Hera

“ I sing of golden-throned Hera whom Rhea bare. Queen of the immortals is she, surpassing all in beauty: she is the sister and the wife of loud-thundering Zeus,—the glorious one whom all the blessed throughout high Olympus reverence and honour even as Zeus who delights in thunder. ”

“ Ahead was always the solitary column which is all that remains standing of the once vast temple of Hera, “the largest we ever have seen,” according to the ingenuous and truthful Herodotus.
There is a reason for holding the spot in an especial manner sacred to Hera, for it is said by legend that she was born on the banks of one of the little streams whose waters we splashed through in crossing the beach to her shrine. The temple itself we found to lie far back from the water’s edge, its foundations so buried in the deposited earth that considerable excavation has been necessary to reveal them. ”

“ Now we pray that you will judge this matter, and give the apple to the one whom you may deem most beautiful.'
"Then Hera began her plea at once: 'I know that I am fairest,' she said, 'for I am queen, and mine it is to rule among gods and men. Give me the prize, and you shall have wealth, and a kingdom, and great glory; and men in aftertimes shall sing your praises.'
"And Paris was half tempted to give the apple, without further ado, to Hera, the proud queen. But gray-eyed Athena spoke: 'There is that, fair youth, which is better than riches or honor or great glory. ”

“ Every generation of man has put a new column here. That is why they are not alike. This is the ancient temple of Hera."
Then they entered the door. Down the long aisle they walked between small open rooms on either side. Here stood statues gazing out—some of marble, some of gold and ivory. The priests had moved to the front and stood praying before the ancient statues of Zeus and Hera. But suddenly Charmides stopped and would go no farther. For here, in a little room all alone, stood his Hermes with the baby Dionysus. ”

“ Down the hill she went, and up the marble steps, and men stood aside as she passed, for her face was fairer than before, and she no longer shrank back like a hunted thing, but walked with the swinging gait of those whose feet the kind earth has hardened, and the breezes of heaven have fanned the fire in their eyes. In her heart she knew that she had conquered and borne the terrors of the path with no coward's fears, and she prayed that Hera might find her worthy of doing great deeds to win back her lord. ”

“ It is thus that the Iliad describes Hera, the wife of Zeus, now more often called by her Roman name Juno. The marriage union between the ruler of the gods and his queen represented the Greek ideal of perfect conjugal happiness. Hera was therefore the goddess who presided over human marriages, and was the type of matronly virtue and dignity. As the queen of heaven, she had it in her power to bestow great riches, honor, and influence upon her favorites. ”

“ These she would weave into romances, adding to them as best pleased her, or taking from them at will; for the best of tale-tellers are those who can lie, but who mingle in with their lies some grains of truth which they have picked from their own experience. And Hera would forget her watchfulness and her jealousies, and listen entranced, while the magic of Echo's words made each scene live before her eyes. Meanwhile the nymphs would sport to their hearts' content and never fear her anger. ”

“ Then with crafty mind the queenly Hera spake unto him: "Most dread son of Cronos, what a word hast thou said. If now thou art fain to be couched in love on the peaks of Ida, where all is plain to view, what and if some one of the gods that are for ever should behold us twain as we sleep, and should go and tell it to all the gods? ”

“ Ever she avoided the throng of the blessed gods and lived in a shadowy cave, and there the Son of Cronos used to lie with the rich-tressed nymph at dead of night, while white-armed Hera lay bound in sweet sleep: and neither deathless god nor mortal man knew it. ”

“ She thought of all the delightful things that are among the living, she thought of her joyous playmates, as a maiden will; and the sun grew sweeter than ever to behold, seeing that in truth her soul yearned for all. And she put the casket again from off her knees, all changed by the prompting of Hera, and no more did she waver in purpose; but longed for the rising dawn to appear quickly, that she might give him the charms to work the spell as she had promised, and meet him face to face. ”

