Eos | Greek Goddess

Eos (Greek: Ἠώς - Êôs, dawn), in Greek mythology, is the goddess who personified the dawn. Daughter of Hyperion and Theia, she is the sister of the goddess Selene, the Moon, and Helios, the Sun.

Representation

Usually depicted as having long blond hair and pink dyed nails with a purple chariot pulled by two winged horses, Lampo and Phaethon, with multicolored harnesses. Agile and graceful, she is fitted with wings on her shoulders and feet.

This characterization expresses her character as a capricious and carefree young woman, who lives intense and ephemeral loves.

Function

Eos has, as her main function, to open the gates of heaven for the chariot of Helios, the personification of the Sun, thus being the goddess of dawn (When Helios' chariot is leaving, and the Sun is rising) and sunset (When Helios' chariot is returning, and the Sun is setting).

Also responsible for the brightness of the Sun and the hues of the sky, Eos is the goddess who awakens people and creatures from deepest dreams and pours dew on leaves, and is best known for being the goddess especially of the dawn.

Loves and children

Eos' passions are numerous, the best known being with Titono, Priam's older brother. When she fell in love with him, she was afraid of losing him and kidnapped him and took him to Ethiopia.

The goddess loved him so much that she asked to be granted immortality, but forgot about eternal youth, and in this way the goddess's beloved turned into a decrepit old man, without, however, ever dying. Eos then decided to ask Zeus to turn him into a cicada.

With Titono, he had two sons: Emotion and Memnon.

Cephalus, son of Hermes and Herse, was also a victim of Eos' relentless love.

He was already married to princess Procris, tender and loving and always faithful to her husband.

Insatiable as ever, Eos cares little for the suffering of Procris and kidnaps Cephalus while hunting in the vicinity of Mount Imeto.

But despite all the goddess' efforts, the young man remains in love with his wife. Despite many cunning schemes by the goddess, Cephalo andócris are reconciled.

Cephalus goes back to hunting, but his wife, fearing the rival goddess, follows him. Thinking it was an animal, he kills her and, seeing what he had done, throws himself into the sea. Moved, Zeus transforms them into stars.

One version of the myth of Ganymede, tells that he was kidnapped and taken to Mount Olympus not by Zeus, but by the goddess Eos, apparently this was the original version of the myth of Ganymede, it is mentioned by Apollonius of Rhodis, and other writers of ancient Greece.

Her passions are attributed to the fact that she had loves with Ares, something that made Aphrodite very jealous, causing her to cast a spell on Eos, so that she would fall in love only with mortal men, and have an insatiable sex drive.

Hesiod's version of the legend

According to Hesiod, Eos (the Day) kidnapped Cephalus, and their son is named Phaethon, guardian of Aphrodite's temple.