioness remained part of her symbolic repertoire even after her primary transformation, encapsulating the full spectrum of her protective nature. Bastet occupied an important position within the Egyptian divine family. In the Memphite tradition, she was regarded as the daughter of Ra and, in some accounts, of Isis; she was the consort of Ptah and the mother of the lion god Maahes. Her connections with other deities emphasized her multifaceted role as both nurturer and defender. She shares some functional overlap with Hathor - both are associated with music, dance, fertility, and motherhood - but the two are distinct: Hathor is the cow or cow-horned goddess of love, beauty, and celestial joy, while Bastet is specifically the feline goddess of the home, domestic protection, and women's sphere. Where Hathor's influence extends across the heavens and the afterlife, Bastet's protective power is more intimately terrestrial, focused upon the household, the family, and the hidden secrets of feminine life. Summary Bastet represents one of the most successful and enduring divine cults in Egyptian history, a goddess whose transformation from lioness warrior to domestic cat guardian charts the evolving spiritual needs of Egyptian civilization across three millennia. At her cult center of Bubastis and in homes throughout the Nile Valley, she offered protection against evil, blessings of fertility and childbirth, and the liberating joy of music and dance. Her sacred animal, the cat, became one of the most recognizable symbols of ancient Egypt itself - a living bridge between the human world and the divine. Bastet's legacy endures as the archetype of the protective, nurturing feminine force that guards the threshold between safety and danger, gentleness and ferocity. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Bastet From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Eye of Ra Artifact/Object/Weapon Eye of Ra Ptah Deity Ptah Sekhmet Deity Sekhmet Hathor Deity Hathor Ra Deity Ra Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: Herodotus, The Histories, Book II (5th century BCE); Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (2003); Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (2002); Centre of Excellence, "Bastet in Egyptian Mythology" (2024); Egypt Time Travel, "Bastet Egyptian Goddess" (2026); archaeological reports from Bubastis (Tell Basta) excavations; British Museum and Louvre collections of Bastet statuary and mummified cats. Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Geb, the Egyptian earth god, father of Osiris and Set, whose laughter shook the land and whose throne every pharaoh inherited. - Mythopouch Previous Egyptian Next > Geb Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s gbb (Egyptian) Pronunciation GEB Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Seb, Keb, Gebb, Cronus, Father of the Gods, the Great Cackler, Chief of the Ennead, He Who Lies Beneath Nut, Lord of the Earth, the Laughing One Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Ancient Egypt Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Egyptian Region Category Deity Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Male Time Period c. 2400 BCE (Pyramid Texts) - Roman period Symbol Rocks & Goose Tags egyptian, geb, earth-god, nut, heliopolis, shabaka-stone, earthquakes, great-cackler Introduction - Overview Geb is the earth itself, the solid ground of Egypt made into a god, the brown and green body on which everything that lives was built. He is the husband of the sky, the brother of Nut, torn away from her by their own father and left lying forever beneath her, still reaching upward after three thousand years. He is the laughing god, for the Egyptians heard the earthquakes as Geb's laughter rumbling through the land, and he is the Great Cackler, the primeval goose whose honk first broke the silence of creation and whose egg hatched the sun. He is the father of the five greatest gods of Egypt, Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder, and the first true king to rule the land, who judged the terrible quarrel between his son Set and his grandson Horus and divided Egypt between them. And he is the god whose throne every pharaoh inherited, for the kings of Egypt did not call their seat the throne of any other god: for three thousand years they sat, by their own proud formula, upon the throne of Geb. Gallery Other depictions of Geb as a Goose. Main Article - Who or What was... Geb Geb was born into the first family of creation. His father was Shu, the god of the empty air, his mother was Tefnut, the goddess of moisture, and his grandfather was Atum, the self-created one who had risen from the dark waters at the dawn of time. Geb and his sister Nut, the sky, were twins, and they filled the whole of existence between them, for there was nothing but the ground below and the vault above. His body was the land: the black soil of the valley, the hills of the desert edge, the stone beneath the pyramids. Grain sprouted from his ribs, and the Egyptians said the harvest was his body feeding its children. His sacred bird was the goose, and the flocks that darkened the marshes were his own. And when the ground shook and the houses cracked and the Nile slopped against its banks, the Egyptians did not fear a stranger: they said Geb is laughing, and they listened to the earth god's mirth roll beneath their feet. The great wound of Geb was his separation from Nut. The earth and the sky had loved each other completely, and they lay pressed together so closely that nothing could grow or move between them. Then Shu thrust himself between his children, put his shoulder beneath his daughter, and heaved her into the heights, where she arches still. The image never left Egyptian art: Nut stretched above, Geb below, one knee raised, still reaching up toward the wife he lost, while Shu stands between them with his arms raised to hold her off forever. The groaning that men heard in the earthquakes was his longing, and the laughter was his patience. From their union, in the five days that Thoth the scribe won for Nut in a game against the moon, came the five children who would rule the Egyptian imagination: Osiris, the king who would be murdered; Horus the Elder; Set, the storm; Isis, the enchantress; and Nephthys, the mourner. Geb was the Father of the Gods, and everything that happened afterwards in heaven and on earth was the story of his family. Before he was a father, Geb was a maker of worlds. In the oldest telling of creation at Heliopolis, the city of the sun, he was the Great Cackler, the primeval goose whose cry was the first sound ever made, echoing over the waters of the beginning. The goose laid an egg, and from that egg broke the sun. The egg of Geb became one of the holiest images in Egypt, the shell that had contained all light, and the dead prayed to be counted worthy of its protection. The goose itself was kept sacred in his name, and when the priests of later ages gave the title Great Cackler to other gods, they were borrowing the honour of the earth. It was as a king, though, that Geb mattered most to Egypt. When Ra, the sun god, grew old and withdrew into the sky, and Shu ruled after him, it was Geb who inherited the earth as its first true earthly king, the elder of the Ennead, the council of nine gods descended from Atum. Centuries later, when his family tore itself apart in the feud between his son Set, the red god of the desert, and his grandson Horus, the falcon son of the murdered Osiris, it was Geb who judged the case. The carved stone of King Shabaka, a black slab preserved in Memphis, records his verdict: first he divided the land in two, giving the south to Set and the north to Horus, and then, repenting, he gave the whole inheritance to Horus, for the son of the elder line should not lose his father's portion. That judgment became the charter of Egyptian kingship. Every pharaoh who ever ruled styled himself the heir of Geb, the living Horus upon the throne of Geb, and the right to the crown ran through the earth god's blood. The king was not merely a ruler of the land: he was the land's own heir. And as he received the gods, Geb receives the dead. Every Egyptian grave was a return into his body, the tomb a door into the darkness of the earth, and the texts of the pyramids begged him to welcome the dead king as his child, to open the ground gently, and to lift him up among the gods. The fields above the graves were his skin, and the grain fed the living from the same body that sheltered the dead. He raised no vast temples and gathered no armies of priests, because he needed none: no Egyptian could walk a single step without treading on him. He was the floor of the world, the first ancestor, the judge in the stone, the laughter in the ground, and the goose whose egg was the sun. Summary Geb endures as the ground beneath everything, the patient earth who lost his sky, laughed in the earthquakes, fathered the gods, and fixed the laws of kingship on a stone of black granite. From the primeval egg to the divided inheritance of Horus and Set, from the throne that bore his name for three thousand years to the graves that returned every Egyptian to his body, he is the most solid of all gods. The Greeks who met him called him Cronus, and heard in his family war the echo of their own ancient battles for heaven. In the human imagination, Geb remains the old father of the soil, the god you are standing on now. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Geb From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Horus Deity Horus Osiris Deity Osiris Nut Deity Nut Set Deity Set Shu Deity Shu Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Pyramid Texts (5th-6th Dynasties, c. 2345 BCE) - Geb as father, protector, and receiver of the dead king - Coffin Texts (Middle Kingdom, c. 2055-1650 BCE) - Geb's laughter in the earthquakes and the separation from Nut - Book of the Dead (New Kingdom, c. 1550-1070 BCE) - spells invoking the primeval egg of the Great Cackler - Shabaka Stone (25th Dynasty, c. 710 BCE) - Geb's judgment dividing Egypt between Horus and Set, and the charter of kingship - Greenfield Papyrus (21st Dynasty, c. 950 BCE) - Geb lying beneath Nut with Shu between them - Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride (c. 100 CE) - Geb as Cronus, father of the five gods - Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (Thames & Hudson, 2003) - Geb's iconography, the goose, and the throne of Geb - Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (Oxford UP, 2002) - Geb's mythology, kingship, and earthquakes Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Bronze automaton forged by Hephaestus guarding Crete. Circled the island thrice daily, hurling boulders at ships til Argonauts took him down | Mythopouch Previous Greek Next > Talos Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s (Τάλως) Pronunciation TAY-loss Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Talus, The Bronze Man, The Cretan Automaton Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Creature/Monster/Animal Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender N/A (masculine form) Time Period c. 3rd century BCE (literary record in Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica) Symbol Bronze Guard Tags greek, guardian, bronze-sentinel, relentless, protector, protect Introduction - Overview Talos is the bronze giant who circled the island of Crete three times each day, hurling boulders at any ship that approached its shores, the last survivor of the bronze race of men and the most terrifying guardian in all of Greek mythology. He is the automaton forged by Hephaestus, the divine smith whose forge lay beneath a volcano and whose skill with hammer and anvil could craft wonders beyond mortal imagination, or given by Zeus, the king of the gods and wielder of the thunderbolt, to his lover Europa, the Phoenician princess whom the god had carried to Crete in the form of a white bull, to protect her and her descendants. He is the giant whose body was made entirely of bronze, impenetrable to sword or spear, and whose single vein of ichor, the golden blood of the gods, ran from his neck to his ankle, sealed at the end by a bronze nail or a membrane of skin. He is the sentinel who was finally destroyed by the witch-goddess Medea, the sorceress princess of Colchis who had helped Jason steal the Golden Fleece and who used her magic to drive Talos mad or to remove the nail that sealed his lifeblood, causing the ichor to drain out and the giant to fall dead upon the Cretan rocks. He is the ancestor of every robot and automaton in Western imagination, the first artificial being in literature, a creature of metal and divine craft that walked, thought, and died like a man. And he is the symbol of the boundary between the age of bronze and the age of heroes, the last remnant of an older world that the gods had replaced with flesh and blood. