~*~ATLANTIS MYTHOLOGY~*~ Delphyne's Tale: Earth Meets Sky
-
DELPHYNE'S TALE: EARTH MEETS SKY
by Nancy Vedder-Shults (Spring, 2002)
Long before Apollo there was Gaia, our Mother Earth. And long before the ancient temples were erected at Delphi, there was a simple cave guarded by a snake. This is the story of that snake, Delphyne, Gaia's serpent daughter. It is a story of sun and shadow, of appearances and disappearances, a story of life's sacred mysteries and earth's many blessings.
The first blessing, of course, was Gaia herself, she who birthed us smelling of breast milk and soil just ploughed. Since the beginning she has nurtured us from her black furrows. And when we die, she welcomes us once again into her rich earth. Life -- death -- rebirth. This is what Gaia brought her people, the unending blessings of darkness and light, the cycles of day and night, the seasons of the year, the mysteries of the earth.
These were celebrated in a cave at Delphi. Here the people marked the spot where Gaia gave birth to the world and everything upon it, declaring Delphi the womb of the universe. And here the people returned to listen to Delphyne, Gaia's oracle. For Gaia had fashioned her serpent daughter to protect her sacred mysteries and to prophesy for those who approached the Earth Mother with respect and reverence. Intoxicating vapors escaped from fissures inside the holy cave, hissing Delphyne's sibilant omens and announcing Gaia's will to those who journeyed here.
For the Earth Mother had created Delphyne in her own image. The serpent, like her mother's cycles of day and night, appeared and disappeared, sometimes slithering upon the sunny surface of the earth and sometimes burrowing into its darkest depths. When she became too large, she sloughed her worn-out skin, embracing the freedom of surrender and release. And once she had shed her outer layer, she renewed herself, manifesting the wisdom of Gaia's healing and rebirth. Life -- death -- rebirth. This was the mystery of the snake as it was of her mother.
But the people forgot these mysteries and began to fashion new gods for themselves, gods in their own image, dressed in human form. Zeus, Ares, Apollo, gods of the heavens, not of the earth, gods of the sun, not of the shade, gods who dwelt on the highest peaks, not everywhere as Mother Gaia before them. These heavenly beings were filled with arrogance and jealousy, the arrogance of immortality and the jealousy of dominance. Zeus declared himself supreme and thought to parcel out the heavens and the earth to the gods who ruled with him. To his son Apollo he gave the task of conquering Delphi. But who can vanquish the seat of life-death-and-rebirth? How can you attack the cycle of the seasons, the pattern of day and night? Where is the beginning of a circle?
Such questions did not daunt Apollo. He was a new god, a young god, a god of utmost hubris. Delphi would be his, he thought to himself. If anyone wanted an oracle from the gods, any of the gods, they would have to go through him; he would be their intermediary. He believed this would bring order to Gaia's chaotic omens. And in his mind he saw glistening marble temples with classical proportions, priests garbed in togas restraining the thronging pilgrims and a fence enclosing the holy spring. And in his imagination, he heard music played on flute and lyre, harmonious in form and structure. He envisioned himself taming the Muses and bringing them to Mt. Parnassus at Delphi. Such was Apollo's hubris, to think that he could domesticate the fount of creativity! So in his pride he fashioned himself a bow and went to Delphi as a conqueror.
When Delphyne saw him approach, bow and arrow in hand, the air rasped in her throat, a guttural sound that traveled the length of her spine and back, finally hissing through her lips.
"Such audacity," she thought to herself. "Such ignorance! He does not know who stands before him."
And when Apollo demanded her submission, Delphyne laughed out loud, a roar that echoed off the mountain peaks surrounding Delphi, carrying flames high into the sky.
"Gaia's daughter does not engage in combat," she said, looking him in the eye. "And Gaia's daughter knows no defeat. Aim well and true, young godling. Shoot your arrow into my very heart, but know that when you are done and see my carcass lying at your feet, I will be with you still."
For Delphyne knew that although she was mortal, she would be reborn, just we exhale in order to take in fresh air.
So Apollo took up the challenge and slapped the arrow against his bow, drew the cord and let fly, straight into the dragon's heart. And Delphyne collapsed in front of her cave, a mountain of flesh coiled in upon itself. Apollo left the carcass to decay where it had dropped, focussing the heat of the sun upon it. And from its rotten stench he renamed the dragon Python, the decomposed one. But he never noticed that among the worms that wound their way through the dragon's remains, was a tiny snake that slithered off into the sacred cave, Delphyne reborn.
After Delphyne's death and rebirth, the pilgrims came as they had before. Now to be sure, there were temples and pomp, priests in their regalia as the people waited in single file to speak with the woman Apollo had appointed as his priestess. But this young woman breathed in the sacred fumes from the earth and listened to the hiss of Delphyne as of yore. For you see without Gaia there is no life, there is no death, there is no rebirth. And without Delphyne there is no oracle. And though Apollo may march and strut, parading as the god of Delphi, his mother and the mother of us all continues her cycle of life -- death -- and rebirth. Stars blink in and out of existence. The snake renews itself and is reborn.
Delphyne, Gaia's child, come and live in me. Delphyne, Gaia's child, I'll be cave to Thee. Serpent of the shadow, The mystery you know, Delphyne, Gaia's child, in you I ebb and flow.
-
Nice nice .. Greeks myth n legend .. my favourite friction .. isit realli a myth or the author wrote it ? -
Merry Meet stem_-_daimyou_asobi_hen,Originally posted by stem_-_daimyou_asobi_hen: Nice nice .. Greeks myth n legend .. my favourite friction .. isit realli a myth or the author wrote it ?
