The Gods of the Greeks Quotes

“There was a cult-worship of her on Hekatesnesos, the island of Hekate, near the island of Delos. Hekate herself was at one time known as Angelos. In her capacity of Messenger, Hekate was thought to be the daughter of Hera and Zeus. It was told{146} of her that she stole her mother’s beauty-salve and gave it to Europa, Hera’s rival. When Hera sought to punish Hekate for this, she fled first to the bed of a woman in childbirth, then to a funeral procession, and lastly to the Acherusian Sea in the Underworld, where she was purified by the Kabeiroi: an adventure, one would say, entirely typical of her!”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“Hekate had a share of the sky, earth and sea, but never became an Olympian goddess. She was so closely connected with the life of our women, and therefore with mankind generally, that she seemed smaller than the wives and daughters of Zeus. On the other hand, her realm—especially the sea, where in primordial times she carried on her love-affairs—was so great that the Olympian could not possibly control it. When she was not walking on the highways, she dwelt in her cave.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“Aphrodite is still outside the ranks of the Olympian deities, and continued to be so, as far as this story is concerned, even after she was received amongst them. One reason why she remained aloof from Olympus was her great sphere of dominion elsewhere: as, for the same reason, did Hekate, to whom she becomes closely similar when she is found, under the name of Aphrodite Zerynthia on the Thracian coast, or of Genetyllis on the Attic coast, receiving sacrifices of dogs. For the Athenians she was “the oldest Moira”.{162} Elsewhere, too, she was thought to resemble the Moirai and the Erinyes, in being, like them, a daughter of Kronos.{163} On the other hand, the tale of her being directly begotten by Ouranos connected our great love-goddess for all time with the sea. For us she was the Anadyomene, the goddess who “emerges” from the salt waves; and she also had the additional name of Pelagia, “she of the sea”.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“Hekate, the third of this group, was always closest to us—although her name perhaps means “the Distant One”. It is not only her name that links her with Apollon and Artemis, who are also named Hekatos and Hekate, but also her family origin—if Hesiod is right in his account of it. She is elsewhere supposed to have been one of the Daughters of Night.{58} Hesiod, however, gives us the following genealogy:{59} the Titan couple Phoebe and Koios had two daughters: Leto, the mother of Apollon and Artemis, and Asteria, a star-goddess who bore Hekate to Persaios or Perses, the son of Eurybia. Hekate is therefore the cousin of Apollon and Artemis, and at the same time a reappearance of the great goddess Phoibe, whose name poets often give to the moon. Indeed, Hekate used to appear to us carrying her torch as the Moon-Goddess, whereas Artemis, although she, too, sometimes carries a torch, never did so. Hesiod seeks further to distinguish Hekate from Artemis by repeatedly emphasising that the former is monogenes, “an only child”. In this respect, too, Hekate resembled Persephone, the goddess of the Underworld. For the rest, she was an almighty, threefold goddess. Zeus revered her above all others,{60} and let her have her share of the earth, the sea and the starry sky; or rather, he did not deprive her of this threefold honour, which she had previously enjoyed under the earlier gods, the Titans, but let her retain what had been awarded to her at the first distribution of honours and dignities. She was therefore a true Titaness of the Titans, even though this is never expressly stated.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“The only thing that Apollon might not cede to his brother was the power of high soothsaying; for Apollon alone was entrusted with the knowledge of the decisions of Zeus. But he gave Hermes the soothsaying of three swarming virgins—three sister bees on Parnassus—and also his own former dominion over the beasts, together with the office of initiated Messenger on the path leading to the House of Hades in the Underworld: the office of Psychopompos, the escort of souls. Such a liking had Apollon taken to the son of Maia, who furthermore received from Zeus the right to traffic with immortals and mortals: the office of Messenger of the Gods.