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Talos Talos was born in the earliest age of the world, when the gods had not yet created mortal men as they would later be known. According to Hesiod, the poet who sang of the origins of the gods and the cosmos, there were five ages of man: the golden age, when men lived like gods without toil or pain; the silver age, when men were foolish and impious; the bronze age, when men were made of bronze and destroyed themselves with war; the age of heroes, when the great warriors of Greek myth lived and died; and the iron age, the present age of toil and sorrow. The bronze race was a generation of men born from the ash trees, hard and warlike, their weapons and their armor and their very bodies made of bronze. They were terrible and strong, and they destroyed one another in endless combat until none remained. But Talos, or so the later poets said, was the last of this race, preserved by the gods to serve as a guardian rather than a warrior, a sentinel rather than a soldier, and he was given to Europa, the Phoenician princess whose beauty had so moved Zeus that he had transformed himself into a magnificent white bull, carried her across the sea to Crete, the large island south of the Greek mainland, and made her the mother of Minos, the legendary king who would build the Labyrinth and rule the first great sea empire of the ancient world. Talos's body was a marvel of divine craftsmanship, or of natural wonder, depending on the telling. He stood as tall as a mountain, or as tall as a man, the sources disagree, but his form was always of bronze, not flesh, and his strength was beyond any mortal's. He circled the island of Crete three times each day, walking the coast with giant strides, his bronze feet striking sparks from the rocks, his eyes scanning the horizon for any ship that dared to approach. When he saw a vessel, he tore boulders from the cliffs and hurled them with the force of a catapult, smashing hulls and drowning crews before they could land. He was not malicious but dutiful, a guardian who knew no other purpose, and the Cretans left offerings for him at the shore, knowing that his vigilance protected them from pirates and invaders. Some said he was a gift from Hephaestus to Minos, forged in the divine smith's volcano-forge and animated by the gods' power. Others said he was the last survivor of the bronze race, preserved by Zeus as a favor to Europa. Still others said he was the son of the Cretan smith Kres, or of the goddess Thetis, the sea-nymph who was the mother of Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Trojan War. But all agreed on his nature: he was a being of metal and ichor, not flesh and blood, and his death would come not from battle but from the loss of the divine fluid that animated him. The destruction of Talos came during the voyage of the Argonauts, the band of heroes led by Jason who sailed in the ship Argo to claim the Golden Fleece from the distant kingdom of Colchis. On their return journey, the Argonauts approached Crete, hoping to land and take on fresh water and supplies. But Talos saw them from the cliffs and began his attack, hurling boulders that smashed the water around the Argo and threatened to sink her. The heroes could not fight him, for his bronze body was impenetrable, and no sword or arrow could harm him. It was Medea, the witch-princess of Colchis who had joined the Argonauts after helping Jason steal the fleece with her magic, who devised the means of his death. Medea was a sorceress of terrifying power, the granddaughter of Helios, the sun god who drove his blazing chariot across the sky, and she knew the secrets of drugs, poisons, and spells that could bend the will of gods and men. She approached Talos, or sent her magic against him, and in the most famous version of the story, she used her powers to drive him mad, promising him immortality if he would remove the bronze nail that sealed the vein of ichor at his ankle. Talos, in his confusion, did so, and the golden blood of the gods poured out like molten metal, draining his life away. He fell upon the rocks of Crete with a crash that shook the island, and the bronze giant moved no more. In another version, Medea did not deceive Talos but attacked him directly with her magic. She cast a spell of binding upon him, or sent a demon to torment him, and while he was distracted, the hero Poeas, an Argonaut of great skill with the bow, shot an arrow that struck the membrane covering the vein at his ankle, causing the ichor to leak out. In yet another version, the Argonauts themselves managed to wrestle Talos to the ground and hold him while Medea removed the nail. But all versions agree on the essential fact: Talos was destroyed by the loss of his ichor, the divine blood that animated his bronze form, and that without it, he was nothing but a statue, a hollow shell of metal upon the rocks. The Argonauts landed safely, took what they needed, and sailed away, leaving the giant's body where it fell, and the Cretans mourned the loss of their guardian, for no other power could replace him. Talos has haunted the Western imagination for three thousand years as the first artificial being in literature, the ancestor of every robot, android, and automaton that followed. The Greeks did not have a word for robot, but they had the concept: a being made by craft rather than nature, animated by divine power rather than birth, and capable of thought and action but not truly alive. Talos was not a man, for he was made of bronze, but he was not a statue, for he walked and watched and threw boulders. He existed in the uncanny valley between the living and the made, and his death raised questions that still resonate today: what is the difference between a creature and a machine? Can a being of metal have a soul? And if it can, does its destruction count as murder? The myth of Talos was revived in the Renaissance, when automata became fashionable in European courts, and again in the modern age, when science fiction has made the robot a central figure of anxiety and wonder. Every story of a machine that thinks, every debate about artificial intelligence and consciousness, every fear of the made thing that turns against its maker, carries the shadow of Talos, the bronze giant who guarded Crete until a witch and an arrow brought him down, and whose fall marked the end of the age of bronze and the beginning of the age of heroes, when men were made of flesh and their guardians were made of courage rather than metal. Summary Talos endures as the primal automaton, the bronze sentinel whose destruction marks the boundary between divine craft and mortal courage, between the age of metal men and the age of flesh. From the forge of Hephaestus to the cliffs of Crete, from the boulders that smashed ships to the ichor that drained upon the rocks, his story is a meditation on what it means to be alive, what it means to be made, and what happens when the made thing outlasts the age that created it. Every robot in fiction, every fear of artificial intelligence, every wonder at the machine that moves like a man has its ancestor in Talos, the bronze giant who circled Crete three times a day and fell to a single nail. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Talos From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Jason Person Jason Medea Person Medea Europa Person Europa Hephaestus Deity Hephaestus Zeus Deity Zeus Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Hesiod, Works and Days, lines 140-155 (c. 700 BCE) - the five ages of man, the bronze race - Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, Book 4, lines 1638-1688 (3rd century BCE) - Medea and the destruction of Talos - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Book 1, chapter 9.26 (1st-2nd century CE) - Talos as the last of the bronze race, guardian of Crete - Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 1, chapter 21.4 (2nd century CE) - bronze statue of Talos at Olympia - Simonides, Fragment 568 (6th-5th century BCE) - early reference to Talos as the Cretan guardian - Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, Book 4, chapter 77.1 (1st century BCE) - Talos as the son of Kres, the Cretan smith - Mayor, Adrienne, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology (Princeton University Press, 2018) - comprehensive study of Talos and ancient automata in Greek myth - Kang, Minsoo, Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2011) - discussion of Talos as the ancestor of the robot in Western literature Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Deadliest monster in Greek mythology, a towering chaos beast with a hundred serpent heads who nearly destroyed the Olympian gods | Mythopouch Previous Greek Next > Typhon Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s (Τυφών / Τυφωεύς) Pronunciation TYE-fon Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Typhoeus, Typhaon, "Father of All Monsters," "The Storm Giant," "The Hundred-Headed One" Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Creature/Monster/Animal Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Male Time Period Archaic Greek mythology (8th-5th century BCE); Homeric references Symbol Snake Spiral Tags greek, monster, chaos, storm, volcano, father-of-monsters Introduction - Overview Typhon is the greatest monster ever born in Greek mythology, a hundred-headed serpent giant with fire blazing from his eyes and a body so vast his head touched the stars. He is the final child of Gaia and Tartarus, born to challenge the rule of Zeus after the Titanomachy had ended and the Olympian gods thought themselves secure. He is the creature who made the gods flee in terror to Egypt, where they hid themselves as animals to escape his wrath. He is the monster who captured Zeus himself, cut the sinews from his hands and feet, and left him immobilized in a Cilician cave. He is the father of the most terrible monsters in all Greek myth: Cerberus, the Hydra, the Chimera, the Sphinx, and the Nemean Lion, all born from his union with the she-dragon Echidna. And he is the prisoner buried beneath Mount Etna in Sicily, where his struggles still cause the volcano to erupt and thunder, a reminder that the earth itself holds a monster that once nearly overthrew the king of the gods. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Typhon After Zeus had driven the Titans out of heaven and cast them into the dark pit of Tartarus, Gaia the Earth was consumed with rage. She had already lost her first children the Titans to the war, and now her second brood the Giants had also been defeated by the gods. Determined to have one final revenge, she descended into the deepest abyss of Tartarus and lay with the primordial god of that pit, Tartarus himself. From this union was born Typhon, the youngest and most terrible of all her children. He was a mixture of man and beast, so large that he extended beyond all the mountains while his head often touched the stars themselves. Down to his thighs he was human in form, with one hand reaching to the west and the other to the east, but from his shoulders sprouted a hundred serpent heads, each with eyes that flashed fire and tongues that flickered with dark flame. From his thighs down, great coils of vipers extended to the top of his head, hissing mightily. His entire body was winged, and the hair that flowed from his head and cheeks was matted and dirty. From all his mouths came every sort of horrible sound: sometimes speech that the gods could understand, sometimes the bellowing of a proud-eyed bull, sometimes the roar of a shameless lion, sometimes the barking of dogs, and sometimes a whistle so piercing that the tall mountains re-echoed to it. When Typhon was fully grown, he set out to storm Mount Olympus and seize the throne of the gods. He hurled red-hot rocks at the sky itself and advanced with mixed hisses and shouts, while a great storm of fire boiled forth from his mouth. The other Olympian gods, struck with terror at the sight of him, fled from Olympus and ran to Egypt. There they transformed themselves into animals to hide from the monster. Zeus became a ram, the Egyptian god Ammon with curling horns. Apollo became a raven, the Egyptian god Horus. Dionysus became a goat, the Egyptian god Osiris. Artemis became a cat, the Egyptian