Uranus (mythology)

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"Ouranos" redirects here. For the Maltese ferry in service 1999–2007, see
MS Ouranos
.
Uranus
Personification of the Sky and The Heavens
Uranus depicted on the Gigantomachy frieze, Pergamon Altar, Pergamon Museum
AbodeSky
Personal information
ParentsGaia (Hesiod)
SiblingsPontus and the Ourea (Hesiod)
ConsortGaia
ChildrenThe Titans, the Cyclopes, the Hecatoncheires, the Erinyes (Furies), the Giants, the Meliae, and Aphrodite[1]
Equivalents
Roman equivalentCaelus
Mesopotamian equivalentAnu[2]
Greek deities
series
Primordial deities

In

Homeric epic.[5] Uranus is associated with the Roman god Caelus.[6][7][8][9]

Etymology

Most linguists trace the

Avestan aiβi.varəšta 'it rained on'), making Ouranos the "rain-maker",[11] or the "lord of rain".[12]

A less likely etymology is a

Vedic deity Váruṇa (Mitanni Aruna), god of the sky and waters, but the etymological equation is now considered untenable.[14]

Genealogy

In Hesiod's

Chaos (Void), came Uranus, the Ourea (Mountains), and Pontus (Sea).[16]

Then, according to the Theogony, Uranus mated with Gaia, and she gave birth to the twelve

Phoebe, Tethys and Cronus; the Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes and Arges; and the Hecatoncheires ("Hundred-Handed Ones"): Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges.[17]

Further, according to the Theogony, when Cronus castrated Uranus, from Uranus' blood, which splattered onto the earth, came the Erinyes (Furies), the Giants, and the Meliae. Also, according to the Theogony, Cronus threw the severed genitals into the sea, around which "a white foam spread" and "grew" into the goddess Aphrodite,[19] although according to Homer, Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione.[20]

Other accounts

Other sources give other genealogies. In the lost epic poem the

Nyx (Night) and Phanes.[24]

The poet Sappho (c. 630 – c. 570 BC), was said to have made Uranus the father of Eros, by either Gaia, according one source, or Aphrodite, according to another.[25]

The mythographer

Hundred-Handers and the three Cyclopes,[27] and there were thirteen original Titans, adding the Titanide Dione to Hesiod's list.[28]

Passages in a section of the Iliad called the Deception of Zeus suggest the possibility that Homer knew a tradition in which Oceanus and Tethys (rather than Uranus and Gaia, as in Hesiod) were the parents of the Titans.[29] Plato, in his Timaeus, provides a genealogy (probably Orphic) which perhaps reflected an attempt to reconcile this apparent divergence between Homer and Hesiod, with Uranus and Gaia as the parents of Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys as the parents of Cronus and Rhea and the other Titans.[30]

In Roman mythology, Uranus' counterpart was

Dies (Day),[31] and that Caelus and Dies were the parents of Mercury (Hermes).[32] Hyginus says that, in addition to Caelus, Aether and Dies were also the parents of Terra (Earth), and Mare (Sea).[33]

Mythology

Castration and overthrow

The Mutilation of Uranus by Saturn: fresco by Giorgio Vasari and Cristofano Gherardi, c. 1560 (Sala di Cosimo I, Palazzo Vecchio)

As Hesiod tells the story, Gaia "first bore starry Heaven [Uranus], equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods."[34] Then, with Gaia, Uranus produced eighteen children: the twelve Titans, the three Cyclopes, and the three Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handers),[35] but hating them,[36] he hid them away somewhere inside Gaia.[37] Angry and in distress, Gaia fashioned a sickle made of adamant and urged her children to punish their father. Only her son Cronus, the youngest Titan, was willing to do so.[38] So Gaia hid Cronus in "ambush", giving him the adamantine sickle, and when Uranus came to lie with Gaia, Cronus reached out and castrated his father, casting the severed testicles into the sea.[39] Uranus' castration allowed the Titans to rule and Cronus to assume supreme command of the cosmos.[40]

For this "fearful deed", Uranus called his sons "Titans (Strainers) in reproach" and said that "vengeance for it would come afterwards."

