HESTIA Of all the gods, Hestia—“First to be devoured and the last to be yielded up again”—is probably the least well known to us, perhaps because the realm that Zeus in his wisdom apportioned to her was the hearth. In our less communal age of central heating and separate rooms for each family member, we do not lend the hearth quite the importance that our ancestors did, Greek or otherwise. Yet, even for us, the word stands for something more than just a fireplace. We speak of “hearth and home.” Our word “hearth” shares its ancestry with “heart,” just as the modern Greek for “hearth” is kardia,
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