goddess Bastet. Hera became a snow-white cow, the Egyptian goddess Hathor. Aphrodite became a fish, the Syrian goddess Ashtarte. And Hermes became an ibis, the Egyptian god Thoth. Only Zeus, the king of the gods, stood his ground. He faced Typhon on Olympus and hurled his thunderbolts at the monster, but Typhon was so vast and so terrible that even the thunderbolts of Zeus could not bring him down immediately. The battle that followed shook the earth to its foundations. Zeus struck Typhon with thunderbolt after thunderbolt, and the earth groaned beneath them, and the heat and blaze from both of them was on the dark-faced sea. The ground and the sky and the sea boiled, and towering waves tossed and beat all up and down the promontories in the wind of these immortals. A great shaking of the earth came on, and Hades, the lord over the perished dead, trembled in his underworld kingdom, and even the Titans under Tartarus, who lived beside Cronus, trembled at the dread encounter and the unending clamour. But Typhon was not easily defeated. In some accounts, he captured Zeus in his serpentine coils, wrested the adamantine sickle from him, and cut out the sinews from Zeus's hands and feet, leaving the king of the gods immobilized and helpless. Typhon then dragged Zeus to the Corycian cave in Cilicia and left him there, hiding the sinews inside a bearskin and setting a she-dragon to guard them. But Hermes, the messenger god, and Aegipan, a rustic deity, stole the sinews back and restored them to Zeus. In other accounts, Zeus never fell and simply pursued Typhon across the earth, hurling thunderbolts until the monster was driven to the ground. In the most detailed version of the battle, Typhon fled from Olympus to Mount Casium, where he and Zeus clashed again. Zeus struck him with his thunderbolt, but Typhon fought back desperately, throwing entire mountains at the god. Zeus blasted the mountains apart with his thunderbolts and pursued the monster to Mount Nysa, where the Fates, the three goddesses who control the destiny of all beings, deceived Typhon into eating the fruits of Dionysus, which were wine grapes. They told him the fruit would give him strength, but it weakened him instead. Typhon fled again, and Zeus cornered him in Sicily. There Zeus dropped the entire mountain of Etna upon him, crushing him beneath its weight and imprisoning him in the earth. To this day, the eruptions of Mount Etna are said to be caused by Typhon's struggles beneath the mountain, his fire-breathing heads still roaring and his serpent coils still thrashing against the stone that holds him down. The smoke and lava that pour from the volcano are the breath and blood of the monster who once nearly overthrew the gods. Typhon's legacy lived on through his children. He took the she-dragon Echidna as his mate, a creature who was half beautiful woman and half monstrous serpent, who lived in a cave beneath a hollow rock far from both gods and mortals. From their union came the most terrible monsters in Greek mythology. First came Orthus, the two-headed hound of Geryon. Then came Cerberus, the fifty-headed hound of Hades who guarded the entrance to the underworld and ate raw flesh. Then came the Lernaean Hydra, the serpent with nine heads that grew two more whenever one was cut off, whom the hero Heracles would later slay. Then came the Chimera, a creature with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent, who breathed raging fire. Then came the Sphinx, the winged monster with the face of a woman and the body of a lion, who plagued the city of Thebes with her riddles. Then came the Nemean Lion, whose hide was impenetrable to any weapon, and whom Heracles strangled with his bare hands. Then came the Caucasian Eagle, the creature that ate the liver of Prometheus every day, and the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. And there were others: the Colchian Dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece, the sow Phaia at Crommyon, and the sea monsters Scylla and the Gorgon. Every monster that a Greek hero ever faced could trace its lineage back to Typhon and Echidna, making Typhon truly the father of all monsters. Summary Typhon stands as the ultimate threat in Greek mythology, the monster who came closer than any other to overthrowing the Olympian order. From his birth in the depths of Tartarus to his imprisonment beneath Mount Etna, his story is one of pure, unbridled destruction: a creature so vast his head touched the stars, so terrible the gods themselves fled in terror, and so powerful he captured Zeus and left him helpless. Every volcano that erupts still carries his name in its thunder, and every monster that Greek heroes ever faced was his child. He is the father of all monsters, and the earth itself is his prison. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Typhon From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Echidna Creature/Monster/Animal Echidna Zeus Deity Zeus Cerberus Creature/Monster/Animal Cerberus Tartarus Deity Tartarus Gaia Deity Gaia Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Hesiod, Theogony (c. 700 BCE) - Lines 820-868 (birth of Typhon from Gaia and Tartarus, battle with Zeus, description of his form and voices) - Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BCE) - Book 2, Lines 780-783 (Typhon in the land of the Arimoi, struck by Zeus's thunder) - Homer, Odyssey (c. 700 BCE) - Book 11, Lines 10-15 (land of the Cimmerians/Arimoi near the underworld) - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 1, Chapters 39-44 (detailed battle narrative, capture of Zeus, sinews, pursuit across mountains) - Pindar, Pythian Ode 1 (c. 470 BCE) - Lines 16-28 (Typhon in the Cilician cave, buried under Etna, source of volcanic fire) - Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound (c. 430 BCE) - Lines 351-372 (description of Typhon as hundred-headed, buried under Etna) - Ovid, Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE) - Book 5, Lines 319-358 (flight of the gods to Egypt, transformation into animals) - Nonnus, Dionysiaca (5th century CE) - Book 1, Lines 145-170 (Typhon's parentage, battle with Zeus, Egyptian connection) - West, M. L., Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford University Press, 1966) - Commentary on the Typhonomachy and its place in the Succession Myth - Clay, Jenny Strauss, Hesiod's Cosmos (Cambridge University Press, 2003) - Chapter 4 (Typhon and the cosmic order) - Fontenrose, Joseph, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (University of California Press, 1959) - Chapter 3 (Typhon and the dragon combat motif) Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore the Field of Reeds, the ancient Egyptian paradise where the justified dead lived forever in a perfect green Egypt ruled by Osiris. - Mythopouch Previous Egyptian Next > Field of Reeds Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s aArw (Egyptian: Aaru), Sekhet-Aaru Pronunciation FEELD of REEDZ Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Aaru, Aalru, the Field of Offerings, Sekhet-Hetepet, the Domain of Osiris, the Egyptian Paradise, the Fields of Peace Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Egyptian Region Category Location Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender N/A Time Period c. 2055 BCE (Coffin Texts) - Roman period Symbol Reeds & River Tags egyptian, field-of-reeds, aaru, afterlife, osiris, paradise, shabti, book-of-the-dead Introduction - Overview The Field of Reeds is the Egyptian heaven, the paradise where the justified dead lived forever in a perfect Egypt of green fields, full canals, and wheat that grew seven cubits tall, twice the height of a man. It is the destination of every soul that passed the Weighing of the Heart, the judgment where the heart was balanced against the feather of truth, ruled over by Osiris, the green-skinned king of the dead. It is the mirror of the Nile valley at its best, where the blessed ploughed and sowed and reaped, feasted, sailed, and played senet, the board game of the afterlife, in a land that never knew drought or debt. It is the heaven with servants, for every Egyptian took small statues called shabtis into the grave to answer for them when labour was called, so that eternity could be spent in leisure. It is the paradise that had to be earned twice, once by a blameless heart and once by the passwords and spells that opened its demon-guarded gates. And it is the oldest fully pictured heaven in human religion, the green original from which every later paradise, Elysian or otherwise, borrowed its colour. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Field of Reeds The Egyptians imagined their heaven not as a city of cloud and harp but as home perfected. The Field of Reeds, which they called Aaru, and its twin district the Field of Offerings, lay in the realm of Osiris, the murdered and risen king who judged the dead, in the blessed West where the sun goes down into the Duat, the underworld. It was Egypt without its sorrows: the Nile ran full, the canals never silted, the fields of emmer wheat and barley stood higher than a man on horseback, and the islands of the blessed rose green from the water, each with its shrine and its harbour. To dwell there a person had to be justified, declared true of voice at the judgment, and from that moment the dead were named for their ruler: every blessed man and woman became an Osiris, one with the god. Kings had once claimed the afterlife as their private estate, but by the Middle Kingdom the gates of the field stood open to scribes, soldiers, farmers, and weavers alike, and paradise became the common hope of Egypt. Getting there was an expedition, and the Book of the Dead, the great collection of afterlife spells buried with the dead, was its guidebook. The road ran through gates guarded by knife-wielding demons whose names had to be spoken exactly, for a name was power, and across waters where a surly ferryman called Mahaf, He Who Looks Behind Him, had to be woken and persuaded to row the soul over, but only after the traveller proved worthy by naming every plank and rope of his boat. The final gate was the Hall of the Two Truths, where the heart was weighed against the feather of Maat, the goddess of truth. The light-hearted passed into the field. The heavy-hearted were thrown to Ammit, the devouring monster who waited by the scales, and simply ceased to exist, for the Egyptians had no hell of fire, only the horror of oblivion, the second death from which no spell could bring a soul back. Life in the Field of Reeds was life at its sweetest, and the spells describe it without shame: to plough and to sow, to reap and to eat, to drink, to sail the canals, and to love, all beneath a sun that never scorched and a flood that never failed. The dead were reunited with their families and their servants, sat down to offering tables heaped by the living, played senet in the shade, and kept their rank and their clothes and their names. They were not ghosts but citizens, and the living knew it. Families wrote letters to their dead, bowls inscribed with requests to a mother or a husband who had crossed over, asking them to intercede in sickness and lawsuits, for the blessed in the field were near to Osiris and their influence reached back across the water. Offerings flowed the other way, from the tables of the living to the altars of the dead, in a commerce of bread and prayer that bound the two banks of the river of death. Yet the Egyptians were practical even in paradise. Eternal abundance meant eternal harvests, and somebody had to bring them in, so they invented the most Egyptian solution imaginable: the shabti, a small mummiform statue with hoes on its back and a seed basket in its hands, inscribed with the spell that made it answer. When the dead were called to labour in the fields of the hereafter, the shabti was to rise and say, here I am, send me. Nobody entered the afterlife without them: commoners took a few, nobles took dozens, and kings took armies. Tutankhamun, the boy king of the golden tomb, was buried with more than four hundred, and Taharqa, the Nubian pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the seventh century BCE, took over a thousand, with overseer shabtis carrying whips to keep the others at their work. Heaven, in other words, came with outsourced labour, and the dead were free to enjoy the green eternity they had earned. The Field of Reeds is the first paradise in human records that we can walk through in detail, and its green fingerprints are on every heaven that came after. When the Greeks dreamed of Elysium, the perfect plain at the world's edge where heroes live on in ease, they were dreaming a dream Egypt had dreamed two thousand years earlier. The gardens of later faiths, the rivers, the fruit, the reunion of families, all carry something of its shape. It faded with the temples, and its spells slept unread until the hieroglyphs were deciphered in the nineteenth century, but its central idea has never died: that heaven is not an escape from life but life made whole, the harvest day that never ends. Of all the heavens humanity has imagined, none is more human than the Field of Reeds. Summary The Field of Reeds endures as the most human paradise ever imagined, a heaven that looked exactly like home on its best day, ruled by a god who died and rose to prove the journey could be made. Its blessed dead were not idle: the luckiest were welcomed aboard the barque of Ra, the sun god, sailing with him through the night sky to rise with him at dawn. Every green heaven, every vision of reunion beyond the grave, every hope that the best of life lasts forever carries a seed of its wheat. In the human imagination, the Field of Reeds remains the eternal harvest, the promise that home lies across the water, and the crossing is worth it. