The Myths of the Zodiac
By Kalev Pehme
Aires the Ram (View the stars in the constellation Aries)
The ram with the golden fleece is believed to have been born of the union of Poseidon and Theophane, the daughter of Bialius. It is said that Poseidon had changed her into a sheep to keep her away from her many suitors, and the god himself turned himself into a ram to couple with her. But this ram is not remembered because of this amorous adventure.
This ram carried the children of King Athamas of Boetia Phrixus and Helle in the air, across the waterway now known as the Hellespont. The ram, according to Pseudo-Eratosthenes, and given to the youngsters by their mother, Nephele ("cloud"). Eratosthenes mentions that as they crossed that narrow straight between Europe and Asia, the ram threw the young girl Helle off, and lost a horn at the same time. Poseidon, the god of the sea and of horses, purportedly rescued her. Hyginus in his Poetica Astronomia, however, is a little more candid, and notes that Poseidon raped her. Helle would later give birth to Paeon or to Edonus, depending on the source.
According to Hyginus, after Phrixus arrived at Colchis, the kingdom of Aeetes, father of the Medea and brother to Circe and Pasiphae, the young man sacrificed the ram to Zeus and hung the golden fleece in the temple on the altar. Eratosthenes, however, says that the ram shed the fleece and gave it to Phrixus as a souvenir. The ram then went to the stars, where it is very faint. Not one star of Aires is brighter than the third-magnitude.
Hyginus says the ram was placed among the stars by Nephele to preside over spring, because formerly Ino sowed parched grain at that time, which was responsible for the flight of Phrixus and Helle in the first place. It is here where the story is murky and requires a bit of deduction. Ino, the daughter of Cadmus and Harmony and a descendent of Aphrodite, would later marry Athamas after he divorced Nephele. Ino also would later go insane and kill her own children because of the anger of Hera. The goddess sought revenge for Ino caring for one of Zeus’s sons, the god Dionysos, a god of madness and the frenzy that is visited upon women in particular. In turn, Ino would commit suicide and throw herself into the sea, where she was transformed into Leucothea, the nymph who would save Odysseus during a great storm. There is a strong theme of underlying madness as part of the myth.
Of course, it is not so clear as to why the flight took place. One account has it that Cretheus, Athamas’s brother, had a wife Demodice (or Biadice).
She had fallen in love with Phrixus, because the young man was very handsome, but she could not seduce him. Enraged, she denounced the young man before Cretheus, accusing him of trying to rape her. A man who loved his wife or perhaps to because he felt his own honor at stake, Cretheus prevailed upon Athamas to killed his son. It was then that Nephele placed her two children on the ram that led Phrixus to Colchis and Helle either into the arms of Poseidon or to her death in the Hellespont. One account has it that Hermes, the messenger of the gods, brought Phrixus back to his father, persuading him that the young man was innocent. It is reported that Demodice was later executed for her treachery.
Later, of course, the golden fleece would be the quest of Jason and the Argonauts.
Taurus the Bull (View the stars in the constellation Taurus)
In ancient times, several gods took on the form of a bull rising from the sea, including the Dionysos. However, Taurus is the bull commemorates the abduction of Europa by Zeus, goaded on by the gadfly, who took her from her home in Phoenicia over to the waters to Crete. It is the beginning of the long struggle between Asia and Europe. That is one story.
Others maintain that the bull is Zeus, yes, but that it is his relationship with Io that is recalled by its major stars, the Hyades (the sisters of Hyas) and the Pleiades, the seven weeping sisters. For while Europa is important, she is only a duplicate of an earlier hierogamy, that of her great-great-grandmother Io.
The story of Zeus and Io is spoken of very discreetly. Io was Hera’s own priestess at Argos when Zeus conceived his desire for her. Io’s dreams were full of loving whispers from Zeus. They told her to go to the fields of Lerna, where later in its swamps Heracles would fight the Hydra. As they intertwined together, Hera intruded, and Zeus quickly turned her into a heifer to protect her. Hera, however, set the monster Argus, whose hundred eyes see everything, to watch over her. Not to be put off, Zeus sent Hermes to kill Argus, and Zeus finally enjoyed Io fully as he wanted.
