ledge of their dear parents," says Homer,[1] who neglects the myth that one of the "dear parents" ate his own progeny, "like him who makes his generation messes to gorge his appetite." Hera was a jealous wife, and with good cause.[2] The Christian fathers calculated that he sowed his wild oats and persecuted mortal women with his affections through seventeen generations of men. His amours with his mother and daughters, with Deo and Persephone, are the great scandals of Clemens Alexandrinus and Arnobius.[3] Zeus seldom made love in propria persona, in all his meteorological pomp. When he thus gratified Semele she was burned to a cinder.[4] The amour with Danaë, when Zeus became a shower of gold, might be interpreted as a myth of the yellow sunshine. The amours
- ↑ It is probable that this myth of the seduction of Hera is of Samian origin, and was circulated to account for and justify the Samian custom by which men seduced their loves first and celebrated the marriage afterwards (Scholia on Iliad, xiv. 201). "Others say that Samos was the place where Zeus betrayed Hera, whence it comes that the Samians, when they go a-wooing, anticipate the wedding first in secret, and then celebrate it openly." Yet another myth (Iliad, xiv. 295, Scholiast) accounts for the hatred which Zeus displayed to Prometheus by the fable that, before her wedding with Zeus, Hera became the mother of Prometheus by the giant Eurymedon. Euphorion was the authority for this tale. Yet another version occurs in the legend of Hephæstus. See also Schol. Theoc., xv. 64.
- ↑ Iliad, xiv. 307, 340.
- ↑ Arnobius, Adv. Nat., v. 9, where the abominations described defy repetition. The myth of a rock which became the mother of the offspring of Zeus may recall the maternal flint of Aztec legend and the vagaries of Iroquois tradition. Compare Clemens Alex., Oxford, 1719, i. 13, for the amours of Zeus, Deo, and Persephone, with their representations in the mysteries; also Arnob., Adv. Gent., v. 20. Zeus adopted the shape of a serpent in his amour with his daughter. An ancient Tarentine sacred ditty is quoted as evidence, Taurus draconem genuit, et taurum draco, and certain repulsive performances with serpents in the mysteries are additional testimony.
- ↑ Apollodorus, iii. 4, 3.