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Field of Reeds From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Ammit Creature/Monster/Animal Ammit Osiris Deity Osiris Book of the Dead Artifact/Object/Weapon Book of the Dead Duat Location Duat Maat Deity Maat Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Coffin Texts, the Book of Two Ways (Middle Kingdom, c. 2055-1650 BCE) - the earliest maps of the Field of Offerings and the roads to it - Book of the Dead, Spell 110 (New Kingdom, c. 1550-1070 BCE) - life, labour, and pleasure in the Field of Reeds - Book of the Dead, Spell 149 (New Kingdom, c. 1550-1070 BCE) - the fourteen districts of the Field of Offerings - Book of the Dead, Spell 6 (New Kingdom, c. 1550-1070 BCE) - the shabti spell, the answerer for the labour of the hereafter - Letters to the Dead (Old to New Kingdom, c. 2100-1200 BCE) - the living writing to the blessed dead for help - Erik Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife (Cornell University Press, 1999) - the geography and meaning of the blessed realm - John H. Taylor, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (British Museum Press, 2001) - judgment, shabtis, and daily life in the Field of Reeds - Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2002) - the paradise tradition and its place in Egyptian belief Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Erichthonius, the earth-born king of Athens raised by Athena, hidden in a forbidden chest and remembered as the founder of the Panathenaic festival. Previous Greek Next > Erichthonius Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Ἐριχθόνιος (Erichthonios) Pronunciation er-ik-THOH-nee-us Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Earth-Born King, The Child of the Chest, The Snake-Boy, The First Athenian, The Horse-Tamer, The Founder of the Panathenaea Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Male Time Period c. 8th century BCE (literary attestation) Symbol Serpent, Chest & Chariot Tags greek, erichthonius, person, athens, acropolis, autochthonous, athena, hephaestus, cecrops, panathenaea Introduction - Overview Erichthonius is the earth-born king of Athens, the child who had no mother but was born from the seed of a god and the body of the earth itself, and who grew up to become the ancestor of every Athenian who ever claimed to be autochthonous, born from the soil of Attica rather than from any immigrant stock. He is the son of Hephaestus, the lame smith-god whose forge burned beneath the volcanoes of the Aegean, and Gaia, the earth-goddess whose body received the divine seed when Athena, the virgin goddess of wisdom, refused to submit to the smith's advances. He is the infant whom Athena hid in a chest and gave to the daughters of Cecrops, the first king of Athens, with a strict command never to open the lid, a command they disobeyed at the cost of their sanity and their lives. He is the king who invented the chariot to hide his serpentine lower body, who founded the Panathenaea, the great festival of Athens, and who was buried within the city he ruled, a privilege granted to no other mortal. And he is the ancestor of Erechtheus, the later king who gave his name to the Erechtheion, the most sacred temple on the Athenian Acropolis, so that the two names and the two kings became one in the memory of the city. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Erichthonius Erichthonius was born in Athens, or rather beneath it, in the smithy of Hephaestus on the Acropolis itself. Hephaestus, the god of fire and metalworking, had fallen in love with Athena, the virgin goddess of wisdom and war, and had tried to force himself upon her. Athena, the daughter of Zeus who had sprung fully armed from her father's forehead, was not a goddess who submitted to any male, divine or mortal. She fought Hephaestus off, and in the struggle his seed fell upon the earth, upon Gaia, the primordial mother whose body was the soil of Greece itself. Gaia received the seed and brought forth a child, a boy who was half-human and half-serpent, his lower body coiled like a snake, his upper body the image of a divine infant. He was autochthonous, born from the chthon, the earth, with no mortal mother to claim him, and in this he was the perfect symbol of Athens, the city that prided itself on being the oldest in Greece because its people had always lived on the same soil. Athena took pity on the child, or perhaps she recognised in him a weapon against those who would question her virginity. She placed the infant in a small chest or casket, a larnax of woven wicker, and set a serpent to coil around him as his guardian. Then she carried the chest to the daughters of Cecrops, the first king of Athens, a man who was himself half-serpent, born from the autochthonous soil of Attica before the flood. Cecrops had three daughters, Aglaurus, Herse, and Pandrosus, and Athena entrusted the chest to them with a solemn command: they must not open it. They must not look inside. They must guard it with their lives and tell no one what it contained. The daughters agreed, and Athena departed, leaving the chest in their keeping on the Acropolis, in the shadow of her own temple. The daughters of Cecrops could not resist. Curiosity, or perhaps divine compulsion, drove them to lift the lid of the chest and peer inside. What they saw drove them mad. Some accounts say they saw the infant Erichthonius with the serpent coiled around him, a sight so terrible that their minds broke. Other accounts say that Athena had set two additional serpents inside the chest as guardians, and the girls were bitten and died. In the most common version, Aglaurus and Herse were driven mad by the sight and threw themselves from the Acropolis, falling to their deaths on the rocks below, while Pandrosus, the youngest, either survived or was turned to stone for her part in the transgression. The serpent that guarded Erichthonius survived, and Athena took the child back and raised him herself, or gave him to the wife of Cecrops to nurse in secret. When Erichthonius grew to manhood, he became king of Athens, succeeding Cecrops or his successor Cranaus, depending on which king-list one follows. His reign was prosperous and innovative. He invented the chariot, not merely as a vehicle of war but as a means of concealing his serpentine lower body from the gaze of mortals, who might have been driven mad by the sight of his true form as the daughters of Cecrops had been. He harnessed four horses to his chariot and rode through the streets of Athens in state, the first king to do so, and the chariot became the symbol of Athenian royalty. He also founded the Panathenaea, the great festival in honour of Athena that was celebrated every four years with athletic contests, musical competitions, and a sacred procession along the Panathenaic Way to the Acropolis, where a new robe was presented to the goddess's ancient wooden statue. Erichthonius was buried in Athens, a singular honour. Most Greek cities forbade burial within the walls, fearing pollution, but Erichthonius was autochthonous, born from the earth of the Acropolis, and it was fitting that he should return to it. His tomb lay within the precinct of the temple of Athena Polias, the most sacred spot on the Acropolis, and his serpent guardian continued to dwell there, receiving offerings of honey cakes from the priests. When the Erechtheion was built in the fifth century BCE, the temple incorporated both his tomb and the sacred serpent, and the name of Erichthonius was gradually conflated with that of his descendant Erechtheus, a later king who fought a war against Eleusis and was killed by Poseidon's trident. The two names became one in Athenian cult, and the Erechtheion housed the shrines of both, along with the wooden statue of Athena that Erichthonius himself was said to have dedicated. Summary Erichthonius endures as the primal king of Athens, the earth-born child whose serpentine body and divine parentage made him the perfect symbol of a city that claimed to be the oldest in Greece. From the smithy of Hephaestus to the chest of Athena, from the madness of Cecrops's daughters to the chariot that concealed his snake-tail, his story is one of autochthonous power and the terrible price of looking upon the divine. A detail worth remembering: the Athenians buried him within their walls, the only mortal so honoured, because they believed he was not a man who had come to their city but the city itself, born from its own soil. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Erichthonius From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Athena Deity Athena Hephaestus Deity Hephaestus Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.14.6 (1st-2nd century CE) - birth of Erichthonius from Hephaestus and Gaia, the chest, and the daughters of Cecrops - Hyginus, Fabulae 166 (c. 2nd century CE) - Erichthonius raised by Athena, given to Cecrops's daughters, and his later reign - Euripides, Ion, lines 20-27, 267-272 (c. 410 BCE) - Erichthonius as autochthonous ancestor of the Athenian royal line - Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 1.2.6, 1.14.6, 1.18.2 (c. 150 CE) - tomb of Erichthonius, the Erechtheion, and the Panathenaic festival - Homer, Iliad, Book 2.546-551 (c. 8th century BCE) - Erichthonius as rich in horses and founder of Athenian chariot tradition - Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) - comprehensive analysis of Erichthonius in early Greek literature and art - Robert Parker, Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford University Press, 1996) - scholarly study of Erichthonius's cult and autochthonous ideology in Athens - Jenifer Neils, "Erichthonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops" in Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon (University of Wisconsin Press, 1996) - iconographic and cultic analysis of the Erichthonius myth Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Proetus, the King of Tiryns who sent Bellerophon to his death and watched his daughters driven mad by Hera - Mythopouch. Previous Greek Next > Proetus Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Προῖτος (Proitos) Pronunciation PREE-tus Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles King of Tiryns, The Twin of Acrisius, The Husband of Anteia, The Father of the Proetides, The Man Who Sent Bellerophon to Die Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Male Time Period c. 8th century BCE (Homeric tradition); Bronze Age setting Symbol The walls of Tiryns Tags greek, proetus, tiryns, acrisius, bellerophon, proetides, melampus, argos Introduction - Overview Proetus is the king of Tiryns who shared his mother's womb with his mortal enemy and spent his life fighting the brother he could never escape. He is the son of Abas, the king of Argos, and the twin of Acrisius, the grandfather of Perseus, the hero who would one day slay the Gorgon Medusa and rescue the princess Andromeda from a sea monster. He is the husband of Anteia, or Stheneboea in some tellings, the queen who desired Bellerophon and then accused him of assault when he refused her. He is the king who sent Bellerophon to his father-in-law Iobates, the king of Lycia, with a sealed letter that commanded the recipient to murder the bearer. He is the father of the Proetides, the daughters who were driven mad by the goddess Hera and wandered the hills of Argolis believing themselves to be cattle, until the seer Melampus cured them at the price of a third of the kingdom. He is the lord who ruled from Tiryns, the city whose massive walls were built by the Cyclopes, the one-eyed giants who served the gods. And he is the ancestor of Glaucus, the Lycian hero who fought beside the Trojan prince Hector in the Trojan War, a legacy that stretched from the quarrels of twins to the walls of Troy. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Proetus Proetus was born in Argos, the greatest city of the Argolid, the region of the Peloponnese that jutted into the Aegean Sea. His father was Abas, the king of Argos, and his mother was Ocalea, or Aglaia in some tellings. But Proetus was not born alone. His mother carried twins, and from the moment they stirred in her womb, they were at war. The two brothers fought each other before they ever saw the light, and their hatred continued after birth. When Abas died, the twins could not share the throne. They divided the kingdom by force, and Acrisius, the elder, took Argos itself, while Proetus was driven into exile. He wandered to the court of Iobates, the king of Lycia, a kingdom in the south-west of Asia Minor, and there he found refuge. Iobates gave him his daughter Anteia, or Stheneboea in some tellings, in marriage, and together they had children. But Proetus did not forget his birthright. He returned to the Argolid with an army and laid siege to Tiryns, a fortress city on the coast, and with the help of the Cyclopes, the one-eyed giants who were master builders, he made it his own. The walls they raised were so massive that later Greeks believed only giants could have placed the stones, and to this day they are called Cyclopean walls. Acrisius kept Argos, and Proetus ruled Tiryns, and the two brothers glared at each other across the plain until death. Proetus's marriage to Anteia was the source of his greatest shame. She was a queen of fierce passions, and when the young prince Bellerophon came to Tiryns, a guest under the sacred protection of xenia, the ancient bond that made every host responsible for the safety of his guest, Anteia desired him. Bellerophon was the son of Glaucus and the grandson of Sisyphus, the cunning king of Corinth who had cheated death twice and was punished in Tartarus, the dark pit beneath the earth, by being forced to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. He was handsome, skilled, and honourable, and when Anteia tried to seduce him, he refused her out of loyalty to his host. Enraged by his rejection, Anteia went to Proetus and told him that Bellerophon had tried to assault her. Proetus believed his wife, or perhaps he chose to believe her because the alternative was too terrible to face. He could not kill Bellerophon himself, for that would violate the sacred laws of xenia and bring the wrath of Zeus, the king of the gods who protected all guests, upon his head. So he devised a subtler punishment. He gave Bellerophon a sealed tablet and sent him to Lycia, to his father-in-law Iobates, with instructions to deliver it personally. The tablet contained a message written in the old script: kill the man who brings this letter. Iobates, bound by guest-friendship to Proetus, received the letter and set Bellerophon impossible tasks, but the hero survived them all, and in the end Iobates gave him half his kingdom and his own daughter in marriage. Proetus's plan had failed, and Bellerophon had become greater than the king who had tried to destroy him. But Proetus's troubles were not limited to his wife's treachery. He had daughters, and they were cursed. The Proetides, as they were called, were three in number: Lysippe, Iphinoe, and Iphianassa, though some tellings name them differently. The goddess Hera, the queen of Olympus and wife of Zeus, struck them with madness, either because they had rejected her worship or because they had boasted that their beauty surpassed her own. The girls wandered the hills of Argolis, their hair wild, their clothes torn, believing themselves to be cattle. They lowed like cows and grazed on the grass, and their father could do nothing to cure them. He offered a great reward to any man who could restore their sanity, and the seer Melampus, a prophet who could understand the speech of animals, came forward. Melampus knew that the cure required courage and sacrifice. He took a band of young men and pursued the maddened girls through the mountains, driving them with shouts and whips toward the city of Argos. One of the girls, Iphinoe, died in the chase, but the others were cured by a purifying ritual that Melampus performed. For his service, Melampus demanded a third of Proetus's kingdom, and Proetus, desperate to save his remaining daughters, agreed. The seer became a king, and the Proetides were restored to their father's house, though they never forgot the hills where they had grazed like beasts. In the later years of his reign, Proetus watched as the world around him changed. His brother Acrisius had a daughter, Danae, whom he locked in a bronze tower to prevent a prophecy that said her son would kill him. But Zeus visited her in a shower of gold, and she bore Perseus, the hero who would one day slay the Gorgon Medusa, the creature whose face turned all who looked upon it to stone, and who would accidentally fulfil the prophecy by killing Acrisius with a discus. Proetus outlived his brother, but his own line was less fortunate. His daughters married and had children, but the curse of Hera lingered over the house. In the end, Proetus died and was buried in Tiryns, and his kingdom passed to his descendants. But his name lived on through Bellerophon, the hero he had tried to kill, and through Glaucus, the Lycian warrior who would fight at Troy, carrying the blood of Proetus into the greatest war of the age. Summary Proetus stands as the king whose own household destroyed him, the twin who could not share, the husband who believed a lie, and the father who watched his daughters go mad. From the womb of Ocalea to the walls of Tiryns, from the sealed tablet of Lycia to the hills where the Proetides grazed, his story is a chronicle of the curses that fall upon those who cannot master their own domain. Every kingdom divided against itself, every guest betrayed by a host, every father who cannot save his children carries something of his fate. He is the reminder that the greatest dangers to a king often come not from his enemies but from the people who share his table and sleep beneath his roof. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Proetus From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Acrisius Person Acrisius Hera Deity Hera Bellerophon Person Bellerophon Stheneboea Person Stheneboea Iobates Person Iobates Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BCE) - Book 6, Lines 152-211 (Proetus as king of Ephyre and the Bellerophon story) - Hesiod, Catalogue of Women (c. 7th century BCE) - Fragment 129 (Proetus and Acrisius as twins, division of Argos) - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 2.2.1 (Proetus and Acrisius divide the kingdom) - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 2.2.2 (the madness of the Proetides and Melampus) - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 2.3.1 (Proetus, Anteia, and Bellerophon) - Pausanias, Description of Greece (c. 150 CE) - Book 2.25.7 (tomb of Proetus at Tiryns) - Pausanias, Description of Greece (c. 150 CE) - Book 2.18.4 (the Proetides and their cure) - Herodotus, Histories (c. 440 BCE) - Book 9.34 (Melampus and the division of the kingdom) - Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) - Volume 1, pp. 295-301 (Proetus, Acrisius, and the Argive royal house) - Hall, Jonathan M., Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 1997) - Chapter on Argive genealogy and the Proetid myth Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover King Minos, the legendary lawgiver of Crete whose Labyrinth held the Minotaur and whose name lives on in Minoan civilisation - Mythopouch. Previous Greek Next > Minos Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Μίνως (Minos) Pronunciation MY-noss Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles King of Crete, Son of Zeus, Judge of the Dead, Lawgiver, The Minotaur's Keeper Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Male Time Period c. 13th-8th century BCE (legendary Bronze Age / Early Iron Age) Symbol Crowned Bull Tags minos, crete, minotaur, labyrinth, ariadne, daedalus, judge-of-the-dead, minoan Introduction - Overview Minos is the king of Crete whose name gave the ancient world one of its greatest civilisations, the Minoan culture that flourished across the Aegean Sea. He is the son of Zeus, king of the gods, and Europa, the Phoenician princess he carried across the sea on the back of a white bull, and the lawgiver whose judgements were so just that he became one of the three judges of the dead in the Underworld. He is the monarch who kept the Minotaur, a monstrous creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man, imprisoned in a labyrinth built by the master craftsman Daedalus beneath his palace at Knossos. He is the father of Ariadne, the princess who gave Theseus, the Athenian hero who slew the Minotaur, the thread that guided him through the maze. And he is the king who demanded a terrible tribute from Athens after his son Androgeus was killed there, a tribute that sent fourteen young people to their deaths every nine years until Theseus ended it. His death came in Sicily, where he was murdered in a bath by the daughters of King Cocalus while hunting the fugitive Daedalus, and his bones were returned to Crete to rest in a tomb that became a place of worship. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Minos Minos was born to Europa, a Phoenician princess from the city of Tyre on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and Zeus, the king of the gods who ruled from Mount Olympus. Zeus had fallen in love with Europa and approached her disguised as a magnificent white bull, carrying her across the sea to the island of Crete. There she bore him three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon. When Europa married Asterion, the king of Crete, the boys were raised as princes in the palace at Knossos. After Asterion's death, Minos claimed the throne by divine right, declaring that the gods would grant the kingship to whoever could pray for a sign from the sea. He asked Poseidon, the god of the sea and earthquakes, to send him a bull from the ocean depths as proof of his favour. Poseidon answered by sending a splendid white bull that rose from the waves, and Minos was crowned king of Crete. But Minos broke his promise to Poseidon. Instead of sacrificing the magnificent bull to the god, he kept it for himself and offered a lesser animal in its place. Enraged, Poseidon turned his vengeance upon Minos's wife, Queen Pasiphae. The sea god cursed her with an unnatural passion for the white bull, and she turned to Daedalus, the master craftsman and inventor who had built the dancing floor for Ariadne at Knossos. Daedalus constructed a hollow wooden cow so realistic that Pasiphae could hide inside it, and from this union the Minotaur was born, a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Minos, horrified and shamed, commanded Daedalus to build a vast maze beneath the palace, the Labyrinth, so complex that no one who entered could find their way out, and there he imprisoned the Minotaur to keep it from devouring his people. Years later, Minos's son Androgeus travelled to Athens to compete in the great festival games held in honour of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare who was patron of the city, and was killed, whether by the Marathonian Bull, a wild beast that terrorised the plain of Marathon, or by the Athenian king Aegeus himself out of jealousy for his victories. In grief and rage, Minos attacked Athens and forced the city to accept a terrible tribute: every nine years, seven young men and seven young women would be sent to Crete and cast into the Labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur. This tribute continued until the third cycle, when Theseus, the prince of Athens who had cleared the road to his city of murderers and monsters, volunteered to go as one of the victims. In Crete, Minos's daughter Ariadne fell in love with Theseus and gave him a sword and a ball of thread, a clew, to help him navigate the maze. Theseus killed the Minotaur, followed the thread back out, and fled with Ariadne, ending the tribute forever. Minos's rule was remembered as a golden age of law and order. He was said to have received his