Hera and Zeus, brother and sister, husband and wife, discovered each other as children. Homer tells of their secret love:
And Zeus who gathers the clouds saw her, and when he saw her desire was a mist about his close heart as much as on that time they first went to bed together and lay in love, and their dear parents knew nothing of it.
Zeus petted Hera for three-hundred years, on an amazing bed. Hera, of course, is the goddess of the bed, the playpen erotic devotion. At the temple of Hera in Argos, it is said that the worshipper could see an image of Hera’s mouth closing over the phallus of Zeus. No other goddess, not even Aphrodite, was allowed to be seen in such an image at her shrine.
So what does Io have to do with all this? It was Zeus’s first adultery, and the betrayal was perpetrated on a woman who was closest to Hera herself, a woman very close to her, a copy, a duplicate.
Hera punished this woman who was most like herself. Io, in the form of a heifer, became a beast consecrated to the divine. She was forced to wander from Hera’s sanctuary throughout the world. Hera used the gadfly as the instrument of her vengence. This little insect goaded her on and on, forcing Io to ford every stream, wandering from place to place. She even meets Prometheus, also suffering, and tells him that she wants to die. This obsession ends at the banks of the Nile in Egypt. She prays to Zeus, and Zeus transforms her back into a woman by skimming his hand lightly over her. United with the god again, Io would have a son named Epaphus, meaning the hand’s light touch. The boy would become king of Egypt one day and he would have a great ox himself, Apis.
Connected with this constellation are two other tragedies:
The Hyades were five daughters of Atlas. They loved their brother Hyas immensely, that when he was killed by a wild boar, in their grief, they pined away and died. Their names are Phaoia, Ambrosia, Eudora, Coronis, and Polyxo. Others add Pedile, Phyto, and Thyone, as well. Some say that they were former Dodoanian nymphs. (Dodona was the home of the oracle of Zeus, a very special oracle completely unlike the one at Delphi. At Dodona, one speaks to the Oak of Zeus to ask to which god one must sacrifice. There is not point in making a sacrifice if it is to the wrong god.) According to Hyginus who paraphrases Pherecydes, they brought Liber, another name for Dionysos or Bacchus, to Ino. As a reward, Zeus placed them in the heavens.
The rising of the Hyades in the sky as well as their setting is attended with much rain, hence their name.
Now there were other daughters of Atlas and Aethra, the daughter of the great Oceanus, the great image of necessity who girdles the globe. The sisters of the Hyades are the Pleiades. These seven sisters some say discussed what had happened to their sisters, and decided to kill themselves in their honor.
However, there are other considerations. Alcyone, Merope, Maia, Electra, Taygete, Steope, and Celaeno are their names, but only six are easily discernable. Mortal Merope is said to have married Sisyphus and bore Glaucus, who may be the father of Bellephron, and she was placed on in the heavens with her immortal sisters. Because she was mortal, her star is very faint.
The other sisters are credited with different divine husbands: Zeus is said to be the father of Dardanus by Electra; father of Hermes by Maia; and of Lacedamon by Taygete. Poseidon is the father of Hyreus by Alcyone, Lycus and Nycteus by Celaeno. Ares is the father of Oenomaus by Sterope.
Others claim that the faintest star is not Merope, but Electra who, after the fall of Troy and her descendents through Dardanus were driven in exile, removed herself out of the Pleiades out of grief. She is believed to lead the Pleiades in their circular motion around the polar regions, where, with her hair loosed, she is observed mourning. She is called Cometes ("long-haired").
In ancient times, the Pleiades were outside of Taurus, and in connection with the story that they were the daughters of Pleione and Atlas. Pleione is said to have been traveling through Boetia with her daughters when Orion the Hunter was aroused by her and tried to possess her. She fled, and Orion pursued her for seven years, but was not able to find her. Pitying their condition, Zeus placed the daughters in the sky as the bull’s tail. Orion, of course, appears to follow them as they set in their flight.