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“Whenever the story of the origin of mankind was set on a particular island, the goddess of that island was said to be its mother: in other words, our well-known Great Mother-Goddess, under the name of the island itself. In Asia Minor the part was played by Rhea, on our mainland by the same goddess in her particular local manifestations. She bore the beings who became the ancestors of the human race. It will be remembered how she, the Great Mother, always had with her Daktyloi, Kouretes, Korybantes or Kabeiroi, whom she had bred from within herself and with whom she also bred further.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“It was Earth who first brought forth men, bearing a lovely fruit, since she wished to be the mother not only of unfeeling plants and unreasoning animals, but also of creatures orderly and devout, it is difficult, however, to make out whether the first man to spring up was Alalkomeneus, by Lake Kopais in Boeotia; or whether the first men were the Idaean Kouretes, a divine race, or the Phrygian Korybantes, who were the first men seen by the sun-god when they shot up like trees; or whether the birthplace of the first man, or the first men, was Arcadia, which bore Pelasgos, a man who existed before the moon—or Eleusis, which bore Dysaules, dweller in the Rharian Fields—or Lemnos, which bore Kabeiros, amidst ineffable Mysteries—or Pallene, which bore Phlegraean Alkyoneus, the oldest of the Giants”.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“It will have been noticed that when Hera wished to bear a child without Zeus, she nevertheless was scrupulous not to dishonour her husband’s bed. She laid especial emphasis on this. The form of marriage that she protected as our marriage-goddess was monogamy, or—as seen from the woman’s point of view—the fulfilment of herself through a single husband, to whom she should be the single wife. Hence Hera’s jealousy and hatred of sons born to Zeus by others. Zeus, on the other hand, not only was the marriage-god in our religion, but also represented the principle of the other, non-maternal origin of life: the principle of paternal origin as being the higher, the father not being associated with a single woman nor standing in a relation of servitude to womanhood generally—like the relation of the Daktyloi to the Great Mother—and still less so to a single woman, but instead bestowing progeny as a divine gift upon all women. Hera seems to have preserved from earlier, pre-Olympian times an association with beings of a Dactylic nature.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“As Karyatis she rejoiced in the dances of the girls of the nut-tree village of Karyai, those Karyatides who in their ecstatic round-dance carried on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing plants.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“It was told{468} that she besought her father to give her only nine-year-olds as companions. This was the age at which girls left their mothers and entered the service of Artemis: in earlier times all girls did this, but later only certain chosen ones. They remained in the goddess’s service until they were nubile. At Athens the little handmaidens of Artemis were called arktoi, “she-bears”. Artemis herself must at one time have been supposed to be a bear—or, in more ancient times, when the fauna of Greece was more southern, a lioness.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“Our language contained expressions that described the dusk—the dusk, that is to say, before sunrise—as “wolf-light”, lykophos or lykauges.{402} One story of Leto’s wanderings tells us that Zeus turned her for twelve days into a she-wolf. In this shape she came to the island of Delos from the Hyperboreans, the fortunate inhabitants of a northern country of the gods whither Apollon was thought to repair once a year. This is the reason, it is said, why she-wolves bear all their cubs within a space of twelve days in each year. The Delians actually stated{403} that she-wolves suffered travail for twelve days and twelve nights on end.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“As Hephaistia she was associated with Hephaistos, and as Areia with the war-god Ares. As Ergane, goddess of handicrafts, she came close to the former of these gods, and as Alalkomene, “the Parrier”, she came close to the latter. Of all the handicrafts she most loved and protected the art of smiths and metal-founders, likewise the women’s crafts—spinning and weaving and woolwork.