“I saw Bacchus today:
In a wild gorge he lay,
Teaching his sacred melodies. O years
To come, credit my glimpse
Of the attentive nymphs
And goat-foot satyrs cocking pointed ears.

Ai, ai, my mind still reels
With the sharp dread, and feels
Tumultuous rapture, bursting with the god.
Ai, ai, spare me, be kind,
Unchainer of the mind,
Stern master of the fearful ivy-rod.

Now I may celebrate
Your tireless, unsedate
Revellers, your wine-fountains and the rich
Runnels of milk that spring
At your command, I sing
The honey dripping from the tree-trunk niche.

I sing your radiant bride
Who, crowned and glorified,
Among the constellations has her place,
The palace roof raised flat
At Thebes - no light stroke, that -
And King Lycurgus’ grim demise in Thrace.”

Horace, Odes, Book Two, 19 (translation by James Michie)

Some notes about Horace’s poem:

Bacchus is the Roman god of wine. The line about the “wine-fountains” of the god underscores this fact. In addition, Bacchus is also associated with mysteries.

Nymphs and satyrs are types of woodland spirits in mythology. They are often depicted in the entourage of Bacchus.

The “fearful ivy-rod” refers to a thyrsos, which is one of the symbols of Bacchus and / or his Greek counterpart, Dionysos.

The “radiant bride” of Bacchus is none other than Ariadne.

There was a story from myth in which Lycurgus attacked Dionysos and drove the god to seek refuge in the sea.

In conclusion, I should also mention that this is the only first portion of the Ode. Perhaps I will include the rest sometime in the near future.

The source for this story is Book Nine of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. And the passage I am featuring begins with a reference to the previous tale, which is about Achelous. It then leads us to our topic :

“Although the god had lost his handsome horn
and had his forehead marred, he still was sound
in every other way. And he could hide
his scar with wreaths of weeds or willow boughs.
But you, ferocious Nessus, who were struck
with love for Deianira, lost your life:
a flying arrow pierced you through the spine.”

(Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book Nine, lines 98 ff.)

I’m going to paraphrase the rest of Ovid’s version of the story here, but I highly recommend that you check out Allen Mandelbaum’s lyrical translation if you want to read something far more beautifully written.

The story starts innocently enough I suppose. Hercules is heading home with his wife Deianira. The couple are thwarted in their journey by a rather formidable river that blocks their path. Of course Hercules has no concerns about something as petty as a swollen stream - after after all, our hero has a reputation for overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles. What’s crossing a river to him? However, he did worry about his wife.

Cue Nessus the Centaur. Nessus just so happens to be standing near the river. Recognizing the hero and immediately grasping his predicament, he saunters over to where the pair are standing and offers to assist Deianira in crossing the river. Now Nessus is canny enough to realize that appealing a bit to the vanity of Hercules will help him in his scheme. Wait, what scheme? Allow me to explain.

You see, Deianira is quite lovely. The kind of woman who inspires love at first sight. And Centaurs were pretty notorious for being unable to resist female charms. Anyway, Nessus acknowledges that while Hercules himself may not require help, Deianira, who was by this point looking a little pale and anxious about this whole river crossing business, may appreciate the extensive river-crossing experience of a half equine companion. Could he be of service?

Hercules takes the bait. While he busies himself with tossing his weapons onto the opposite bank and swimming mighty across the river, he barely notices that his wife is in fact screaming. Deianira is calling for her husband because Nessus is carrying her off. This fact gradually dawns on Hercules. In typical heroic fashion, he first warns Nessus that the Centaur won’t get away with the abduction. Then he acts. Scooping up his bow and arrows, Hercules shoots the Centaur squarely in the spine.

It’s worth noting that this point that Hercules had taken the precaution of poisoning the tips of his arrows with venom from an earlier conquest, that of the Hydra. So the death of Nessus was both swift and most assuredly painful. However, before he passes away the Centaur has the presence of mind to plan a final act of retribution.

With his dying breath Nessus turns to Deianira. He whispers hoarsely that his tunic is magical, endowed with an enchantment that will prevent Hercules ever from straying from his wife.

