The myth of Orion the son of Poseidon. R

Apollo's twin sister Artemis (A r t e m i z) · etymology is unknown, possible options: “bear goddess”, “mistress”, “killer” - was the goddess of the hunt, mountains and forests, daughter of Zeus and Leto. Born on the island of Astraea (Delos)

According to Cotte, there were three Artemis:

The daughter of Zeus and Persephone, gave birth to the winged Eros from Hermes.

Daughter of Zeus the third and Leto.

The daughter of Upis and Glavka, who is called Upis.

About her veneration by the Greeks already in the 2nd millennium BC. evidenced by the name “Artemis” on one of the Knossos clay tablets and data about the Asia Minor goddess Artemis of Ephesus, characterizing her as the mistress of nature, the mistress of beasts and the leader of the Amazons. In the Olympian religion of Homer, she is a huntress and goddess of death, who retained from her Asia Minor predecessor her commitment to the Trojans and the function of the patroness of women in childbirth.

Artemis not only killed wild boars and deer, but also took care of them, took their cubs in her arms, and protected them from predators. But this was not a manifestation of kindness, but of divine foresight. Artemis protected wild nature from senseless destruction. She loved the virgin meadow, not trampled by herds, where only bees and bumblebees, collecting pollen, buzzed in praise of nature.

She settled down to rest in the most remote places of mountains and forests, usually in caves near a spring.

Artemis spends time in the forests and mountains, hunting, surrounded by nymphs - her companions and also hunters. She is armed with a bow, wears short clothes, and is accompanied by a pack of dogs and her favorite doe. Tired of hunting, she rushes to her brother Apollo in Delphi and dances there with nymphs and muses. In a round dance she is the most beautiful of all and taller than everyone else by a whole head

The goddess has a decisive and aggressive character. It has a lot in common with the Amazons, who are credited with founding the oldest and most famous temple of Artemis in Ephesus in Asia Minor. People came to this temple to receive blessings from Artemis for a happy marriage and the birth of a child. Her main features are energy, inflexibility and mercilessness. She liked blood and torture.

In ancient times, human sacrifices were performed on the altars of Artemis. After their abolition in Sparta, during the festival of Artemis, young Spartans were flogged with willow rods, and their blood watered her altar. The priestess, observing the torture, held a figurine of Artemis in her hands and, by tilting or lifting it, indicated that the blows should be strengthened or weakened.

Children of Niobe (Niobe)

Arrogance towards immortals has never brought people any good. So Niobe, the wife of the king of Thebes, did not escape this bitter fate. In order to offend Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, Niobe boasted that she gave birth to seven sons and seven daughters, while the goddess had only two children. The twins took terribly revenge for the insult inflicted on their mother: Apollo killed Niobe’s seven sons with his arrows that never missed, and his sister, the goddess of the hunt, killed all her daughters. To top it all off, Zeus turned Niobe into a rock bleeding tears in her native Lydia. The terrible end of Niobe's children served as the subject of the painting of this crater, the composition of which unfolds in the frame of two ornamental ribbons of lotuses and palmettes. The name of the artist of this scene is unknown, so scientists gave him an appropriate pseudonym: Master Niobide.

image of callisto

She was among the companions of Artemis the hunter. She accompanied Artemis on a hunt and vowed to remain a girl. Zeus shared a bed with her, taking the form of Artemis (according to another version, Apollo). According to one version, Artemis shot her because she did not preserve her virginity, and Zeus sent Hermes to save the child that Callisto was carrying in her womb.