Phaeacians, visited by Odysseus in the Odyssey, were also said to have sprung from the blood of Uranus' castration.[43]

Various sites have been associated with Cronus' sickle, and Uranus' castration.

Drepanum (modern Trapani), whose name is derived from the Greek word for "sickle". Another Alexandrian poet, Lycophron (c. 270 BC), mentions "rounding the Cronos' Sickle's leap", an apparent reference to the "leap" of the sickle being thrown into the sea at Drepanum.[46]

However other sites were also associated with the sickle. The geographer

Phaeacia the island home of the Phaeacians, who (as noted above) were said to have been born from the blood of Uranus' castration.[48]

After his castration, Uranus recedes into the background. Apart from he and Gaia (now reconciled?)

Lyctus on Crete to give birth to Zeus, so that Zeus would be saved from Cronus, and advising Zeus to swallow his first wife Metis, so that Zeus would not in turn be overthrown by his son, Uranus plays no further role in Greek mythology.[50] He is however identified on the Gigantomachy frieze on the Pergamon Altar, bearded and winged, fighting against the Giants with a sword, not too far from his daughter Themis, who is seen attacking another Giant.[51]

The sky (ouranos)

After his castration, the Sky came no more to cover the Earth at night, but held to its place, and, according to

Carl Kerényi, "the original begetting came to an end".[52] Uranus was scarcely regarded as anthropomorphic, aside from the genitalia in the castration myth. He was simply the sky, which was conceived by the ancients as an overarching dome or roof of bronze, held in place (or turned on an axis) by the Titan Atlas. In formulaic expressions in the Homeric poems ouranos is sometimes an alternative to Olympus as the collective home of the gods; an obvious occurrence would be the moment in Iliad 1.495, when Thetis
rises from the sea to plead with Zeus: "and early in the morning she rose up to greet Ouranos-and-Olympus and she found the son of Kronos ..."

Olympian gods], but ouranos often refers to the natural sky above us without any suggestion that the gods, collectively live there".[53] Sale concluded that the earlier seat of the gods was the actual Mount Olympus, from which the epic tradition by the time of Homer had transported them to the sky, ouranos. By the sixth century, when a "heavenly Aphrodite" (Aphrodite Urania
) was to be distinguished from the "common Aphrodite of the people", ouranos signifies purely the celestial sphere itself.

Comparative mythology

Hurrian mythology

The Greek creation myth is similar to the

Kumarbis bit off his genitals and spat out three deities, one of whom, Teshub, later deposed Kumarbis.[54]

Váruṇa

It is possible that Uranus was originally an

Vedic Váruṇa, the supreme keeper of order who later became the god of oceans and rivers, as suggested by Georges Dumézil,[13] following hints in Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912).[55] Another of Dumézil's theories is that the Iranian supreme God Ahura Mazda is a development of the Indo-Iranian *vouruna-*mitra.[56] Therefore, this divinity has also the qualities of Mitra, which is the god of the falling rain.[57]

Uranus is connected with the night sky, and Váruṇa is the god of the sky and the celestial ocean, which is connected with the Milky Way.

Proto-Greek
*(W)orsanόj (worsanos) from a Proto-Indo-European language root *ers "to moisten, to drip" (referring to the rain).

Cultural context of flint

The detail of the sickle's being flint rather than bronze or even iron was retained by Greek mythographers (though neglected by Roman ones). Knapped flints as cutting edges were set in wooden or bone sickles in the late Neolithic, before the onset of the Bronze Age. Such sickles may have survived latest in ritual contexts where metal was taboo, but the detail, which was retained by classical Greeks, suggests the antiquity of the mytheme.