laws directly from Zeus, visiting the god's cave on Mount Ida, the great mountain of Crete, every nine years to renew them. His judgements were so fair and wise that after his death, he was appointed one of the three judges of the dead in the Underworld, alongside his brother Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, the king of Aegina. But his death was ignoble. When Daedalus and his son Icarus escaped the Labyrinth by fashioning wings of feathers and wax, Minos pursued them across the sea. He tracked Daedalus to the court of King Cocalus in Sicily, where he demanded the fugitive's return. Cocalus's daughters offered Minos a bath and then poured boiling water or molten pitch over him, killing the king of Crete in his final hunt. His body was returned to Crete and buried with honours, and for centuries his tomb at Knossos was venerated as a sacred place. In the early twentieth century, the British archaeologist Arthur Evans uncovered the vast palace complex at Knossos and named the entire Bronze Age civilisation of Crete after Minos, calling it the Minoan culture. The name stuck, and today Minos is inseparable from the labyrinthine palace with its hundreds of rooms, the frescoes of bull-leapers, and the advanced seafaring empire that dominated the Aegean before the rise of Mycenae, the powerful Greek city on the mainland. His story lives in every retelling of the Minotaur, every mention of a labyrinth, and every image of a king whose justice outlasted his life. Summary Minos stands as the archetype of the lawgiver-king, the ruler whose name became a civilisation and whose judgements echoed beyond the grave. From the bull sent by Poseidon to the Labyrinth beneath Knossos, from the tribute of Athenian youths to the boiling bath in Sicily, his story is one of divine favour, monstrous consequence, and ultimate justice. Every mention of the Minoan world, every maze that puzzles a modern reader, and every court that seeks fair judgement carries the shadow of the king who learned that even a god's gift can become a curse when pride overrides piety. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Minos From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Ariadne Person Ariadne Zeus Deity Zeus Daedalus Person Daedalus Pasiphae Person Pasiphae Minotaur Creature/Monster/Animal Minotaur Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Book 3, chapters 1-3, 15 - Minos's birth, Pasiphae and the bull, the Minotaur, and Theseus - Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, Book 4, chapters 60-61, 77-79 - Minos's laws, death in Sicily - Homer, Odyssey, Book 11, lines 568-571 - Minos as judge of the dead in the Underworld - Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 8, lines 152-182 - Daedalus and Icarus, Minos's pursuit - Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 3, chapter 2 - Minos's tomb and worship in Crete - Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 1, chapter 4 - Minos as the first thalassocrat - Evans, Arthur, The Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921-1935) - Archaeological monograph on Minoan civilisation - Marinatos, Nanno, Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess (2010) - Scholarly analysis of Minoan religion and kingship - MacGillivray, Joseph Alexander, Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth (2000) - Peer-reviewed study of Evans and Minoan archaeology Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Taweret, the pregnant hippo goddess of Egypt who guarded mothers and babies and chained the leg of Seth in the northern sky. - Mythopouch Previous Egyptian Next > Taweret Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s tȝ-wrt (Egyptian) Pronunciation tah-WEH-ret Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Great One, Reret (in her sow form), Mistress of Pure Water, Lady of the Birth House, She of the Northern Sky, the Hippopotamus Goddess, the Great Sorceress Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Ancient Egypt Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Egyptian Region Category Deity Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Female Time Period c. 2500 BCE - Roman period Symbol Mother Hippopotamus with Baby Tags egyptian, taweret, hippopotamus, childbirth, protection, seth, constellations, household Introduction - Overview Taweret is the Great One, the pregnant hippopotamus goddess who stood guard over every pregnancy and every birth in ancient Egypt. She is the household protector built from the most fearsome creatures of the Nile world, with the swollen belly of a hippo, the legs and paws of a lion, the ridged back and tail of a crocodile, and the full breasts of a nursing mother. She is the companion of Bes, the ugly dancing dwarf god, and together they formed the shield that kept demons from the birth chamber. She is the giantess of the northern sky, the hippopotamus constellation who grips a chain around the foreleg of Seth, the god of chaos, so that the murderer of Osiris can never break free among the stars. She is the Mistress of Pure Water, who pours the cleansing flood that prepares both the newborn and the newly dead for life. And she is the goddess no temple needed, loved in every home for two thousand years. Gallery Other depictions of Taweret as a hippopotamus. Main Article - Who or What was... Taweret At the beginning there was only Nun, the dark and endless water, and then the first mound rose from it, the hill that the priests of Heliopolis, the city of the sun, called the ben-ben. Upon it stood Atum, the Complete One, who had made himself. He was alone, and from his own body he brought forth the first pair: Shu, the dry air, and Tefnut, the moisture. The priests told it with a pun, for Atum sneezed out Shu, and the word for sneeze was ishesh, and he spat out Tefnut, and the word for spit was tef. Brother and sister, air and water, they became husband and wife, and from their union came Geb, the green earth, and Nut, the starry sky, and from Geb and Nut came the gods of the great family: Osiris, who would rule the dead; Isis, the queen of magic; Set, the red god of chaos; and Nephthys, the dark sister of mourning. Nine in all, the Ennead of Heliopolis, and Tefnut was the first mother of them all. Tefnut's element was everything wet: the dew on the fields, the rain that so rarely fell in Egypt and so was doubly holy, the moist air that made breath possible. She was pictured as a lioness, or as a woman with the head of a lioness crowned by the solar disk and the rearing cobra, for the lioness was the fiercest creature the Egyptians knew, and the sun's daughter shared her father's fire. In the Book of the Dead, the great collection of afterlife spells, she and Shu sit back to back as the two lions of the horizon, the guardians of yesterday and tomorrow, the pair through whom the sun is reborn each dawn. She had few temples of her own, for she was less a personality than a power, the wetness without which the cosmos would seize and die, but at Leontopolis, the City of Lions in the Delta, she and Shu were worshipped together in their lion forms. Her one great story begins with a quarrel. Tefnut was the Eye of Ra, the blazing energy of the sun god, her father, and something, some insult, some slight that the old tellings leave in shadow, set her fury alight. She blazed out of Egypt and south into Nubia, the wild land beyond the cataracts, and there she raged as a lioness through the hills, devouring every living thing that crossed her path, her eyes like flames, her roar rolling off the rocks. Behind her, Egypt withered. Without the goddess of moisture the air dried, the dew failed, the land cracked, and the people grew afraid, for they understood what her absence meant: the world was drying to death. So Ra sent for her. He dispatched Shu, her own twin and husband, and Thoth, the god of wisdom, who went south in the shape of a small baboon, humble and unthreatening. Thoth found the raging lioness and did what no spear could do: he talked. He told her fables, stories of animals outwitting one another, each with a gentle lesson about anger and home, until the fire in her eyes cooled and she began to remember Egypt. Calmed at last, she turned north, and as she came the land rejoiced: musicians and dancers went out to meet her, the air grew soft and damp, the dew returned, and the inundation, the yearly flood that fed the fields, rose as she entered Egypt. Ra embraced his daughter, and the story gave her rescuer a title that became a god of its own: Onuris, He Who Brings Back the Distant One, the hunter whom the Egyptians identified with Shu. Her story became the pattern for every blazing daughter of the sun: for Sekhmet, the lioness of war; for Bastet, the cat of the hearth; for Hathor, the golden cow-horned goddess of love, when she raged; and for Wadjet, the cobra of the Delta crown, when she struck. At Philae and Edfu, the great late temples of the south, priests still celebrated the festival of the returning goddess when Egypt was ruled by Greek kings, and the tale was copied long after that, one of the last myths of Egypt ever written down. The temples closed, the old language was forgotten, and Tefnut, the first moisture, faded into the silence of the texts, known again only when the hieroglyphs were read once more. But she was never a god of temples. She was the dew on the grain and the breath of the morning, and in that sense she never left. Summary Taweret endures as the fiercest mother in mythology, the pregnant hippopotamus who turned herself into a monster so that no monster could reach the cradle. From the birthing bricks and ivory wands of ordinary homes to the star ceilings of royal tombs where she chains the leg of Seth, she guarded every beginning Egypt knew. A detail worth remembering: archaeologists at Abydos uncovered a real painted birthing brick, four thousand years old, still bearing the protective images drawn to stand with some forgotten mother in her labour. In the human imagination, Taweret remains the eternal guardian of the threshold of life, the proof that motherhood and ferocity are the same thing. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Taweret From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Ammit Creature/Monster/Animal Ammit Osiris Deity Osiris Bes Deity Bes Set Deity Set Hathor Deity Hathor Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Astronomical ceiling, Tomb of Senenmut, Deir el-Bahari, TT353 (c. 1470 BCE, 18th Dynasty) - the hippopotamus goddess binding the foreleg of Seth among the northern stars - Book of Going Forth by Day, funerary vignettes (New Kingdom, c. 1550-1070 BCE) - Taweret as armed protector of the rebirth of the dead - Painted birth brick, South Abydos (Middle Kingdom, c. 1850 BCE) - actual birthing equipment with protective imagery - Barbara S. Lesko, The Great Goddesses of Egypt (University of Oklahoma Press, 1999) - Taweret's cult, household role, and celestial form - Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (Thames & Hudson, 2003) - Taweret's composite iconography and apotropaic function - Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (Oxford UP, 2002) - childbirth magic and the household goddesses Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Muses: Nine goddesses of arts, sciences, literature and creative endeavors. Daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who inspire all creation | Mythopouch Previous Greek Next > Muses Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s (Μοῦσαι) Pronunciation MYOO-ziz Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Nine Muses; Daughters of Memory; Mousai Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Group Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Female Time Period Archaic Greek period (c. 8th century BCE in Hesiod's Theogony) Symbol 9 Flowers Tags greek, god, music, wisdom Introduction - Overview The Muses are the nine divine sisters who breathe inspiration into every poet, musician, historian, and astronomer who ever sought to capture truth in words or song. They are the daughters of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, the Titaness of memory, born from nine nights of union so that mortals might never forget what the gods have revealed. Each sister governs a single art: Calliope commands epic poetry, Clio chronicles history, Euterpe fills the air with flute music, Thalia inspires comedy, Melpomene wears the mask of tragedy, Terpsichore leads the dance, Erato whispers love poetry, Polyhymnia raises sacred hymns, and Urania maps the wandering stars. They appear to the desperate and gifted alike, and once they seize a mortal mind they do not let go until the work is finished. Homer, the blind poet who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey, begged them to sing through him. Hesiod, the shepherd who became the father of Greek cosmology, met them on Mount Helicon and received the order of the universe in a single vision. Every library still bears their signature, for the Muses are the reason human beings do not merely live but remember, celebrate, and understand. