Selene goddess of the moon biography definition

However, it came with a cost. Endymion was given the choice by Zeus of when he would die. The mortal opted for eternal sleep, thus granting him his youth, but it was a youth he could not enjoy. Selene visited Endymion each night in his place of rest near Mount Latmos. Scholars who study the Titans say that some of the rituals and stories associated with gods and goddesses like Selene existed to support ancient shamanistic practices.

Rather, the identities of these goddesses became one over the course of time. As such, she was revered as on of the most important deities for agriculture. These rituals started first in families and clans, according to the Metand then were adopted by society itself until they were celebrated nationwide within the city-states of the ancient world.

Mystery cults in the ancient world have an air of secrecy to them. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, Online version at ToposText. Jones, Prudence H. Julius PolluxOnomasticon: cum annotationibus interpretum. VI - X, Volume 2, Kuehn, Google books. Bell and Sons, Lightfoot, J. Lightfoot, Loeb Classical Library No. LucianDialogues of the Dead.

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Willetts, R. Xenis, Georgios A. This suggests that he is associating Selene with Artemisa goddess of the hunt and the forest who was also associated with the moon. Selene and Helios were often, in later times, associated with the children of Zeus and Leto, Artemis and Apollo. Playing her role in the Greek pantheon family tree, Selene was also reportedly the mother of several deities.

With her brother Helios she was reportedly the mother of the Horae, who were the personifications of the four seasons. Nonnius suggests that she was the mother of Narcissus, but alternative parentage for him exists elsewhere in Greek myth. She may also have been the mother of the poet Musaeus. The geographer Pausanias suggests that she was the mother of 50 daughters with her lover Endymion, who represented the 50 lunar months of the Olympiad.

The sources suggest that she was madly passionate for Endymion, whom she could not be with because he was trapped in an internal sleep. It is nowhere clear how exactly this situation occurred, but it is implied that it is due to his love for Selene, or her love for him, that he must sleep. While Selene is conspicuously absent from the Iliadshe appears in a few of the important stories of Greek mythology, especially the Gigantomachy.

This starts with the birth of Heracles, who is destined to help the gods defeat the giants. So via Hermes, he tells Selene to take her time in the night sky, and he is able to stay with her for three days of continuous night. Some passages in surviving myths also imply that Selene was involved with the birth and rearing of Heracles, but there are no details.

Later, when Gaia decides to set the giants against the Olympian gods, she learns of an herb that will make her side invincible. Why, it seems to have anticipated by many years the recent doctrine of Anaxagoras, that the moon receives its light from the sun. Now the light is always new and old about the moon, if the Anaxagoreans are selene goddess of the moon biography definition for they say the sun, in its continuous course about the moon, always sheds new light upon it, and the light of the previous month persists.

The moon is often called Selanaia. Because it has always a new and old gleam sela neon te kai henon the very most fitting name for it would be Selaenoneoaeia, which has been compressed into Selanaia. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1. Anonymous, Hero and Leander Fragment trans. Page, Vol. Some have said the that steed of the goddess is a mule and not a horse, and they tell a silly story about the mule.

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 1. White Selene the Moon from on high looked on her, and remembered her own love, princely Endymion, and she pitied her in that wild race, and, shining overhead in her full brightness, made the long tracks plain. Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. Melville Roman epic C1st B. Ovid, Fasti 4. Boyle Roman poetry C1st B.

Virgil, Georgics 1.

Selene goddess of the moon biography definition: Selene (also known as

But if over her face she spreads a maiden blush, there will be wind; as wind rises, golden Phoebe [Luna-Selene] ever blushes. But if at her fourth rising--for that is our surest guide--she pass through the sky clear and with undimmed horns, then all that day, and the days born of it to the month's end, shall be free from rain and wind; and the sailors, safe in port.

Seneca, Hercules Furens ff trans. Titan [Sol-Helios the Sun] peeps forth from Oeta's crest; now the rough brakes. Seneca, Medea 95 ff : "So does starlight splendour wane with the coming of the sun, and the huddled flock of the Pleiades vanish away when Phoebe [Selene the Moon], shining with borrowed light [i. Seneca, Oedipus 44 ff : "[During a time of drought :] With paling light glides Phoebus' sister [Selene the Moon] athwart the sky, and the gloomy heavens are wan in the lowering day.