“ So, although the warlike character of Hera was not elsewhere prominent, she assumed a militant aspect in her two chief cities; a festival called the Shield (ἀσπίς, in Pindar ἀγὼν χάλκεος) was part of the Argive cult, and there was an armed procession in her honour at Samos. The city-goddess, whether Hera or Athena, must be chief alike in peace and war.
The cow was the animal specially sacred to Hera both in ritual and in mythology. The story of Io, metamorphosed into a cow, is familiar; she was priestess of Hera, and was originally, no doubt, a form of the goddess herself. ”

“ Verily of all the cities of men that lie beneath the stars, I have loved Troy the best. Never there has my altar failed of feast and banquet and the sweet savour that is the due of gods."
Then Hera answered: "Three cities have I that I love, Argos and Sparta and Mycenæ. If they have offended thee, destroy them; I begrudge them not; nor, indeed, could I withstand thy will. Yet my toil also should not be made vain; for I, too, am a daughter of Chronos, and first in place among the immortals, seeing that I am thy wife, who art the King. ”

“ Now Hera of the golden throne, standing on a peak of Olympus, therefrom had sight of him, and forthwith knew him as he went busily about in the battle where men win glory, her own brother and her lord's withal; and she was glad at heart. And Zeus she marked seated on the topmost peak of many-fountained Ida, and hateful was he to her heart. Then she took thought, the ox-eyed, queenly Hera, how she might beguile the mind of Zeus that beareth the aegis. ”

“ Ate, the daughter of Zeus and Eris, was a divinity who delighted in evil.
Having instigated Hera to deprive Heracles of his birthright, her father seized her by the hair of her head, and hurled her from Olympus, forbidding her, under the most solemn imprecations, ever to return. Henceforth she wandered among mankind, sowing dissension, working mischief, and luring men to all actions inimical to their welfare and happiness. ”

“ Therefore, both to avoid the wrath of jealous Hera, and being eager to beguile the maiden’s tender heart, he concealed his godhead, and changed his shape, and became a bull. Not such an one as feeds in the stall nor such as cleaves the furrow, and drags the curved plough, nor such as grazes on the grass, nor such a bull as is subdued beneath the yoke, and draws the burdened wain. Nay, but while all the rest of his body was bright chestnut, a silver circle shone between his brows, and his eyes gleamed softly, and ever sent forth lightning of desire. ”

“ Then with crafty thought spake to her queenly Hera: "Give me now love and desire, wherewith thou art wont to subdue all immortals and mortal men. For I am faring to visit the limits of the all-nurturing earth, and Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys, even them that lovingly nursed and cherished me in their halls, when they had taken me from Rhea, what time Zeus, whose voice is borne afar, thrust Cronos down to dwell beneath earth and the unresting sea. ”

“ And there were with her all the chiefest of the goddesses, Dione and Rhea and Ichnaea and Themis and loud-moaning Amphitrite and the other deathless goddesses save white-armed Hera, who sat in the halls of cloud-gathering Zeus. Only Eilithyia, goddess of sore travail, had not heard of Leto's trouble, for she sat on the top of Olympus beneath golden clouds by white-armed Hera's contriving, who kept her close through envy, because Leto with the lovely tresses was soon to bear a son faultless and strong. ”

“ This intimate relation with women has been held a proof that Hera was originally a moon-goddess, as the moon is often thought to influence childbirth and other aspects of feminine life. But Hera’s patronage of women, though undoubtedly ancient, is not necessarily primitive. Further, the Greeks themselves, who were always ready to identify Artemis with the moon, do not seem to have recognized any lunar connexion in Hera.
Among her particular worshippers, at Argos and Samos, Hera was much more than the queen of heaven and the marriage-goddess. ”

“ Even in those old days of long ago, when human characteristics were embodied and deified, we do not find that the white-armed large-limbed Hera, though queen by right of marriage, lorded it over her sister goddesses by any superior energy or force of nature. ”