Thanks...This is a real myth...hope you like it! I will have some other myths & legends coming soon... This is the 1st legend of my ~*~ATLANTIS MYTHOLOGY~*~ Series... Do pop by often if you are free...drop a line or two if you like to...
Blessed Be,
Oceanos -
i like myths as my nick is taken from greek mythology.
-
Yeah Titan...Originally posted by epImetheus:i like myths as my nick is taken from greek mythology. Where is your brother Prometheus? -
Originally posted by OCEANOS:
[b]Yeah Titan... Where is your brother Prometheus?
[/b]
wow.....you went to check it out? -
dun think he needs to check, hahahaOriginally posted by epImetheus: wow.....you went to check it out? -
Nope me know quite a Few Greek Patheons....Gods & Goddesses...Originally posted by epImetheus: wow.....you went to check it out?
-
Hehehe Kopisatu knows me Best!!!Originally posted by kopiosatu:dun think he needs to check, hahaha -
~*~APHRODITE ~*~Goddess of Love, Beauty and Fertility
APHRODITE (a-fro-DYE-tee; Roman name Venus) was the goddess of love, beauty and fertility. She was also a protectress of sailors.
The poet Hesiod said that Aphrodite was born from sea-foam. Homer, on the other hand, said that she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione.
When the Trojan prince Paris was asked to judge which of three Olympian goddesses was the most beautiful, he chose Aphrodite over Hera and Athena. The latter two had hoped to bribe him with power and victory in battle, but Aphrodite offered the love of the most beautiful woman in the world.
This was Helen of Sparta, who became infamous as Helen of Troy when Paris subsequently eloped with her. In the ensuing Trojan War, Hera and Athena were implacable enemies of Troy while Aphrodite was loyal to Paris and the Trojans.
IN HOMER
In his epic of the Trojan War, Homer tells how Aphrodite intervened in battle to save her son Aeneas, a Trojan ally. The Greek hero Diomedes, who had been on the verge of killing Aeneas, attacked the goddess herself, wounding her on the wrist with his spear and causing the ichor to flow. (Ichor is what immortals have in the place of blood.)
Aphrodite promptly dropped Aeneas, who was rescued by Apollo, another Olympian sponsor of the Trojans. In pain she sought out her brother Ares, the god of war who stood nearby admiring the carnage, and borrowed his chariot so that she might fly up to Olympus. There she goes crying to her mother Dione, who soothes her and cures her wound. Her father Zeus tells her to leave war to the likes of Ares and Athena, while devoting herself to the business of marriage.
Elsewhere in Homer's Iliad , Aphrodite saves Paris when he is about to be killed in single combat by Menelaus. The goddess wraps him in a mist and spirits him away, setting him down in his own bedroom in Troy. She then appears to Helen in the guise of an elderly handmaiden and tells her that Paris is waiting for her.
Helen recognizes the goddess in disguise and asks if she is being led once more to ruin. For Aphrodite had bewitched her into leaving her husband Menelaus to run off with Paris. She dares to suggest that Aphrodite go to Paris herself.
Suddenly furious, the goddess warns Helen not to go too far, lest she be abandoned to the hatred of Greeks and Trojans alike. "I'll hate you," says the mercurial goddess, "as much as I love you now."
Even though Zeus's queen Hera and Aphrodite are on different sides in the Trojan War, the goddess of love loans Hera her magical girdle in order to distract Zeus from the fray. This garment has the property of causing men (and gods) to fall hopelessly in love with whomever is wearing it.
Homer calls Aphrodite "the Cyprian", and many of her attributes may have come from Asia via Cyprus (and Cythera) in Mycenaean times. These almost certainly mixed with a preexisting Hellenic or Aegean goddess. The ancient Greeks themselves felt that Aphrodite was both Greek and foreign. -
~*~APHRODITE ~*~Goddess of Love, Beauty and Fertility
~APHRODITE & JASON the Argonauts~
Aphrodite involved herself on other occasions in the affairs of mortal heroes. When Jason asked permission of the king of Colchis to remove the Golden Fleece from the grove in which it hung, the king was clearly unwilling. So the goddess Hera, who sponsored Jason's quest, asked her fellow-Olympian Aphrodite to intervene. The love goddess made the king's daughter Medea fall in love with Jason, and Medea proved instrumental in Jason's success. -
~*~APHRODITE ~*~Goddess of Love, Beauty and Fertility
~APHRODITE & AENEAS ~
Another time, Zeus punished Aphrodite for beguiling her fellow gods into inappropriate romances. He caused her to become infatuated with the mortal Anchises. That's how she came to be the mother of Aeneas. She protected this hero during the Trojan War and its aftermath, when Aeneas quested to Italy and became the mythological founder of a line of Roman emperors.
A minor Italic goddess named Venus became identified with Aphrodite, and that's how she got her Roman name. It is as Venus that she appears in the Aeneiad , the poet Virgil's epic of the founding of Rome.
And on still another occasion,
HEPHAESTUS
The love goddess was married to the homely craftsman-god Hephaestus. She was unfaithful to him with Ares, and Homer relates in the Odyssey how Hephaestus had his revenge.
IN ART
Elsewhere in classical art she has no distinctive attributes other than her beauty. Flowers and vegetation motifs suggest her connection to fertility.
Aphrodite was associated with the dove. Another of her sacred birds was the goose, on which she is seen to ride in a vase painting from antiquity.
Hesiod's reference to Aphrodite's having been born from the sea inspired the Renaissance artist Botticelli's famous painting of the goddess on a giant scallop shell. Equally if not better known is the Venus de Milo, a statue which lost its arms in ancient times.