Seneca, Oedipus ff : "Thou [Helios the Sun], greatest glory of the unclouded sky. Seneca, Oedipus ff : "While the bright stars of the ancient heavens shall run in their courses; while Oceanus shall encircle the imprisoned earth with its waters; while full Luna the Moon [Selene] gather again her lost radiance; while Lucifer [Eosphoros the Dawn-Starr] shall herald the dawn of the morning.

Selene goddess of the moon biography definition: Selene was the Titan goddess

Seneca, Phaedra ff : "Mayst thou [Luna-Selene the Moon] wear a shining face and, the clouds all scattered, fare on with undimmed horns; when thou drivest thy car through the nightly skies. Seneca, Phaedra ff : "As much fairer does thy beauty shine as gleams more brightly the full-orbed moon when with meeting horns she has joined her fires, when at the full with speeding chariot blushing Phoebe [Selene the Moon] shows her face and the lesser stars fade out of sight.

Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 5. Statius, Thebaid 1. Statius, Thebaid Argia, daughter of Inachus, my favourite votary--seest thou in what a night she roams [in search of the unburied body of her husband Polyneikes Polynices on the battlefields of Thebes], nor with failing strength can find her spouse in the thick darkness? Thy beams too are faint with shrouding vapour; show forth thy horns, I pray thee, and let thy orbit approach the earth nearer than is thy wont.

This Sopor [Hypnos, sleep], too, who leaning forward plies for thee thy humid chariot-reins, send him upon the Aonian watchmen. Statius, Achilleid 1. Statius, Silvae 3. Mozley Roman poetry C1st A. Tryphiodorus, The Taking of Ilias trans. Mair Greek poetry C6th A. First towards the western clime he allotted the Onkaian Oncaean Gate to Mene the Moon [Selene] brighteyes, taking the name from the honk of cattle, because Selene herself, bullshaped, horned, driver of cattle, being triform is Tritonis Athene.

For Lord Dionysos wore on that invulnerable head. Lyaios Lyaeus wore the heavenly image of the cow's eye Selene, a growth of divine horns which cannot be broken, which enemies cannot shake. I hope I may not behold the sea in the sky and Selene's car soaking. Instead of the wedding torch, Selene the Moon sent her beams to attend the wedding. Suidas s.

Aigle trans.

Selene goddess of the moon biography definition: The goddess and personification of

Lunar eclipses and the phenomena of the "red moon" were believed to be caused by the evil magics of Thessalian witches, who drew the goddess down from the sky in order to extract her blood. It was customary for villagers to beat cymbals at these times, to negate the witches' power and restore the goddess to the sky. Plato, Gorgias a trans.

Sokrates alludes to the popular theory that the practice of witchcraft is a serious danger to the practicioner. Ovid, Metamorphoses 7. Ovid, Metamorphoses Ovid, Heroides 6. Seneca, Medea ff trans. Seneca, Phaedra ff : "When thou [Luna-Selene the Moon] drivest thy car through the nightly skies, may no witcheries of Thessaly prevail to drag thee down.

Seneca, Phaedra ff : "Anxious for our troubled goddess [Luna-Selene the Moon], thinking her harried by Thessalian charms [i. Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 6. Latonia [Luna-Selene the Moon] that she can ride in a safe heaven [since Coastes has gone to war Selene the Moon is not continually being drawn down from the sky by his magic]. Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 7.

Statius, Thebaid 6. The Greek months began with the new moon and were divided into three ten day periods. The first ten days were presided over by the waxing moon, the next ten the near full and full moon, and the last ten by the waning moon. Festivals and the lucky and unlucky days of the month were consequently measured in the cycles of the moon.

Sappho, Fragment trans. Aratus, Phaenomena ff trans. Mair Greek astronomical poem C3rd B. Ovid, Fasti 3.

Selene goddess of the moon biography definition: Selene, in Greek and

The seventeenth is lucky for planting the vine, for yoking and breaking in oxen, and for adding the leashes to the warp. The ninth is a friend to the runaway, a foe to the thief. Virgil derives these days from Hesiod's Works and Days.