Another variant of the story is that Orion, a very handsome man, fell in love with Merope, who was the daughter of Dionysos’s son Oenopion who had promised Merope to him. However, Orion had to rid his island of its dangerous wild beasts. Of course, he did, and brought all the pelts to Merope. Needless to say, her father said that there had been rumors of beasts still about and refused to let Orion have Merope. Finally, after drinking a great deal of wine, Orion raped Merope in her bedroom. Calling on Dionysos for help, Oenopion, helped by the satyrs, made Orion so drunk he fell asleep and they blinded him when he was helpless. They threw on the seashore and left him there for further adventures. Of the four or five different myths that are combined in Orion, none truly matter when we look up in the night sky and see his presence. Of all the constellations, Orion continues to be one of the most prominent and recognizable of all.
The Pleiades are called Vergiliae, the spring stars, by the Romans, because they rise after the spring equinox. To the Romans, they were considered sweet and wonderful indications of spring.
But even today, many astrologers consider that any planet in conjunction with the Pleiades, at about twenty-nine degrees of Taurus, entails a fate worth weeping about.
Gemini the Twins (View the stars in the constellation Gemini)
This constellation is of the Greek Discouri ("striplings of Zeus") brothers, known as Castor and Pollux in Latin, and Polydeuces in Greek. They were the most loving of brothers, and never fought against each other, whether it was over kingship or anything else. They never did anything without the other’s consent. They were among the most popular of the ancient cult divinities, and their worship spread all over Greece and even to Sicily.
They are the brothers of Helen, the wife of Menelaus who ran off with Paris to Troy, precipitating the Trojan War that wiped out the age of heroes.
The boys and Helen are often said to be born of Leda to whom Zeus appeared as a swan, a frequent image in the history of art.
However, there is a more profound story relating to their birth. Of the various forms of Necessity (Adrasteia, Tyche, Moira, Ananke, Ate, Aisa, Dike, Erinyes, Heimarmene, all of whom are female and against whom no one, not even the gods may rebel), Nemesis, the daughter Nyx or night, is the most beautiful. She is that horrible force that brings down vengeance on the impious and the evil, while the other forms of Necessity, like chance, push us and everything in the world. They are from the time of Kronos.
Nemesis has long dark hair and wears white clothes. She is accompanied by her friend, Aidos, shame, everywhere she goes. Aidos keeps people from offending, while Nemesis punishes those who do. One day Zeus was watching Nemesis and he felt that tinge inside him. He never felt any desire for any form of necessity, but he suddenly felt a deep desire for Nemesis and he pursued her. She fled from one country to the next, into the waters of the earth, and in the skies. Nemesis changed into various shapes into every form of animal. Exhausted, Zeus caught her when she was a swan and he coupled with her as birds, passionately. It is Zeus’s greatest moment, for he has overcome necessity itself. Nemesis and her friend Aidos are torn against by necessity and shame—torn apart by herself.
From that night’s adventure came the egg from which Castor and Polydeuces, as well as Helen, who combines both beauty and necessity, were born.
The twin boys were model young men. When Helen was twelve and abducted and willingly, happily, sodomized byTheseus on one of his many adventures, the twins went and recovered her, capturing Athens in the process. Moreover, they made Menstheus king of that city. They were part of the great hunt for the boar killed by Meleager. Castor is credited with teaching Heracles to fence. Together with Peleus, Achilles’s father, and with Jason, the Dioscuri laid waste to Iolcus. They were famous for the boxing and fighting skills. They carried off the daughters of Leucippus and wedded them (Castor had Anogon by Hilaria, while Polydeuces had Mnesileus by Phoebe).
But their glory rests in the sadness of the death of Castor, the mortal of the twins. In a war between Sparta and Athens, Castor was killed in Aphidnae. Grief-stricken, Polydeuces, Homer tells us, gave his brother half-of-his life. Thus, part of the year, Castor goes beneath the earth, as the constellation sets.
They symbolize the dual night/day character of the sky, evening and morning star. They were believed to come to the aid of mariners in distress, and they were associated with what later became known as St. Elmo’s fire, a favorable omen when it appeared in two flames, unlucky as one.