According to another story, Zeus turned her into a bear, but Hera convinced Artemis to shoot her with a bow like a wild animal (or she became a bear because of Hera’s anger). She was caught by goatherds and, together with her son, was given to Lycaon. She gave birth to a son, Arkad (or Arkad and Pan).

myth of actaeon

On a hot afternoon, leaving the other hunters, Actaeon, accompanied by hunting dogs, climbed into an impenetrable thicket. Having difficulty getting out of it, he saw a stream and a shady grotto next to it. He should run away without looking back! And he was overcome by curiosity, which had already destroyed mortals more than once. With silent steps he approached the grotto and looked inside. Beautiful nymphs appeared before his eyes. With a shout, they surrounded Artemis, who had already undressed for ablution. The goddess's face turned red, her eyes lit up with anger. A petas suddenly fell from Actaeon's head, although there was no wind. Glancing at the swimming dam, the hunter saw with horror that he had grown branchy antlers. “Oh gods! What’s happening to me,” he thought. The bow fell out of his hand, for the fingers had grown together, turning into hooves, and he could no longer stand upright, but stood on four legs. A spotted skin covered the body. Language is no longer subject to him. Instead of a plea, a lowing sound came out of his mouth.

Artemis walked out of the cave laughing. She had nothing to hide. In front of her is no longer a person, but a deer trembling in horror. Although he retained a human mind, he could not tell him what Artemis looked like. But people will know how she punishes insolence!

Having laughed enough, the goddess picked up a tight bow from the ground and pulled back the string. Frightened Actaeon began to run. It would be better if he stayed where he was and accepted death at the hands of the one who heartlessly changed his appearance.

A beautiful deer is running through the gorges of Kiferon, and an unstoppable pack of dogs is rushing after him. Their barking is getting closer and closer. Actaeon understands that he cannot escape. Stopping, he turns to each of the dogs: “Don’t jump like that, Nisa!” Remember how I raised you to your feet when the boar struck you. Lark! How dare you rush at your master? After all, I have always distinguished you in the pack. But dogs do not distinguish in the lowing of a human voice.

They cannot smell that in front of them in the skin of a deer is their master, their god. Nisa bit into her throat. Lark grabbed his thigh. Actaeon fell to his knees. Such grief froze in his huge bulging eyes that if Artemis herself had been in this clearing, her stone heart would have melted! The hunters who arrived in time, having driven away the dogs, looked at the beautiful deer in surprise.

Well, merciful Artemis sent the prey to the dogs of Actaeon! - exclaimed the senior hunter.

“She’ll get her hind leg for this,” responded another, taking out a knife.

Where did Actaeon himself go? - said the third hunter. “He’ll be happy when he finds out what kind of deer his pack has hunted!”

myth of Orion (late antiquity)

So Artemis hid in the thickets and caves, not letting any man near her. But one day she heard about Orion, the son of Poseidon and Euryale, the daughter of King Minos. The fame of his power, beauty and hunting successes filled the whole world. And most of all, gods and mortals were surprised that Orion moved from island to island by water. The gift of walking on the waves was from Poseidon, who distinguished Orion from other sons. Using it, he quickly reached the island of Chios and killed with his copper club many animals that had multiplied and attacked the islanders. Orion had such power that it cost him nothing to move mountains to create a harbor or erect a temple to Poseidon in a place he liked.

And Artemis decided to hunt with Orion. The giant had a wife, Side (Pomegranate), who bore him 50 sons and two daughters. For a long time she tried to persuade her husband to stay away from the goddess, who had killed many mortals. But he was eager to show Artemis that he was not inferior to her either in strength or dexterity.

So Artemis and Orion began to hunt together, chasing animals around the world. They were accompanied by Orion's faithful dog, Sirius, who had incredible tirelessness and keen sense of smell. Artemis looked at her companion more and more often. She, hostile to Aphrodite and her gifts, for the first time felt a previously incomprehensible desire to be closer to a creature of the other sex, to touch his face, to feel his breath. Who knows what this would have led to if they had not entered a wide meadow, as if adapted for throwing a stone or a disk. Orion and Artemis took copper disks in their palms.

Throw it first! - Orion suggested.

He was always inferior to Artemis as a woman and a goddess.

Artemis raised her hand back, and the disk, escaping with a whistle, described a huge arc. A hole, visible from afar, formed at the crash site.