Planet Uranus

Main article: Uranus
See also: Planets in astrology § Uranus

The ancient Greeks and Romans knew of only five "wandering stars" (

Ancient Greek: πλανῆται [planɛːtai̯]): Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Following the discovery of a sixth planet in 1781 using a telescope, there was long-term disagreement regarding its name. Its discoverer William Herschel named it Georgium Sidus (The Georgian Star) after his monarch George III. This was the name preferred by English astronomers, but others such as the French preferred "Herschel". Finally, the name Uranus became accepted in the mid-19th century, as suggested by astronomer Johann Bode as the logical addition to the existing planets' names, since Mars (Ares in Greek), Venus (Aphrodite in Greek), and Mercury (Hermes in Greek) were the children of Jupiter, Jupiter (Zeus in Greek) the son of Saturn, and Saturn (Cronus in Greek) the son of Uranus. What is anomalous is that, while the others take Roman names, Uranus is a name derived from Greek in contrast to the Roman Caelus.[58]

Notes

  1. ^ According to Hesiod, Theogony 183–200, Aphrodite was born from Uranus' severed genitals, but according to Homer, Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus (Iliad 3.374, 20.105; Odyssey 8.308, 320) and Dione (Iliad 5.370–71), see Gantz, pp. 99–100.
  2. ^ Hard, p. 34.
  3. ^ "Uranus". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
  4. Karl Kerenyi, speaking for the ancient Greeks, said of the Titans (Kerenyi, p. 20); "with the single exception, perhaps, of Cronos; and with the exception, also, of Helios
    ."
  5. ^ As at Homer, Iliad 15.36 ff., Odyssey 5.184 ff.
  6. ^ Grimal, s.v. "Caelus" p. 38.
  7. ^ Varro, De lingua Latina 5.58.
  8. ^ Marion Lawrence, "The Velletri Sarcophagus", American Journal of Archaeology 69.3 (1965), p. 220.
  9. Floro, Epitome 1.40 (3.5.30): "The Jews tried to defend Jerusalem; but he [Pompeius Magnus] entered this city also and saw that grand Holy of Holies of an impious people exposed, Caelum under a golden vine" (Hierosolymam defendere temptavere Iudaei; verum haec quoque et intravit et vidit illud grande inpiae gentis arcanum patens, sub aurea vite Caelum). Finbarr Barry Flood, The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (Brill, 2001), pp. 81 and 83 (note 118). El Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprinting), p. 252, entry on caelum, cita a Juvenal, Petronio, and Floro como ejemplos de Caelus o Caelum "with reference to Jehovah
    ; also, to some symbolization of Jehovah."
  10. ^ West 2007, p. 137. Originally reconstructed in: Johann Baptist Hofmann, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Griechischen (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1950).
  11. ^ a b Robert S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 1128–1129.
  12. ^ West 2007, p. 137.
  13. ^ a b c Georges Dumézil, Ouranos-Varuna – Essai de mythologie comparée indo-européenne (Paris: G.-P. Maisonneuve, 1934).
  14. ^ Manfred Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, vol. 2, s.v. "Váruṇa" (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1996), 515–6.
    Edgar C. Polomé, "Binder-god", in Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture
    (London–Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997), 65.
  15. ^ Hard, p. 21; Fowler 2013, p. 5.
  16. ^ Fowler 2013, p. 5; Hard, p. 24; Gantz, p. 10; Hesiod, Theogony 126–132.
  17. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 132–153. Compare with Apollodorus, 1.1.1–3, which first mentions the Hecatoncheires, whom he names as Briareus, "Gyes" and Cottus, then the Cyclopes and the Titans.
  18. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 132–153; Caldwell, p. 5, table 3.
  19. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 173–206.
  20. ^ Homer, Iliad 3.374, 5.370–71, 20.105, Odyssey 8.308, 320; see Gantz, pp. 99–100.
  21. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 183–200; Caldwell, p. 6 table 4.
  22. ^ Gantz, p. 12; Grimal, s.v. Uranus; Eumelus fr. 1 (West 2003, pp. 222–225).
  23. Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Acmon; Eumelus fr. 1 (West 2003, pp. 222–225); Callimachus fr. 498; Alcman fr. 61 Campbell
    [= Eustathius on Iliad 18.476].
  24. ^ West 1983, pp. 70, 85; Gantz, p. 742; Meisner, pp. 37, 70, 197; Grimal, s.v. Uranus.
  25. ^ Gantz, p. 3; Sappho fr. 198 Campbell [= 198 LP] [= 132 Bergk].