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Muses The Muses were born on Mount Olympus or in Pieria, a region in northern Greece near the birthplace of their father Zeus. Their mother Mnemosyne, whose name means simply "Memory," was one of the elder Titans, the generation of gods who ruled before the Olympians. Zeus lay with her for nine consecutive nights, and from each night a daughter was conceived, so that the Muses are older than most of the Olympian gods and yet younger than the Titans. The Nine Muses are: 1. Calliope - Epic poetry, the chief Muse who presides over grand verse and heroic tales; often depicted with a writing tablet, she is the mother of Orpheus by some accounts and the Muse Homer invoked at the opening of the Iliad 2. Clio - History, the proclaimer and chronicler who records the deeds of mortals and the rise and fall of cities; she carries scrolls or books and ensures that great events are never forgotten 3. Euterpe - Music, specifically flute and lyric poetry; she invented the aulos, the double-reed flute, and inspires both the sorrow of elegy and the joy of song 4. Thalia - Comedy and pastoral poetry, the flourishing one who crowns the comic actor with ivy; she presides over rustic mirth, harvest festivals, and the lighthearted mockery of human folly 5. Melpomene - Tragedy, the singer who wears the mask of woe and carries the club of Heracles; from her come the laments of kings brought low by pride and the cathartic terror of the stage 6. Terpsichore - Dance, the delight of dancing who governs the chorus and the rhythmic movement of the body; she is often associated with the lyre and the education of young girls in the art of graceful motion 7. Erato - Love poetry, the lovely one who inspires the verses of desire, courtship, and the bittersweet longing of the heart; she is the Muse of poets who sing of Eros and the wounds of passion 8. Polyhymnia - Sacred hymns, the many-praised Muse of solemn religious verse, meditation, and sacred geometry; she is often shown veiled and in contemplative pose, presiding over the mysteries of the divine 9. Urania - Astronomy, the heavenly Muse who maps the wandering stars and the celestial spheres; she carries a globe and a compass, and her domain is the mathematical harmony of the cosmos They dwell in a house on Olympus, near the throne of Zeus himself, and from there they descend to earth invisibly, seeking minds that are ready to receive them. Their first recorded appearance was to Hesiod, a shepherd tending his flocks on the slopes of Mount Helicon, a mountain in Boeotia sacred to the gods of poetry. Hesiod later wrote that the Muses appeared to him suddenly, breathed a divine voice into him, and commanded him to sing of the generations of the gods. From that encounter came the Theogony, the poem that established the entire Greek family tree of divinities, and the Works and Days, a farmer's almanac that became one of the founding texts of moral philosophy. The defining contest of the Muses was their rivalry with the Pierides, the nine daughters of Pierus, a king of Macedonia who boasted that his daughters sang more beautifully than the daughters of Zeus. The Pierides challenged the Muses to a singing contest on Mount Helicon. The Muses sang first, and their song was so perfect that the mountain itself rose in joy and the sky grew still to listen. Then the Pierides sang, and their song was arrogant and crude, mocking the gods themselves. The Muses, enraged by the insult, transformed the Pierides into magpies, birds that chatter endlessly without meaning, and condemned them to repeat only the songs of others for all time. The contest established the Muses as the absolute arbiters of artistic worth: to challenge them was to lose not only glory but humanity itself. The most famous mortal encounter with the Muses was the invocation of Homer at the opening of the Iliad. The poet, who may have been blind and who wandered from city to city reciting his verses for a living, began his epic with a direct plea: "Sing, Goddess, of the wrath of Achilles." He did not claim to invent the story; he asked the Muse to sing through him, to lend him the voice that mortal memory could not sustain. The same plea opens the Odyssey, where Homer asks the Muse to tell him of the man of many ways, Odysseus, the cunning king of Ithaca who spent ten years struggling home from the Trojan War. In both cases, the Muses are not merely sources of pretty words but guarantors of truth. What the Muse sings is accurate, because the Muses were present at the events themselves and their mother is Memory. A poet who lies has simply not been visited by the true Muses. The Muses also guided the great musicians and thinkers of the Greek world. Orpheus, the Thracian poet whose music could charm beasts and move stones, was said to be their most devoted pupil, and when he descended into the underworld to retrieve his dead wife Eurydice, a nymph who died from a snakebite on their wedding day, it was the power they had given him that swayed Hades, the grim king of the dead, and his queen Persephone. Thamyris, another Thracian singer who boasted he could outsing the Muses themselves, was struck blind and mute for his arrogance, his lyre shattered at his feet. The philosopher Plato, who founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world, called the Muses the guardians of philosophy itself, for true wisdom cannot be separated from the love of beauty and order that the sisters inspire. Even the astronomers of Alexandria, who mapped the heavens in the centuries after Alexander the Great, claimed Urania as their patron, naming her the Muse of astronomy because the stars themselves sing in mathematical harmony. The Muses survived the fall of pagan Greece and entered Roman culture as the Camenae, though their Greek names never fully disappeared. In the Renaissance, artists and poets revived their cult with fresh intensity. The word "museum" comes from their name, a temple to the arts and sciences. The word "music" is simply their art. Every time a writer pauses to invoke a higher power before beginning a difficult work, every time a composer speaks of being seized by inspiration, every time a scientist describes the elegance of an equation as beautiful, the Muses are present. They do not age, they do not die, and they do not forgive mediocrity. They simply wait on their mountain for the next mind ready to burn. Summary The Muses are the eternal guardians of human creativity, the nine sisters who transform raw memory into art, history, music, and science. From Hesiod on Mount Helicon to Homer wandering the cities of Greece, from the shattered lyre of Thamyris to the star-maps of Alexandria, they have inspired and punished for three thousand years. Their mother is Memory and their father is the king of the gods, and so they hold the power to make any mortal moment immortal. Every poem that outlives its author, every melody that survives its composer, carries their invisible watermark. The Muses are the reason civilization does not forget. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Muses From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Calliope Deity Calliope Orpheus Person Orpheus Mnemosyne Titan Mnemosyne Apollo Deity Apollo Zeus Deity Zeus Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Homer, Iliad, Book 1 (lines 1-7) - Invocation of the Muse to sing of Achilles' wrath - Homer, Odyssey, Book 1 (lines 1-10) - Invocation of the Muse to tell of Odysseus - Hesiod, Theogony (lines 1-115, 915-917) - The Muses' appearance to Hesiod and their birth from Zeus and Mnemosyne - Hesiod, Works and Days (lines 1-10) - Invocation of the Muses at the opening - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Book 1.3.3 - The contest with the Pierides and their transformation into magpies - Pindar, Nemean Odes, Ode 3 (lines 1-12) - Invocation of the Muses for athletic victory songs - Plato, Phaedrus (259c-d) - The Muses as sources of divine madness and philosophical inspiration - Strabo, Geography, Book 9.2.25 - Description of Mount Helicon and the springs of the Muses - Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, Book 4.7.1-4 - The story of Orpheus and the Muses - Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (1985) - Chapter 5, "The Muses: Cult and Poetry in Ancient Greece" - Detienne, Marcel, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece (1996) - "The Muses and the Invention of Memory" - Nagy, Gregory, Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music (1996) - "The Muse and the Poet: Inspiration and Performance" - West, M.L., The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (1985) - "The Muses in Hesiod and the Archaic Tradition" - Murray, Penelope, Plato on Poetry (1996) - "The Muses in Platonic Philosophy: Inspiration vs. Imitation" Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Gaia: Primordial goddess and personification of Earth, first being to emerge from Chaos. Mother of Uranus, the Titans and all living life | Mythopouch Previous Greek Next > Gaia Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s (Γαῖα) Pronunciation GUY-uh Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Gaea, Ge, Mother Earth, Terra (Roman) Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Deity Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Female Time Period Before Creation onward Symbol Tree Tags greek, god, earth, nature, primordial Introduction - Overview Gaia is the primordial goddess who is the Earth itself, the second being to emerge from Chaos at the dawn of creation and the mother of every god, giant, and mortal creature who ever lived. She is the great mother who gave birth to the starry heavens, the mountains, and the raging sea from her own body without union. She is the wife of Ouranos, the sky, who became her husband and oppressor, forcing her children back into her womb until she armed her son Cronus with a sickle and set him against his father. She is the protector of Zeus, the youngest god, whom she hid in a cave on Crete and helped overthrow the Titans in a war that shook the cosmos for ten years. She is the eternal enemy of every king who imprisons her children, from Ouranos to Cronus to Zeus himself, whom she sent the monster Typhon to destroy. And she is the first oracle at Delphi, the ancient ash altar at Olympia, and the living soil beneath every temple ever built, the foundation that outlasts every empire built upon it. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Gaia In the beginning, before the gods or the earth or the sea, there was only Chaos, the yawning void. Then Gaia arose, the second being to emerge at creation, born without parentage from the void itself. Hesiod, writing his Theogony around 700 BCE, calls her "wide-bosomed Gaia, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus." She was not merely a goddess but the Earth itself, the living soil and stone, the breast upon which all life would one day feed. From her own body, without union, she gave birth to three great children: Ouranos, the starry heavens; the Ourea, the long mountains; and Pontos, the raging sea. But Gaia's greatest children came from her union with Ouranos, the sky she had made her husband. Together they bore the twelve Titans: Oceanus, the earth-encircling river; Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Cronus, the youngest and most terrible. They also bore the three Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, each with a single eye blazing in his forehead, and the three Hecatoncheires, Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, each with a hundred arms and fifty heads. Ouranos hated these children and forced them back into Gaia's womb, burying them inside her own body. The pain was unbearable. Gaia groaned beneath the weight of the sky and her imprisoned children, until she could bear it no longer. Gaia forged a great sickle of grey adamant and called her children to her. Only Cronus, the youngest Titan, had the courage to take it. He lay in wait and when Ouranos descended to lie with Gaia, Cronus stretched forth his hand and struck. He lopped off his father's members and cast them behind him. The blood that fell upon Gaia's earth gave birth to the Erinnyes, the Furies; the Gigantes, the Giants; and the Meliae, the ash-tree nymphs. From the foam where the severed parts fell into the sea, Aphrodite arose, the goddess of love and beauty. Ouranos withdrew forever, and Cronus became king. But Cronus proved no better than his father. He swallowed each of his own children as they were born, fearing a prophecy that one would overthrow him. Gaia, watching her grandchildren vanish into her son's belly, turned against him. When Rhea gave birth to Zeus, Gaia hid the infant in a cave on Crete and gave Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow instead. She sent the Kouretes, the earth-born spirits, to clash their weapons and drown out the infant's cries. When Zeus grew to manhood, Gaia gave him the potion that forced Cronus to vomit up the swallowed children: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and the stone. Zeus led them in war against the Titans, the Titanomachy, and after ten years the old gods fell. Yet Gaia's wrath did not end with the Titans. When Zeus imprisoned her children in Tartarus, she turned against him too. She bore Typhon, the monstrous son of Tartarus, a creature with a hundred serpent heads springing from his shoulders, each breathing fire and speaking with a human voice. Typhon challenged Zeus for Olympus, and the battle shook the world. Zeus struck him down with thunderbolts and buried him beneath Mount Etna in Sicily, where his breath still burns as volcanic fire. Gaia was worshipped across the Greek world as the first oracle at Delphi before Apollo came, and at Olympia where her ancient ash altar stood. She was the mother of all, the foundation that never moved, the earth that outlasts every empire. Summary Gaia stands as the eternal mother, the primordial earth whose body is the soil beneath every footstep and the stone beneath every temple. From the void of Chaos to the war of the Titans, from the sickle that castrated the sky to the monster who challenged the thunderbolt, her story is the story of the world itself. She is the first oracle at Delphi, the ancient ash altar at Olympia, and the living earth that nourishes and outlasts every civilization that rises and falls upon her breast. Every field planted, every mountain climbed, and every city founded carries the memory of the great mother who was here before the gods and will remain after they are gone. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Gaia From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Typhon Creature/Monster/Animal Typhon Titans Group Titans Cronus Titan Cronus Uranus Deity Uranus Zeus Deity Zeus Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Hesiod, Theogony (c. 700 BCE) - lines 116-122, 126-132, 154-181, 820-822 - Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BCE) - Book 3.104, 3.278, 15.36, 19.259 - Homeric Hymn XXX to Gaia (c. 700-500 BCE) - lines 1-18 - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (c. 2nd century BCE) - Book 1.1-1.6 - Aeschylus, Eumenides (458 BCE) - lines 1-8 - Pausanias, Description of Greece (2nd century CE) - Book 5.14.8, 10.5.3 - Ovid, Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE) - Book 1.1-1.88 - Nonnus, Dionysiaca (5th century CE) - Book 27.50, 41.82 - West, M.L. "Hesiod: Theogony" (1966) - Oxford University Press, pp. 18-35, 192-200 - Brisson, Luc. "How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mythology" (2004) - University of Chicago Press, pp. 34-41 Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Psyche, the mortal princess whose beauty surpassed Aphrodite and who became goddess of the soul through her love for Eros - Mythopouch. Previous Greek Next > Psyche Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Ψυχή (Psychē) Pronunciation SY-kee Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Butterfly Maiden, The Mortal Who Became a Goddess, The Bride of Eros, The Princess Who Surpassed Aphrodite, The Soul Made Divine Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Deity Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Female Time Period 2nd century CE (Apuleius's Metamorphoses); Hellenistic tradition Symbol Butterfly wings on a lamp Tags greek, psyche, eros, aphrodite, immortality, underworld, soul, love-story Introduction - Overview Psyche is the mortal princess whose beauty was so extraordinary that the people of her kingdom abandoned the temples of Aphrodite and worshipped her instead. She is the bride of Eros, the winged god of love and desire, who visited her in a palace of gold and marble but forbade her to see his face. She is the woman who broke that trust, holding a lamp over her sleeping husband and spilling a drop of hot oil upon his shoulder, causing him to flee. She is the wanderer who completed four impossible tasks for the jealous goddess Aphrodite: sorting a mountain of mixed grains in a single night, fetching golden wool from man-eating sheep, drawing water from the river Styx that flowed through the Underworld, and fetching a box of beauty from Persephone, the queen of the dead. She is the mortal who became a goddess, granted immortality by Zeus, the king of the gods, and given a place on Mount Olympus. And she is the namesake of the human soul, the word from which psychology, psychiatry, and every study of the mind takes its name, a legacy that has outlasted empires. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Psyche Psyche was born the youngest daughter of a nameless king and queen who ruled a wealthy Greek city. From the moment she entered the world, her beauty was so overwhelming that visitors from neighbouring lands came merely to gaze upon her face. As she grew, the people of her kingdom began to neglect the temples of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty who was born from the sea foam of the severed genitals of Uranus, the primordial sky-god, and instead they brought offerings to Psyche as if she were a goddess herself. Aphrodite, enraged that a mortal was stealing her worship, called upon her son Eros, the winged god of love whose arrows could make any being fall into uncontrollable desire, and commanded him to shoot Psyche with a poisoned arrow that would make her fall in love with the most vile creature on earth. But when Eros leaned over the sleeping princess, he pricked himself with his own arrow and fell hopelessly in love with her. Unable to obey his mother, he swept Psyche away to a hidden palace on a mountain peak, where the west wind Zephyr, the gentle breeze that carried spring flowers, lifted her from the rocky cliff and set her down in a garden of impossible splendour. In the palace, Psyche was attended by invisible servants who laid feasts before her and dressed her in silk and gold. Each night, a husband came to her bed in the darkness, a warm and tender presence who spoke words of love but never allowed her to see his face. He warned her that she must never try to discover his identity, and that she must not listen to anyone who told her he was a monster. For a time, Psyche was happy, but she grew lonely and begged to see her two elder sisters. Reluctantly, her husband allowed the sisters to visit, carried to the mountain by Zephyr. When they saw the golden palace and the invisible servants, they were consumed with jealousy. They told Psyche that her husband was a terrible serpent who would devour her once she grew heavy with child, and they gave her a plan: hide a sharp knife and an oil lamp beneath her bed, and when he slept, cut off his head. That night, Psyche lit the lamp and held the knife, but instead of a monster she saw the most beautiful being she had ever imagined. Eros lay sleeping, his golden wings folded, his face radiant with divine light. Overcome with love and shame, she leaned forward, and a drop of hot oil fell from the lamp onto his shoulder. Eros woke with a cry of pain, saw the lamp and the knife, and knew that she had betrayed his trust. Without a word, he spread his wings and flew from the palace, and the entire palace vanished behind him, leaving Psyche alone on the bare mountain. She threw herself from the cliff in despair, but the river below caught her and set her upon the bank, and she began her long wandering in search of her lost husband. She came at last to temples of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and of Hera, the queen of Olympus and wife of Zeus, the king of the gods, but neither goddess would help her against the wrath of Aphrodite. Aphrodite found Psyche wandering and seized her with fury, declaring that she would never see Eros again unless she completed four impossible tasks. First, she poured a heap of mixed grains onto the temple floor and commanded Psyche to sort them by dawn. As Psyche wept, a colony of ants sorted every grain before the sun rose. Second, Aphrodite sent her to fetch golden wool from man-eating sheep. A reed whispered that she should wait until the sheep slept, then gather the wool caught on thorn bushes. Third, Aphrodite demanded water from the river Styx, the black river that flowed through the Underworld, the realm of the dead ruled by Hades, the gloomy god of the underworld, whose waters would shatter any jar. An eagle, the bird of Zeus, the king of the gods, swooped down and filled the jar. Finally, Aphrodite gave Psyche a box and commanded her to take it to Persephone, the queen of the dead, daughter of Demeter and wife of Hades, and ask her to fill it with a portion of her own beauty. A tower told Psyche how to enter the Underworld through a cave, how to pass the three-headed hound Cerberus, who guarded the gates of the Underworld, with a cake, and how to refuse all food among the dead. Persephone filled the box, and Psyche returned. But at the threshold of the living world, she opened the box hoping to steal a little beauty, and a death-like sleep poured out and overcame her. Eros, who had been hiding in his mother's palace nursing his burned shoulder, felt Psyche's danger and flew to her. He brushed the sleep from her face and sent it back into the box, then carried her to Mount Olympus, the home of the gods. He threw himself before Zeus, the king of the gods who ruled with his thunderbolt, and begged for mercy. Zeus, moved by their love, declared that Psyche would drink the cup of immortality and take her place among the Olympians. Hermes, the messenger god who moved between heaven and earth with winged sandals, led Psyche to the assembly, and Aphrodite, though still resentful, could not oppose the will of Zeus. Eros and Psyche were married on Olympus, and Psyche bore a daughter named Hedone, the goddess of pleasure, whose Roman name was Voluptas. From that day forward, Psyche was worshipped as the goddess of the human soul, the immortal bride of love itself. Summary Psyche stands as the only mortal in Greek mythology who became a goddess through love rather than violence or divine favour. From the jealous temples of Aphrodite to the impossible tasks of the Underworld, from the lamp that burned her husband's shoulder to the cup of immortality on Olympus, her story is a journey from mortal fragility to divine permanence. She gave the world the word for the soul itself, and every field that studies the mind still carries her name. She remains the eternal proof that love can transform even the most ordinary human into something immortal. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Psyche From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Psyche's Sisters Group Psyche's Sisters Eros Deity Eros Zephyrus Deity Zephyrus Aphrodite Deity Aphrodite Persephone Deity Persephone Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass) (c. 170 CE) - Book 4.28 to Book 6.24 (the complete Cupid and Psyche narrative) - Hesiod, Theogony (c. 700 BCE) - Lines 116-122 (Eros as a primordial force) - Pausanias, Description of Greece (c. 150 CE) - Book 9.27.1 (Eros worship at Thespiae and cult context) - Plato, Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) - Speech of Aristophanes and Diotima on the nature of Eros and love - Kenney, E. J., Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche (Cambridge University Press, 1990) - Introduction, text, and commentary - Swahn, Jan-Ojvind, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche (A. W. Sijthoff, 1955) - Folklore and narrative structure analysis - Shumate, Nancy, Crisis and Conversion in Apuleius' Metamorphoses (University of Michigan Press, 1996) - Literary and thematic analysis - Walsh, P. G., The Roman Novel (Cambridge University Press, 1970) - Chapter on Apuleius and the Greek novel tradition Previous --- End of Record --- Next >