Procrustes is a character from Greek mythology. The story goes that the old fellow was particularly fond of guests. So much so that according some sources he tended to abduct people who happened to wander through his neck of the woods. Instead of offering them hospitality - you know, a warm meal or some charming conversation - Procrustes offered his visitors one of two beds. And these were not just any beds. Oh no, they were special. The beds were said to be made from iron and were crafted specifically to suit the exacting standards of Procrustes.

It seemed that Procrustes took grim pleasure in selecting a bed that he knew would not suit the size of his guest. The shorter guests were assigned to the longer bed, while the taller guests were relegated to the smaller bed. But this disparity just wouldn’t do. So Procrustes then made sure that his guest fit the bed. He stretched the shorter people, contorting their bodies, so that they would encompass the full length of the bed. The larger people had a rough go of it too, as Procrustes simply lopped off their feet to accommodate the smaller bed.

It was the hero Theseus who put and end to all this mayhem. According to the legend, Theseus punished Procrustes for his crimes by giving him a dose of his own medicine. As you can imagine, things did not end well for Procrustes. And so the Procrustean bed was used one final time in mythology. The phrase however lives on.

Some of the alternate names by which Procrustes was known are Damastes, Polypemon, and Procoptas. Apparently, the Greek names reveal the violent tendencies of this legendary scoundrel.

In Bouguereau’s painting, we see the goddess of love and beauty standing in the center of the image. Venus is nude (remember, according to the story, she has just been born from the sea) and she poses on her sea-shell platform. A throng of mythical onlookers surrounds the glorious goddess. These creatures of sea and sky - including tritons, sea nymphs, and putti - gaze with admiration at the newly-born deity.

The image is a grand example of beautiful technique and clever composition (an example of this compositional creativity can be seen in the vortex of putti in the background). However, there is little passion in this painting. In essence, The Birth of Venus demonstrates Bouguereau’s skill at portraying perfectly painted figures. While this slick, Academic style might strike the contemporary viewer as more than a bit contrived, the fact remains that during his lifetime, the artist was both fashionable and highly successful.

The Birth of Venus is in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris, France.

I typically focus on Classical - that is, Greek and Roman - and Celtic mythology, with an emphasis on the former, on this site. Today, I am going to diverge from that path a bit and explore Japanese mythology. I should also emphasize that when I say Japanese mythology, I am specifically talking about Shinto myth.

Much of our early information about Shinto comes from the Kojiki, or “Record of Ancient Manners”, which details the Japanese creation myth. Here we find the story of Izanagi and Izanami, so let’s begin our journey with them.

Izanagi and Izanami | This couple are often classified as kami, or types of spirits, in Japanese myth. The pair began by creating the islands of Japan.

In addition, Izanagi and Izanami were the parents to the following gods and goddesses:

Amaterasu | sun goddess

Kagu-Tsuchi | fire god

Susano | sea and storm god

Tsukiyomi | moon god

These deities obviously represent aspects of nature.

Of course, there were other gods and goddesses in Japanese mythology. Here are some other important Shinto deities:

Hachiman | god of war

Inari | god (or goddess) of rice and agriculture

Sukuna - Biko | “dwarf god”

In the Beginning…

Gaia (or Gaea) was the original Earth Mother - or should I say, Mother Earth - in Greek mythology. Her fertility was quite literally legendary. Indeed, Gaia gave birth to a plethora of important children. In the opening lines of his epic that details the genealogy of the gods, the ancient Greek poet Hesiod writes of Gaia:

“With their divine voices
they first sing the glory of the sublime races of the gods
from the beginning, the children born to Gaia and vast Ouranos
and to their offspring, the gods who give blessings.”

(Hesiod, Theogony, lines 43-46)

A comprehensive list of Gaia’s children would easily be an entire post, so for today, I will stick with some of the more memorable offspring.

With Ouranos (the personification of Heaven), Gaia gave birth to the Cyclopes, Hecatoncheires, and the Titans. Later, from the blood of Ouranos, Gaia produced the Erinyes and the Giants.