  26. ^ Apollodorus, 1.1.1
  27. ^ Apollodorus, 1.1.1–1.1.2
  28. ^ Apollodorus, 1.1.3
  29. ^ Fowler 2013, pp. 8, 11; Hard, pp. 36–37, p. 40; West 1997, p. 147; Gantz, p. 11; Burkert 1995, pp. 91–92; West 1983, pp. 119–120; Homer, Iliad 14.201, 302 [= 201], 245.
  30. ^ Gantz, pp. 11–12, 743; West 1983, pp. 117–118; Fowler 2013, p. 11; Plato, Timaeus 40d–e.
  31. ^ Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.44.
  32. ^ Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.56.
  33. Fabulae
    Theogony 1–2 (Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 95).
  34. ^ Hard, p. 24; Gantz, p. 10; Hesiod Theogony 126–128.
  35. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 132–153.
  36. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 154–155. Exactly which of these eighteen children Hesiod meant that Uranus hated is not entirely clear, all eighteen, or perhaps just the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers. Hard, p. 67; West 1988, p. 7, and Caldwell, p. 37 on lines 154–160, make it all eighteen; while Gantz, p. 10, says "likely all eighteen"; and Most, p. 15 n. 8, says "apparently only the ... Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers are meant" and not the twelve Titans. See also West 1966, p. 206 on lines 139–53, p. 213 line 154 γὰρ. Why Uranus hated his children is also not clear. Gantz, p. 10 says: "The reason for [Uranus'] hatred may be [his children's] horrible appearance, though Hesiod does not quite say this"; while Hard, p. 67 says: "Although Hesiod is vague about the cause of his hatred, it would seem that he took a dislike to them because they were terrible to behold". However, West 1966, p. 213 on line 155, says that Uranus hated his children because of their "fearsome nature".
  37. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 156–158. The hiding place inside Gaia is presumably her womb, see West 1966, p. 214 on line 158; Caldwell, p. 37 on lines 154–160; Gantz, p. 10. This place seems also to be the same place as Tartarus, see West 1966, p. 338 on line 618, and Caldwell, p. 37 on lines 154–160.
  38. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 159–172.
  39. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 173–182; according to Gantz, p. 10, Cronus waited in ambush, and reached out to castrate Uranus, from "inside [Gaia's] body, we will understand, if he too is a prisoner".
  40. ^ Hard, p. 67; West 1966, p. 19.
  41. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 207–210.
  42. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 183–199.
  43. FGrHist 2 F4]; Alcaeus fr. 441 Campbell; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.981–992
    .
  44. ^ Grimal, s.v. Uranus.
  45. ^ Lane Fox, p. 270; Callimachus, Aetia (On Origins) 2, fr. 43.68–72. For a discussion of this sickle of Zancle see Lane Fox, pp. 270–273.
  46. ^ Lane Fox, pp. 270–271; Lycophron, Alexandra 869.
  47. ^ Lane Fox, p. 273; Pausanias, 7.23.4.
  48. scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, 4.984 ff. Compare with Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.981–992
    .
  49. ^ Gantz, p. 41.
  50. ^ Grimal, s.v. Uranus; Hesiod, Theogony 463–464, 886–900. For a discussion of Uranus' prophesying see West 1966, p. 295, on line 463.
  51. ^ LIMC Ouranos; Honan, p. 21
  52. ^ Kerényi, p. 22.
  53. ^ Sale, p. 3.
  54. ^ Guterbock, Hans Gustav. "Hittite Religion" in Forgotten Religions including some Primitive Religions" ed. Vergilius Firm. NY Philadelphia Library 1950: 88f,103f; See Hard, p. 34; Gantz, p. 743.
  55. Arnoldo Momigliano, "Georges Dumezil and the Trifunctional Approach to Roman Civilization", History and Theory, 1984; a link between Uranus and Varuna was suggested as early as 1824 by Albrecht Weber
    , Modern investigations on ancient India: A lecture delivered in Berlin March 4, 1824, 1857.
  56. ^ Georges Dumézil, Mitra Varuna: Essai sur deux représentations indo-européenes de la souveraineté (Paris: Gallimard, 1948). English translation: Mitra-Varuna: an Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty, trans. Derek Coltman (New York: Zone Books, 1988).
  57. ^ According to Dumézil, Varuna is the god of "masses of water", while falling rain is rather related to Mitra.
  58. Bibcode:1958ASPL....8....9G
    – via NASA Astrophysics Data System.

References

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