12/25/2022 0 Comments The hesperides greek mythologyThe Hesperides, the nymphs who tend to the ancient garden, its tree, its apples, and its serpent, get their name from Hespere in Greek, which means evening, signifying the West where the sun sets. Two opposite spiritual standpoints-the former looking to the Creator as the source of truth, and the latter looking to the serpent for it-share the same factual basis. Genesis 3:20 describes Eve as “the mother of all the living.” In a hymn of invocation, the 6th-century BC lyric poet, Alcaeus, refers to Hera as “mother of all.” As the first wife, the Greeks worshipped Hera as the goddess of marriage as the first mother, the Greeks worshipped her as the goddess of childbirth.īoth the Judeo-Christian tradition and the Greek religious tradition insist that their respective first couples came out of an ancient paradise with a serpent-entwined fruit tree. According to the ancient poet Hesiod, Zeus is “the father of gods and men” – the gods being deified ancestors. The term “father Zeus” is a description of the king of the gods that appears over 100 times in the ancient writings of Homer. The Judeo-Christian tradition considers Adam as the father of all humanity. Zeus and Hera, the first couple according to the Greeks, seated together on the east frieze of the Parthenon, from about 435 BC. To the Greeks, they were the first couple, a match for the Adam and Eve of Genesis. (Mary Harrsch/ CC BY NC SA 2.0 ) Zeus and Hera – the Original Occupants of the Gardenīoth the ancient commentator Apollodorus and the Greek playwright Euripides describe Zeus and Hera as the original occupants of the Garden of the Hesperides. Greek made in Paestum South Italy 350-340 BC Terracotta. Oil Jar (lekythos) with the serpent-entwined apple tree in the Garden of the Hesperides. Immortality, the Elixir of Life and the Food of the Gods.Divine, Forbidden and Dangerous? Magic Apples in Ancient Mythology.The Book of Genesis doesn’t say what kind of fruit it was: It’s from the Greek tradition we get the idea that Eve ate an apple. The Greeks remembered the original paradise, calling it the Garden of the Hesperides, always depicting it with a serpent-entwined apple tree. While Genesis describes the early events and people in humanity’s past, the Greeks depicted those same events and people – except from the point of view that the serpent enlightened, rather than deluded, the first couple in paradise. In fact, ancient Greek religious art connects in very significant ways with Genesis. The golden apples that Aphrodite gave to Hippomenes before his race with Atalanta were also from the garden of the Hesperides.If the early chapters of the Book of Genesis present a true account of human origins, then ancient secular human history must connect in significant ways to that account. In some artistic representations Heracles dines with the Hesperides, who freely give him the apples. In another version Heracles held the heavens while Atlas took the apples for him. In one version Heracles slayed the dragon and took the apples. The golden apples figured in different accounts of Heracles’ 11th Labour. As Ladon is the name of an Arcadian river, Arcadia was possibly the original site of the garden. The golden apples were also guarded by the dragon Ladon, the offspring of Phorcys and Ceto. They were usually said to live in the west beyond the sunset, but the Greek poet and grammarian Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BC) placed them in North Africa, and the mythographer Apollodorus (2nd century BC) located them among the Hyperboreans. They were usually three in number, Aegle, Erytheia, and Hespere (or Hesperethusa), but by some accounts were as many as seven. According to Hesiod, they were the daughters of Erebus and Night in other accounts, their parents were Atlas and Hesperis or Phorcys and Ceto. Hesperides, (Greek: 'Daughters of the Evening') singular Hesperis, in Greek mythology, were clear-voiced maidens who guarded the tree bearing golden apples that Gaea gave to Hera at her marriage to Zeus.
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