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THE HOMERIC AND ORPHIC CREATION MYTHS

Gaea

SOME say that all gods and all living creatures originated in the stream of Oceanus which girdles the world, and that Tethys was the mother of all his children.
b. But the Orphics say that black-winged Night, a goddess of whom even Zeus stands in awe, was courted by the Wind and laid a silver egg in the womb of Darkness; and that Eros, whom some call Phanes, was hatched from this egg and set the Universe in motion. Eros was double-sexed and golden-winged and, having four heads, sometimes roared like a bull or a lion, sometimes hissed like a serpent or bleated like a ram. Night, who named him Ericepaius and Protogenus Phaëthon, lived in a cave with him, displaying herself in triad: Night, Order and Justice. Before this cave sat inescapable mother Rhea, playing on a brazen drum, and compelling man's attention to the oracles of the goddess. Phanes created earth, sky, sun, and moon, but the triple-goddess ruled the universe, until her sceptre passed to Uranus
1. Homer's myth is a version of the Pelasgian creation story, since Tethys reigned over the sea like Eurynome, and Oceanus girdled the Universe like Ophion.
2. The Orphic myth is another version, but influenced by a mystical doctrine of love (Eros) and theories about the proper relation of the sexes. Night's silver egg means the moon, silver being the lunar metal. As Ericepaius ('feeder upon heather'), the love-god Phanes ('revealer') is a loudly-buzzing celestial bee, son of the Great Goddess. The beehive was studied as an ideal republic, and confirmed the myth of the Golden Age, when honey dropped from the trees. Rhea's brazen drum was beaten to prevent bees from swarming in the wrong place, and to ward off evil influences, like the bull-roarers used in the Mysteries. As Phaëthon Protogenus ('first-born shiner'), Phanes is the Sun, which the Orphics made a symbol of illumination, and his four heads correspond with the symbolic beasts of the four seasons. According to Macrobius, the Oracle of Colophon identified this Phanes with the transcendent god Iao: Zeus (ram), Spring; Helius (lion), Summer; Hades (snake), Winter; Dionysus (bull), New Year. Night's sceptre passed to Uranus with the advent of patriarchalism.

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