Orion threw his disk further. The goddess could not stand the fact that the mortal was the winner, and struck Orion with an arrow. Having come to her senses, she began to sob and began to tear out her beautiful hair. Rushing to Zeus on Olympus, she prayed that he would return Orion’s life.

“It’s not in my power, my daughter,” Zeus explained to her. - It would be better if you learned to control your anger.

Then make sure that I can admire the beauty of Orion,” Artemis continued.

I can do this! - Zeus said.

And soon a new constellation Orion appeared in the sky. It still shines in the sky of Hellas from the beginning of summer until the onset of winter.

The ancient idea of ​​​​Artemis is associated with her lunar nature, hence her closeness to the witchcraft spells of the moon goddess Selene and the goddess Hecate, with whom she sometimes becomes close. Late heroic mythology knows Artemis the moon, secretly in love with the handsome Endymion.

artemis bear, multi-breasted

Artemis was usually depicted as a huntress: in a short, loosely belted robe, legs and arms bare; on the shoulder there is a quiver, in the hand there is a bow. A crescent-shaped tiara gleamed in her hair. On the coast of Asia Minor, in Ephesus, a temple was built in honor of Artemis, where she is depicted in a completely different way: as the mother of all things, with a hundred breasts. This was not Artemis, but an Asian goddess, whose cult the local Greeks adopted from their neighbors, but renamed the deity in their own way.

The most ancient Artemis is not only a hunter, but also a bear. In Attica (in Bravron), the priestesses of Artemis Bravronia wore bear skins in a ritual dance and were called bears. Sanctuaries of Artemis were often located near springs and swamps (the veneration of Artemis was Limnatis - “swampy”), symbolizing the fertility of the plant deity. The chthonic unbridledness of Artemis is close to the image of the Great Mother of the Gods - Cybele in Asia Minor, where the orgiastic elements of the cult glorifying the fertility of the deity come from. In Asia Minor, in the famous Temple of Ephesus, the image of Artemis with many breasts was revered. The rudiments of the archaic plant goddess in the image of Artemis are manifested in the fact that she, through her assistant (formerly her hypostasis) Ilithyia, helps women in labor. As soon as she was born, she helps her mother accept Apollo, who was born after her. She also has the prerogative to bring quick and easy death. However, the classic Artemis is a virgin and protector of chastity. She patronizes Hippolytus, who despises love. Before the wedding, Artemis, according to custom, was offered an atoning sacrifice. For King Admetus, who had forgotten about this custom, she filled the wedding chambers with snakes. Artemis killed the terrible Bufaga ("bull eater"), who tried to encroach on her, as well as the hunter Orion.

She gave a harvest to the land, so swamps, streams and rivers were dedicated to her; her name was glorified in the fields, and in the valleys, and in the forests on the hills of Taygetos, because she blessed plants, animals, and children who were given under her protection, and supported women in labor during childbirth. In Sparta, every year in front of her altar, boys were flogged with rods so that their blood splashed on the statue of the goddess. This was an echo of those times when people were sacrificed to Artemis, as the goddess of death. The inhabitants of Taurida (present-day Crimea), probably, in ancient times, sacrificed it to foreigners caught on the coast.

What do you think about when you look up to the sky? Taking a quick glance at the night scene, what do you see?

Every night the stars light up in the sky, and each time they burn the same way, in the same location. This is a kind of picture that appears after sunset, and which nature itself paints. What kind of drawings does she create?

There are 88 constellations in the northern and southern hemispheres, and each of them is beautiful in its own way. The constellation Scorpio, Cygnus, Lyra or Aquila, each captivates our gaze.