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“But that is really the story of Dike. It was told of her{276} that she had already withdrawn into the mountains when mankind ceased to heed dike—which in our language means not only just retribution, but also justice generally. When still worse things thereupon followed, Dike forsook the earth, and can be seen in the sky as the constellation Virgo.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“They were named:{274} Eunomia, “Lawful Order”; Dike, “Just Retribution”; and Eirene, “Peace”. Such were the gifts that these goddesses, whom Zeus begat upon Themis, brought into the world.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“In Laconia, where two Charites were worshipped, one of them was called Kleta,{262} “the invoked”, the other Phaenna, “the brilliant”. These were names for goddesses who appeared in the phases of the moon; for during the dark nights of the festivals of the new moon the moon was tumultuously invoked, and the “brilliant one” was tumultuously welcomed.{263} The Athenians, too, knew only two Charites: Auxo, “the waxing”, and Hegemone, “the precursor”; for in the second half of the month the moon precedes the sun.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“The four names of divinities that reached us from Samothrace—Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos and Kadmilos—were said{210} to be identical with Demeter, Persephone, Hades and Hermes respectively.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“Rhea was, admittedly, no more our Great Mother than the great love-goddess was ours alone. Amongst our Oriental neighbours, in Asia Minor and Syria and in regions still farther east, it is not always easy to distinguish between the two.) In Asia Minor, especially, Rhea was worshipped as Meter ereia, “Mountain-mother”, to mention one of her many names, which were almost always formed from the name of a mountain and indicated a relationship to a mountain landscape—such names as Berekyntia, Dindymene, Idaia. In the territory of Asia Minor, from which her cult was spread and, indeed, often came back to us, she was called, in Phrygia, Matar Kubile, which in our language is Kybele. She can be recognised in the Cretan Mistress of the Beasts, who appears, flanked by two lions, on the summit of a mountain. Her well-known enthroned figure, however, she first acquired as Phrygian Mother of the Gods. She usually wears a rampart-crown, like a city on her head, and plays with a lion or drives a chariot drawn by lions.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“Another aspect of Aphrodite, with which the buck also must have had something to do, is expressed in such surnames as Melaina and Melainis, “the black one”, and Skotia “the dark one”. In so far as this refers to the darkness that love seeks, this aspect is connected with the aspect already described. But the black Aphrodite can equally well be associated with the Erinyes, amongst whom she was also numbered. Such surnames as Androphonos, “Killer of Men”, Anosia, “the Unholy” and Tymborychos, “the Gravedigger”, indicate her sinister and dangerous potentialities. As Epitymbidia she is actually “she upon the graves”. Under the name of Persephaessa she is invoked as the Queen of the Underworld. She bears the title of Basilis, “Queen”. Her surname of Pasiphaessa, “the far-shining”, associates her also with the moon-goddess. All these characteristics are evidence that at one time there were tales which identified the goddess of love with the goddess of death, as a being comparable to the Venus Libitina of the Romans.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“The sea-goddesses were also oracular goddesses. The oldest of them, Tethys, had an oracular shrine amongst the Etruscans. Her granddaughters, the daughters of Nereus, could often—or so it was believed—rescue seamen in danger of shipwreck. It was they, too, who revealed to men the mysteries of Dionysos and of Persephone.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“The following, then, were the daughters of Nereus:{157} Ploto, “the swimmer”; Eukrante, “the bringer of fulfilment”; Sao, “the rescuer”; Amphitrite (who, as I shall later tell, became the wife of Poseidon); Eudora, “she of good gifts”; Thetis (of whom I have spoken and shall speak again); Galene, “calm weather”; Glauke, “the sea-green”; Kymothoe, “the wave-swift”; Speio, “the dweller in caves”; Thoe, “the nimble”; Halia, “the dweller in the sea”; Pasithea; Erato, “the awakener of desire” (which is the name also of one of the Muses); Eunike, “she of happy victory”; Melite; Eulimene, “she of good haven”; Agaue, “the noble”; Doto, “the giver”; Proto, “the first”; Pherousa, “the