延 安大学外国语学院古希腊罗马神话赏析课件 第二讲.pptVIP

* * LOGO 2. Hera and Zeus’s Concubines Hera’s twin-brother Zeus sought her out at Cnossus in Crete, where he courted her, at first unsuccess- fully. She took pity on him only when he adopted the disguise of a bedraggled cuckoo, and tenderly warm- ed him in her bosom. There he at once resumed his true shape and ravished her, so that she was sham- ed into marrying him. All the gods brought gifts to the wedding: notably Mother Earth gave Hera a tree with golden apples, which was later guarded by the Hesperides in Hera’s orchard on Mount Atlas. She and Zeus spent their wedding night on Samos, and it lasted three hundred years. Hera bathed regularly in the spring of Canathus, near Argos, and thus renewed her virginity. To Hera and Zeus were born the deities Ares, Hephaestus, and Hebe, some of them were conceived when Hera touched a certain flower, and Hebe when she touched a lettuce. Ever since his marriage to Hera, Zeus began his long series of amorous adventures. So many infidelities of her husband made Hera a highly jealous queen. But daunted by Zeus’s fatal thunderbolt, Hera could only resort to ruthless intrigue and revenge Hera (Juno) one day perceived it suddenly grew dark, and immediately suspected that her husband had raised a cloud to hide some of his doings that would not bear the light. She brushed away the cloud, and saw her husband on the banks of a glassy river, with a beautiful heifer standing near him. Juno suspected the heifer’s form concealed some fair mortal nymph---as was, indeed, the case; for it was Io, the daughter of the river god Inachus, whom Zeus (Jupiter) had been flirting with, and, when he became aware of the approach of his wife, had changed into that form. Juno joined her husband, and noticing the heifer, praised its beauty, and asked whose it was, and of what herd. Jupiter, to stop questions, replied that it was a fresh creation from the earth. Juno asked to have it as a gift. What could Jupiter do?