So, Orion is very easy to find in the sky, in winter, at night, with sufficiently good visibility it is located in the southern part of the sky. If you are well versed in astronomy, then it is located next to Sirius, but if these words do not tell you anything, then take a good look and try to find three stars located almost on the same straight line and at the same angular distance from each other. They are called Orin's belt. Below and above this trio there are two bright stars. Above are the stars Betelgeuse and Bellatrix. Betelgeuse has a reddish tint and is located on the left side of the constellation, Bellatrix on the first. Below are the stars Rigel and Saif, but, unfortunately, Saif is not such a bright star, and to see it, you need to look closely enough. It is located on the left, just below the level of Rigel.

If you think about associations, then for many this constellation brings to mind the silhouette of an hourglass, and indeed, it is similar.

Unfortunately, the most beautiful part of the constellation is hidden from our eyes, beyond human vision. Just below Orion's belt (Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka) there are two stars located close to each other, between which is the beautiful Orion Nebula, reminiscent of a wonderful rose bud.

This constellation has a very beautiful legend. In ancient Greek mythology, Orion is a famous hunter; it is no coincidence that the constellations Canis Major and Canis Minor, the Hare and Leo are found next to him. He was distinguished by his extraordinary beauty and such height that he was sometimes called a giant.

“Orion was the son of the god of the seas, Poseidon. He was a slender, handsome and dexterous man. With his two dogs (Big Dog and Small Dog) he went hunting through the forests and mountains for wild animals, but his heart was kind. Once, on behalf of the gods, he cleared the island of Chios from wild animals. The grateful inhabitants of the island staged a magnificent celebration of the hero, during which he was crowned with a laurel wreath and presented with expensive gifts. The holiday was accompanied by the singing of hymns and dancing of girls. Among them, Orion saw the beautiful Merope, the daughter of the local king. The young people liked each other, and Orion began to ask the king for the hand of his daughter. However, the father had other plans, and he refused the hero. Then, with the consent of Merope, Orion kidnapped the beauty. The king resorted to a trick: having caught up with the fugitives, he pretended to give his consent to their marriage. But at night, having drunk the hero, he blinded him. Poseidon, having learned about this, became terribly angry and asked Helios to restore his son’s sight. It seemed that the question of the wedding would be resolved after all the misadventures, but Hera intervened in the matter. Once upon a time, Orion accidentally killed the goddess’s favorite bull. Knowing that Orion is a brave and dexterous hunter who has no equal in the art of capturing animals, she unleashed Scorpio on him, whose bite was fatal. Orion died, but at the request of Poseidon, Zeus placed him in the sky and even made it so that he could not meet the terrible Scorpio. Indeed, the constellations Orion and Scorpio are never visible in the sky at the same time.”

Also, there is a legend that the famous pyramids in Egypt (Khufu, Khafre, Mikerin) were built precisely along these three stars, and it’s true that if we look at them, we will notice the similarity of location.

“On the ceiling of one of the burial chambers of the pyramid there is a depiction of a walking man; above it are the three stars of Orion’s belt.”

The famous French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote the following phrase in his book “The Little Prince”:

“I would like to know why the stars shine. Probably so that sooner or later everyone can find theirs again. Each person has his own stars.”

Think about it, have you already found your stars?

Orion, Greek - son of Poseidon and his beloved Euryale, famous hunter.

He was distinguished by his enormous height (when he walked along the bottom of the sea, his head rose above the waves), beauty, hunting art and complex intricacies of fate, which ancient authors could not really understand, but they all agree that the common denominator of his misadventures was women. His first wife, Sida, was boastful, and this could not end well; one day she declared that she was superior in beauty to the goddess Hera - and immediately, by her order, she was forced to go to the next world, to Tartarus. Having grieved for his wife for the allotted time, Orion fell in love with the daughter of the Chios king Oinopion Merope and, at her request, destroyed all the wild animals on Chios. For this, Oinopion promised him to give him Merope as his wife, but was in no hurry to fulfill his promise. Orion brightened up the long wait with drinking and, under the harmful influence of wine, one day he could not resist and took possession of his betrothed by force. Then Oinopion asked the god of wine Dionysus to help take revenge on him. Dionysus put Orion to sleep, and Oinopion blinded him. However, Orion became aware of a prophecy that his sight could return to him if he went to the extreme East and there exposed his eyes to the rays of the rising sun. Orion did just that, the prophecy was fulfilled on the island of Lemnos, and Orion returned to Chios to punish Oinopion, but he skillfully hid from him. In a vain search for the offender, Orion ended up in Crete and there he joined the hunting party of Artemis.