bringer”; Dynamene; Nesaia, “the dweller on islands”; Aktaia, “the dweller on coasts”; Protomedeia, “the first ruleress”; Doris (who, like Eudora, whose name has the same meaning, is also one of the Okeaninai); Panopeia; Galateia (that Aphrodite-like sea-goddess who was wooed by the Kyklops Polyphemos—the enemy, later on, of Odysseus—and was loved by the beautiful Akis); Hippothoe, “swift as a mare”; Hipponoe, “unruly as a mare”; Kymodoke, “the wave-gatherer”; Kymatolege, “the wave-stiller”; Kymo, “the wave-goddess”; Eione, “the snore-goddess”; Halimede, “the sea-goddess of good counsel”; Glaukonome, “the dweller in the green sea”; Pontopereia, “the seafarer”; Leiagora and Euagora, “the eloquent”; Laomedeia, “ruleress of the people”; Polynoe, “giver of reason”; Autonoe, “giver of inspiration”; Lysianassa, “the redeeming mistress”; Euarne; Psamathe, “the sand-goddess”; Menippe, “the courageous mare”; Neso, “the island-goddess”; Eupompe, “she of good escort”; Themisto (a sort of double of the great goddess Themis); Pronoe, “the provident”; and Nemertes, “the truthful”, who in knowing and telling the truth resembles her immortal father.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“The words they sang to Odysseus, as he stood erect and bound, are also reported:{139} “Come hither, Odysseus famed in song, great glory of the Greeks! Bring your ship to, so that you may hear our voice. Never has any man voyaged past this place in his black ship without listening to our song. It flows like honey from our mouths. He who has heard it finds delight and gains wisdom. For we know all that the Greeks and Trojans suffered, by the will of the gods, for Troy. And we know all that happens on the earth, everywhere and at all times!” At these words Odysseus, according to his own story, wanted to be set free of his bonds; but his shipmates bound him all the more firmly. It is not to be wondered at that Odysseus felt thus: the Sirens made themselves out to be oracular goddesses, which perhaps, at the place where they had their shrine, they really were.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“I have already mentioned that even Zeus stood in sacred awe of the goddess Night.{39} According to the tales of the disciples of Orpheus, an account of which I shall postpone until later, Nyx was herself a threefold goddess.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“IN our tales concerning the beginning of things three great goddesses play the part of Mother of the World: the sea-goddess Tethys, the goddess Night, and Mother Earth. They constitute a Trinity; but this may well be a chance result of the fact that only three tales of such a Mother have come down to us. It may also be a result of chance that in the tale concerning the origin of the Trojan War, the most important event in the age of our heroes, three goddesses appear in the story of the Judgment of Paris. All through our mythology one comes across three goddesses. What is more, they do not merely form accidental groups of three—usually a group of three sisters—but actually are real trinities, sometimes almost forming a single Threefold Goddess. Tales are also told of larger groups, of fifty goddesses or fifty daughters of the same father or couple. Let me at once state the association suggested by these numbers. Our lunar month was divided into three parts, and our moon had three aspects: as the waxing, the full and the waning sign of a divine presence in the sky.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“An anvil dropped from the sky falls for nine nights, and on the tenth it reaches the earth; and likewise it falls nine nights and days from the earth, and on the tenth day it reaches Tartaros. Tartaros is surrounded by an iron wall. Three times this stronghold is encompassed by Night. Over it grew the roots of the earth and sea. Within it the Titans are hidden in darkness, and can never escape; for it was Poseidon who set the iron doors around them.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks

“In the beginning was Night—so this story runs{8}—or, in our language, Nyx. Homer, too, regarded her as one of the greatest goddesses, a goddess of whom even Zeus stands in sacred awe.{9} According to this story, she was a bird with black wings.{10} Ancient Night conceived of the Wind and laid her silver Egg{11} in the gigantic lap of Darkness. From the Egg sprang the son of the rushing Wind, a god with golden wings. He is called Eros, the god of love; but this is only one name, the loveliest of all the names this god bore.”
― Karl Kerényi, The Gods of The Greeks