Eos (Aurora)
EOS (Aurora).
Eos, the Dawn, like her brother Helios, whose advent she always
announced, was also deified by the early Greeks. She too had her own
chariot, which she drove across the vast horizon both morning and night,
before and after the sun-god. Hence she is not merely the personification
of the rosy morn, but also of twilight, for which reason her palace is
placed in the west, on the island Ææa. The abode of Eos is a magnificent
structure, surrounded by flowery meads and velvety lawns, where nymphs
and other immortal beings, wind in and out in the mazy figures of the
dance, whilst the music of a sweetly-tuned melody accompanies their
graceful, gliding movements.
Eos is described by the poets as a beautiful maiden with rosy arms and
fingers, and large wings, whose plumage is of an ever-changing hue; she
bears a star on her forehead, and a torch in her hand. Wrapping round her
the rich folds of her violet-tinged mantle, she leaves her couch before
the break of day, and herself yokes her two horses, Lampetus and
Phaethon, to her glorious chariot. She then hastens with active
cheerfulness to open the gates of heaven, in order to herald the approach
of her brother, the god of day, whilst the tender plants and flowers,
revived by the morning dew, lift their heads to welcome her as she
passes.
Eos first married the Titan Astræus,[29] and their children were Heosphorus
(Hesperus), the evening star, and the winds. She afterwards became united
to Tithonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, who had won her affection by
his unrivalled beauty; and Eos, unhappy at the thought of their being
ever separated by death, obtained for him from Zeus the gift of
immortality, forgetting, however, to add to it that of eternal youth. The
consequence was that when, in the course of time, Tithonus grew old and
decrepid, and lost all the beauty which had won her admiration, Eos
became disgusted with his infirmities, and at last shut him up in a
chamber, where soon little else was left of him but his voice, which had
now sunk into a weak, feeble quaver. According to some of the later
poets, he became so weary of his cheerless and miserable existence, that
he entreated to be allowed to die. This was, however, impossible; but
Eos, pitying his unhappy condition, exerted her divine power, and changed
him into a grasshopper, which is, as it were, all voice, and whose
monotonous, ceaseless chirpings may not inaptly be compared to the
meaningless babble of extreme old age.