The Greek Myths 1 Quotes

“Eurynome (wide wandering) was the goddess’s title as the visible moon; her Sumerian name was Iahu (‘exalted dove’), a title which later passed to Jehovah as the Creator.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths : 1

“She is the protectress of little children, and of all sucking animals, but she also loves the chase, especially that of the stag.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Some Hellenes say that Athene had a father named Pallas, a winged goatish giant, who later tried to outrage her, and whose name she added to her own after stripping him of his skin to make the aegis, and of his wings for her own shoulders; if indeed the aegis was not the skin of Medusa the Gorgon, whom she flayed after Perseus had decapitated her.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Core, Persephone, and Hecate were, clearly the Goddess in Triad as Maiden, Nymph, and Crone, at a time when only women practiced the mysteries of agriculture, Core stands for the green corn, Persephone for the ripe eat, and Hecate for the harvested corn-the ‘carline wife’ of the English countryside, But Demeter was the goddess’s general title, and Persephone’s name has been given to Core, which confuses the story”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Core should spend three months of the year in Hades’s company, as Queen of Tartarus, with the title of Persephone, and the remaining nine in Demeter’s. Hecate offered to make sure this arrangement was kept and to keep constant watch on Core.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Demeter lost her gaeity for ever when young Core, afterwards called Persephone, was taken from her. Hades fell in love with Core, and went to ask Zeus’s leave to marry her. Zeus feared to offtend his older brother by a downright refusal, but knew also that Demeter would not forgive him if Core were committed to Tartarus; he therefore answered politically that he could neither give nor withold his consent. This emboldened Hades to abduct the girl, as she was picking flowers in a meadow-it may have been at Sicilian Enno; r at Attic Colonus; or at Hermione; or somewhere in Crete, or near Pisa, or near Lerna; or beside Arcadian Phenus, or at Boetian Nysa, or anywhere else in the widely separated regions which Demeter visited in her wandering search for Core. But her own priests say it was at Eleusis. She sought Core without rest for nine days and nights, neither eating nor drinking, and calling fruitlessly all the while.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Virgin-priestesses of Neith engaged annually in armed combat, apparently for the position of High-priestess.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Plato identified Athene, patroness of Athens, with the Libyan goddess Neith, who belonged to an epoch where fatherhood was not recognized.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“As a girl, she killed her playmate, Pallas, by accident, while they were engaged in friendly combat with spear and shield and, in a token of grief, set Pallas’ name before her own.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“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 Phaëton, lived in a cave with him, displaying herself in a triad: Night, Order, and Justice. Before this cave sat the 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.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Eurynome and Ophion made their home upon Mount Olympus, where he vexed her by claiming to be the Author of the Universe. Forthwith she bruised his head, kicked out his teeth, and banished him to the dark caves below the earth.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths : 1

“At her bidding, Ophion coiled seven times around this egg, until it hatched and split in two. Out tumbles all things that exist, her children; sun, moon, planets, stars, the earth with its mountains and rivers, its trees, herbs, and living creatures.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“A new stage was reached when animals came to the substituted for boys at the sacrificial altar, and the king refused death after his lengthened reign ended.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths : 1

“The myths of Hylas, Adonis, Lityerses, and Linus describes the annual mourning for the sacred king of his boy-surrogate, sacrificed to placate the goddess of vegetation. The same surrogate appears in the legend of Triptolemus, who rode in a serpent-drawn chariot and carried sacks of corn to symbolize that his death brought wealth. Plutus (‘wealthy’), begotten in the ploughed field from whom Hades euphemistic title ‘Pluto’ is borrowed.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Core’s abduction by Hades forms part of the myth in which the Hellenic trinity of gods forcibly marry the pre-Hellenic Triple-goddess-Zeus, Hera, Zeus or Poseidon, Demeter; Hades, Core-as in Irish myth Brian, Iuchar, and Fucharaba marry the Triple-goddess Eire, Fodla, and Banba. It refers to male usurpation of the female agricultural mysteries in primitive times.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Artemis, Apollo’s sister, goes armed with bow and arrow, and, like him, has the power to send sudden plagues or sudden death among mortals, and to heal them.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“In Classical times, music, poetry, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and science came under Apollo’s control. As the enemy of barbarism, he stood for moderation in all things, and the seven things of his lute were connected with the seven vowels of the later Greek alphabet, given mystical significance, and used forr therapeutic music. Finally, because of his identification with the Child Horus, a solar concept, he was worshipped as the sun, whose Corinthian cult had been taken over by Solar Zeus; and his sister Artemis was, rightly, identified with the moon.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“The Moon-goddess Brizo (‘soother’) of Delos indistinguishable from Leto, may be identified with the Hyperborean Triple-goddess Brigit, who became Christianized to St. Brigit or St. Bede. Brigit was patroness of all the arts, and Apollo followed her example.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“He brought the Muses down from their home on Mount Helicon to Delphi, tamed their wild frenzy, and led them in formal and decorous dances.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Athene, the Athenians’ city-goddess, was the parthenogenous daughter of the immortal Metis, Titaness of the fourth day and the planet Mercury who presided over all wisdom, and knowledge.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Pottery finds suggest a Libyan immigration into Crete as early as 4000 B.C.; and a large number of goddess-worshipping Libyan refugees from the Western Delta seem to have arrived there when Upper and Lower Egypt were forcibly united under the First Dynasty about the year 3000 B.C. The First Minoan Age began soon afterwards, and Cretan culture spread to Thrace and Early Hellenic Greece.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Though the myth of the Golden Age derives eventually from a tradition of tribal subservience to the Bee-goddess, the savagery of her reign in pre-agricultural times has been forgotten by Hesiod’s day, and all that remained was an idealistic conviction that men had once lived in harmony together like bees.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Some say that Darkness was first, and from Darkness sprang Chaos. From a union between Darkness and Chaos sprang Night, Day, Erebus, and the Air.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths : 1

“Night’s sceptre passed to Uranus with the advent of patriarchalism.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“The planetary powers were as follows: sun for illumination; Moon for enchantment; Mars for growth; Mercury for wisdom; Jupiter for law; Venus for love; Saturn for peace.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“In the beginning, Eurynome, the Goddess of all Things, rose naked from Chaos, but found nothing substantial for her feet to rest upon, and therefore divided the sea from the sky, dancing lonely upon its waves.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“The king deputized for the Queen at many sacred functions, dressed in her robes, wore false breasts, borrowed her lunar axe as a symbol of power, and even took over from her the magical art of rain-making.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths : 1

“The ascalaphos, or short-eared owl, was a bird of evil omen; and the fable of his tale-bearing is told to account for the noisiness of owls in November, before the three winter months of Core’s absence begin.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Demeter was so angry that, instead of returning to Olympus, she contonued to wander about the earth, forbidding the trees to yield fruit and the herbs to grown, until the race of men stood in danger of extinction. Zeus, ashamed to visit Demeter in person at Eleusis, sent her first a message by Iris (of which she took notice), and then a deputation of the Olympian gods, with conciliatory gifts, begging her to be reconciled to his will. But she would not return to Olympus, and swore the earth must remain barren until Core had been restored.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1

“Through the priestesses of Demeter, goddess of the cornfield, initiate brides and bridegrooms into the secrets of the couch, she has no husband.”
― Robert Graves, The Greek Myths 1