This became the cause of his death. While he was in the East, the goddess of the dawn Eos fell in love with him, and here in Crete, jealous Artemis struck him with an arrow - either for trying to escape from her retinue, or during Eos's attempt to kidnap Orion (Eos had such a bad habit : in the same way she kidnapped, for example, Cephalus). According to another version, Orion was shot at the request of Artemis by her brother Apollo. But some claim that Artemis killed Orion, fearing that in his hunting passion he would kill all the animals. The god of healing, Asclepius, tried to resurrect Orion, but Zeus prevented him from doing this by throwing his feather: no god has the right to cancel the decision of another god - and with this, Orion’s earthly path ended completely and irrevocably.

However, the contradictions in the descriptions of Orion’s life did not end after his death. According to some authors, he ended up in the afterlife with his dog Sirius and continued to hunt wild animals even there. Others say that the gods, taking into account his love for the stars, carried him to the sky, where he still shines as a bright constellation, in the neighborhood of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, whom Orion unrequitedly loved all his life. The star hunting belt of Orion shines especially brightly.

Orion, pursuing wild animals in the afterlife, is already mentioned by Homer in his Odyssey, but these lines contradict the ancient Greek ideas about life in the kingdom of Hades. Therefore, it is possible that this is a relatively late insertion into the Odyssey.

In ancient and European art, images of Orion are few, but it is necessary to note the statue on the Orion Fountain in Messina, created in 1547 by a student of Michelangelo Montorsoli, and Poussin’s painting “Orion in Search of the Rising Sun” (1658). The opera “Orion” was written in 1763 by J. C. Bach, the drama “Orion” - in 1910 by Morzelli.

Orion (Ώρίων), in Greek mythology, the deity of the constellation of the same name, the son of Poseidon and the oceanid Euryale, daughter of Minos. According to another legend, he came from a fertilized bull skin, buried for nine months in the ground by King Hyrieus, whom Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes promised to reward him with a son in his old age for his warm hospitality. He was revered mainly by the inhabitants of the sea coast and islands, who, since ancient times, had learned celestial phenomena and populated the celestial sphere with deities. The constellation Orion was visible in the summer sky; it appeared on the summer solstice and disappeared from the sky at the beginning of winter. He was represented as a mighty giant, in brilliant armor, with a sword and an indestructible copper club. Accompanied by the celestial dog Sirius, he pursues the stars, which turn pale as he ascends, and puts the Pleiades to flight.

According to Greek legends, Orion grew up to be a huge giant and was famous as a hunter. When he walked along the seabed, his shoulders rose above the water. At the same time, he was very handsome. One day Orion fell in love with Merope and went to Chios to her father Oenopion to ask for her hand. Oenopion promised him a daughter if Orion freed the island from wild beasts. Orion complied with the condition, but was refused. Having drunk from grief, Orion burst into Merope's bedroom and took possession of her by force. Oenopion turned to his father Dionysus with a plea for revenge. God sent satyrs to Orion, who made him so drunk that he fell sound asleep on the seashore, and Oenopion gouged out his eyes. The oracle said that Orion would regain his sight if he traveled far to the east and turned his empty eye sockets to the ascending Helios. The giant set off. On Lemnos, he took Kidalia, a student from the blacksmith of Hephaestus, as his guide. Having reached the farthest shore of the Ocean, Orion regained his sight.

