OREITHYIA, daughter of Erechtheus, King of Athens, and his wife Praxithea, was one day whirling in a dance beside the river Ilissus, when Boreas, son of Astraeus and Eos, and brother of the South West Winds, carried her off to a rock near the river Ergines and, wrapped in a mantle of dark clouds, he ravished her.
b. Boreas had long loved Oreithyia and repeatedly sued for her hand; but Erechtheus put him off with vain promises until at the end, complaining that he had wasted too much time in words, he resorted to natural violence. Some, however, say that Oreithyia was carrying basket in the annual Thesmophorian procession that winds up slope of the Acropolis to the temple of Athene Polias, when Boreas tucked her beneath his tawny wings and whirled her away, unseen by the surrounding crowd.
c. He took her to the city of the Thracian Cicones, where she became his wife, and bore him twin sons, Calais and Zetes, who grew wings when they reached manhood; also two daughters, namely Chione, who bore Eumolpus to Poseidon, and Cleopatra, who married King Phineus, the victim of the Harpies.
d. Boreas has serpent-tails for feet, and inhabits a cave on Mount Haemus, in the seven recesses of which Ares stables his horses; but he is also at home beside the river Strymon.
e. Once, disguising himself as a dark-maned stallion, he covered twelve of the three thousand mares belonging to Erichthonius, son of Dardanus, which used to graze in the water- meadows beside the river Scamander. Twelve fillies were born from this union; they could race over ripe ears of standing corn without bending them, or over the crests of waves.
f. The Athenians regard Boreas as their brother-in-law and, having once successfully invoked him to destroy King Xerxes’s fleet, they built him a fine temple on the banks of the river Ilissus.
1. Serpent-tailed Boreas, the North Wind, was another name for the demiurge Ophion who danced with Eurynome, or Oreithyia, Goddess of Creation, and impregnated her. But, as Ophion was to Eurynome, or Boreas to Oreithyia, so was Erechtheus to the original Athene; and Athene Polias (‘of the city’), for whom Oreithyia danced, may have been Athene Polias- Athene the Filly, goddess of the local horse cult, and beloved by Boreas-Erechtheus, who thus became the Athenians’ brother-in-law. The Boreas cult seems to have originated in Libya. It should be remembered that Hermes, falling in love with Oreithyia’s predecessor Herse while she was carrying a sacred basket in a similar procession, to the Acropolis, had ravished her without incurring Athene’s displeasure. The Thesmophoria seems to have once been an orgiastic festival in which priestesses publicly prostituted themselves as a means fertilizing the cornfields. These baskets contained phallic objects.
2. A primitive theory that children were the reincarnations of their ancestors, who entered into women’s wombs as sudden gusts of wind lingered in the erotic cult of the Mare-goddess; and Homer’s authority was weighty enough to make educated Romans still believe, with Pliny that Spanish mares could conceive by turning their hindquarters to wind (Pliny: Natural History). Varro mentions the same phenomenon, and Lactantius, in the late third century AD, makes it an analogy of the Virgin’s impregnation by the Sanctus Spiritus.
3. Boreas blows in winter from the Haemus range and the Strymon, and, when Spring comes with its flowers, seems to have impregnated whole land of Attica; but, since he cannot blow backwards, the myth of Oreithyia’s rape apparently also records the spread of the North Wind cult from Athens to Thrace. From Thrace, or directly from Athens reached the Troad, where the owner of the three thousand mares is Erichthonius, a synonym of Erechtheus. The twelve fillies will have served to draw three four-horse chariots, one for each of annual triad: Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Mount Haemus was haunt of the monster Typhon.
4. Socrates, who had no understanding of myths, misses the point of Oreithyia’s rape: he suggests that a princess of that name, playing on cliffs near the Ilissus, or on the Hill of Ares, was accidentally blown off the edge and killed (Plato: Phaedrus). The cult of Boreas has recently been revived at Athens to commemorate his destruction of Persian fleet (Herodotus).
He also helped the Megalopolitans against the Spartans and earned annual sacrifices (Pausanias).
d. Boreas has serpent-tails for feet, and inhabits a cave on Mount Haemus, in the seven recesses of which Ares stables his horses; but he is also at home beside the river Strymon.
e. Once, disguising himself as a dark-maned stallion, he covered twelve of the three thousand mares belonging to Erichthonius, son of Dardanus, which used to graze in the water- meadows beside the river Scamander. Twelve fillies were born from this union; they could race over ripe ears of standing corn without bending them, or over the crests of waves.
f. The Athenians regard Boreas as their brother-in-law and, having once successfully invoked him to destroy King Xerxes’s fleet, they built him a fine temple on the banks of the river Ilissus.
1. Serpent-tailed Boreas, the North Wind, was another name for the demiurge Ophion who danced with Eurynome, or Oreithyia, Goddess of Creation, and impregnated her. But, as Ophion was to Eurynome, or Boreas to Oreithyia, so was Erechtheus to the original Athene; and Athene Polias (‘of the city’), for whom Oreithyia danced, may have been Athene Polias- Athene the Filly, goddess of the local horse cult, and beloved by Boreas-Erechtheus, who thus became the Athenians’ brother-in-law. The Boreas cult seems to have originated in Libya. It should be remembered that Hermes, falling in love with Oreithyia’s predecessor Herse while she was carrying a sacred basket in a similar procession, to the Acropolis, had ravished her without incurring Athene’s displeasure. The Thesmophoria seems to have once been an orgiastic festival in which priestesses publicly prostituted themselves as a means fertilizing the cornfields. These baskets contained phallic objects.
2. A primitive theory that children were the reincarnations of their ancestors, who entered into women’s wombs as sudden gusts of wind lingered in the erotic cult of the Mare-goddess; and Homer’s authority was weighty enough to make educated Romans still believe, with Pliny that Spanish mares could conceive by turning their hindquarters to wind (Pliny: Natural History). Varro mentions the same phenomenon, and Lactantius, in the late third century AD, makes it an analogy of the Virgin’s impregnation by the Sanctus Spiritus.
4. Socrates, who had no understanding of myths, misses the point of Oreithyia’s rape: he suggests that a princess of that name, playing on cliffs near the Ilissus, or on the Hill of Ares, was accidentally blown off the edge and killed (Plato: Phaedrus). The cult of Boreas has recently been revived at Athens to commemorate his destruction of Persian fleet (Herodotus).
He also helped the Megalopolitans against the Spartans and earned annual sacrifices (Pausanias).
Comments
Post a Comment