“ For these dread monsters too, I ween, the goddess Hera, bride of Zeus, had nurtured to be a trial for Heracles. And therewithal came the rest of the martial heroes returning to meet the foe before they reached the height of outlook, and they fell to the slaughter of the Earthborn, receiving them with arrows and spears until they slew them all as they rushed fiercely to battle. And as when woodcutters cast in rows upon the beach long trees just hewn down by their axes, in order that, once sodden with brine, they may receive the strong bolts ”

“ Hera beside Zeus and Rhea beside Kronos. As for the beauty of the gods, not even Hermes tried to describe it in his tale; he said that it transcended description, and must be comprehended by the eye of the mind; for in words it was hard to portray and impossible to convey to mortal ears. Never indeed will there be or appear an orator so gifted that he could describe such surpassing beauty as shines forth on the countenance of the gods.
For the other gods had been prepared a throne or couch, for everyone according to his seniority. ”

“ She it was that first received in her bosom the Nysean son of Zeus in Abantian Euboea, and with honey moistened his parched lips when Hermes bore him out of the flame. And Hera beheld it, and in wrath drove her from the whole island. And she accordingly came to dwell far off, in the sacred cave of the Phaeacians, and granted boundless wealth to the inhabitants. There at that time did they spread a mighty couch; and thereon they laid the glittering fleece of gold, that so the marriage might be made honoured and the theme of song. ”

“ Enter more passengers. An enormously large woman with an extraordinarily handsome face: an extraordinarily large man, quite young: and a diminutive servant, a little girl-child of about thirteen, with a beautiful face.—But the Juno—it is she who takes my breath away. She is quite young, in her thirties still. She has that queenly stupid beauty of a classic Hera: a pure brow with level dark brows, large, dark, bridling eyes, a straight nose, a chiselled mouth, an air of remote self-consciousness. She sends one's heart straight back to pagan days. ”

“ What happened before the day was over caused the journals to give a more circumstantial account of the reception than they might have done otherwise. One of the chroniclers thus pictured Hera as she stood, Tarsis at her side, receiving the guests, with Heribert and his slashing warriors for a background: “Her deep grey eyes were full of life and expression. She moved with marvellous grace. Her voice was sweet and melodious. Never had anyone seen in the person of one woman so much charm, so much beauty, united with such brightness of intellect. ”

“ But Hera, indignant at not defeating the goddesses, brought to naught my marriage with Paris, and gave to Priam's princely son not Helen, but a phantom endowed with life, that she made in my image out of the breath of heaven; and Paris thought that I was his, although I never was,—an idle fancy! Moreover, the counsels of Zeus added further troubles unto these; for upon the land of Hellas and the hapless Phrygians he brought a war, that he might lighten mother-earth of her myriad hosts of men, and to the bravest of the sons of Hellas bring renown. ”

“ Lastly, he made Hera his blooming wife: and she was joined in love with the king of gods and men, and brought forth Hebe and Ares and Eileithyia.
But Zeus himself gave birth from his own head to bright-eyed Tritogeneia, [29] the awful, the strife-stirring, the host-leader, the unwearying, the queen, who delights in tumults and wars and battles. But Hera without union with Zeus — for she was very angry and quarrelled with her mate — bare famous Hephaestus, who is skilled in crafts more than all the sons of Heaven. ”

“ We have, too, the large Hera-like eye with its mystic gaze, which, in later Byzantine work, becomes first a gaze of lofty indifference, as in the portraits of the emperors and empresses, and lastly a stony and expressionless stare; still, if possible, more stony and glaring when transferred to Celtic and Carolingian Gospel-books. (See chapter on Carolingian Illumination.) ”

“ HOW THEY BUILT THE SHIP ‘ARGO’ IN IOLCOS
So the heralds went out, and cried to all the heroes of the Minuai, ‘Who dare come to the adventure of the golden fleece?’
And Hera stirred the hearts of all the princes, and they came from all their valleys to the yellow sands of Pagasai. And first came Heracles the mighty, with his lion’s skin and club, and behind him Hylas his young squire, who bore his arrows and his bow; and Tiphys, the skilful steersman; and Butes, the fairest of all men; and Castor and Polydeuces the twins, the sons of the magic swan ”