When the dawn brings light to the earth and the stars go out before its brilliance, Orion himself submits to the will of Eos, whom legend has made Orion’s beloved: she carries him away in her chariot. Orion was thought to be beautiful; he was kidnapped by the goddess Eos, who fell in love with him. Orion died from the arrows of Artemis, according to one legend, because he committed violence against the Hyperborean maiden Opis (Apollodorus, I 4, 3-5; Homer, Odyssey, V 121-124). According to other versions, Orion was killed by the arrow of Artemis, who, according to one legend, killed him on Ortygia because he dared to challenge her to a discus throwing competition; according to another legend, Artemis killed Orion, not knowing that it was him, due to Apollo’s dislike for him. There is also a myth that the gigantic hunter died from a scorpion, which Artemis summoned from the earth because Orion dared to touch her peplos during the hunt. This last version arose from the observation that when the sun is in the sign of Scorpio, the constellation Orion disappears. Orion continues his hunting activities in the underworld: he hunts there for animals that he killed on earth. The myths about Orion reflect the motives of the collision of the pre-Greek chthonic giant with the Olympian world, elements of fetishistic magic and late ancient legends.

Historical information.
Orion, Greek lexicographer from the Egyptian city of Thebes; grammarian of the mid-5th century, who lived in Constantinople and Caesarea. Orion compiled an etymological lexicon from which the etymological compilations of the Middle Ages arose; the lexicon itself has survived only in small fragments, as well as the Anthology (Antholognomicum) of maxims of ancient poets compiled by Orion for the Empress Eudoxia.

The Myth of Orion

Endymion was not the only mortal whom Diana loved. They also say that she bestowed her favor on a young hunter named Orion. All day this young man wandered through the forest in search of game, along with his dog Sirius.

One day, in a dense thicket, he met seven nymphs of Diana, sisters of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas. It was enough to see these beauties to immediately fall in love with them without memory, and Orion’s heart burned with passion when he tried to approach them. But the nymphs were very shy and, when he came closer and spoke to them, they immediately ran away.

Frightened that he would never see them again, Orion gave chase, but the nymphs fled from him until they felt that their strength was leaving them. Then they began to call their mistress for help. She immediately responded to their prayers, and Orion, who ran up, saw only seven snow-white doves flying into the azure sky.

After this, the Pleiades turned into a constellation consisting of seven bright stars. And they shone in the sky for many centuries, but when Troy fell into the hands of enemies, they dimmed with grief, and one of them, the most timid and impressionable, disappeared altogether to hide her grief from curious human gaze.

Orion, who was not distinguished by constancy, soon consoled himself and fell in love with Merope, the daughter of Oinopion, king of Chios, who said that he would agree to their marriage only if the future son-in-law performed some feat in honor of his bride. But Orion was very impatient, he did not like that the wedding was being postponed, and he decided to steal the bride, but Oinopion kept a vigilant eye on his daughter and disrupted all the plans of Orion, who was punished not only by losing his bride, but also by being blind.

Blind, helpless and alone, he wandered from city to city, hoping to find someone who would help him regain his sight. Finally he reached the cave of the Cyclopes, and one of them took pity on him and took him to the sun, from the radiance of which his eyes regained the ability to see.

Having begun to see again, he returned to his previous occupation and hunted from morning to evening. Diana met him in the forest and, sharing his tastes, soon fell in love with him. But her brother, Apollo, did not approve of this choice - not a single event of the day could hide from his all-seeing eye - and decided to put an end to his sister’s romance. He called her to him, and, in order to lull suspicions, started talking about bows and, under the pretext of checking her accuracy of shooting, asked her to shoot at a dark object that rose and fell in the sea waves.

Diana grabbed the bow, pulled the string and sent the arrow so accurately and powerfully that the object immediately disappeared into the abyss. Little did she know that the object was the head of Orion, who had decided to take a swim in the sea! When she discovered her mistake, she shed many tears, vowed never to forget Orion, and placed him and his faithful dog Sirius in the sky, turning him into a constellation.