All this talk leads me to the next group of mythological mothers…

The Mothers of All Monsters

Monsters of many varieties haunted the imaginations of the ancient Greeks. These creatures are found inhabiting works such as the Odyssey of Homer and the Theogony of Hesiod. But don’t forget that monsters had mothers too. Indeed, many monsters were the offspring of two noteworthy mythological figures, specifically Echidna and Nyx.

Echidna was depicted as either a serpent, or half woman and half snake, in Greek myth. Some of her monstrous spawn include legends like Cerberus, the Chimera, the Hydra of Lerna, and Orthrus.

Nyx is the personification of Night in Greek mythology. Her motley brood features such notables as Hypnos, Thanatos, Eris, Nemesis, and the Moirai (the Fates).

Other Famous Mothers in Mythology

Finally, let’s end this survey of mythological mothers with some of the females who gave birth to legendary heroes and heroines, and in some cases even gods and goddesses. This select list include some of my favorite moms from myth.

Alcmene - The mother of the hero Herakles. Alcmene was especially praised by Hesiod in his work called The Shield.

Leto - Who could forget the lovely Leto in a list of famous mothers? After all, she gave birth to two Olympians, Apollo and Artemis.

Semele - She also bore a divine son to the god Zeus. Semele was the mother of Dionysos.

Thetis - This Nereid married the mortal man Peleus, to whom she bore the hero Achilles.

There are two main versions of her story. The first is that she tried to make Zeus (the notoriously amorous ruler of the Greek gods) fall in love with her. The second is that she instead assisted another, helping Io to win the heart of Zeus. In either case, Inyx used her ability to conjure up potent love magic to seduce the Olympian god.

Naturally, this did not go over well with Hera. Indeed Hera had reason to be both angry and jealous. The goddess was after all the wife of Zeus, and had suffered through numerous incidents of her husband’s flings with other women. So Hera responded in her typical fashion, by punishing the paramour (or the paramour’s assistant, as the case may be) of Zeus. She simply turned Iynx into a bird. Indeed, the word iynx means “wryneck”.

There is a footnote to this legend of Iynx incidentally. Apparently, the bird who bore her name became part of legend as well, as it was used as a part of a love charm by the ancient Greeks. This bird was tied to a small wheel which was spun around to accompany the enchantment being cast.

The visual appeal of this statue is quite evident, but the meaning of this piece is somewhat more elusive. It is clear that the man is interacting with the centaur (centaurs, incidentally, are legendary half-man half-horse hybrids in Greek mythology). However, there is some debate about whether this is a peaceful or aggressive situation.

Some scholars have suggested that the pair of figures are embracing each other in a friendly fashion. It is therefore possible that they are meant to represent the mythical duo Achilles (the man) and Chiron (the centaur). Equally possible is the interpretation that man and centaur are locked in combat, making it likely that they could be acting out another famous scene from Greek myth, in which the hero Herakles confronts the malicious centaur Nessus.

Stories from Greek mythology reveal that Centaurs were not terribly civilized. For one thing, they were said to consume a diet that consisted of raw flesh. And in a culture that celebrated the fruits of the vineyard, Centaurs especially stood out because they couldn’t hold their wine. We will learn more about this fatal flaw in a moment.

In mythology, the race of Centaurs are traditionally thought of as the children of two possible sets of parents. The first candidates were Ixion and Nephele. The second claim was that they descended from Centaurus, who in some versions of the myth was the son of the god Apollo and the nymph Stilbe.

One of the most famous Centaurs in myth is Chiron. Now, Chiron wasn’t your typical Centaur. His parents were Philyra and Cronus - not the aforementioned ancestors of the rest of his race. He appears in the legendary tales of the great Greek hero Herakles (Hercules, if you prefer his Roman name) as a gentle, even wise figure. In addition to this, Chiron was immortal.

Since no discussion of the Centaurs would be complete without a mention of a rather obscure word connected to them, let’s explore that now. The word is centauromachy. A centauromachy is a specific kind of mythological battle between the Centaurs and their rivals, the Lapiths. The Lapiths were a neighboring tribe who represented the polar opposite of the unruly Centaurs. While the centaurs were uncouth and uncivilized, the Lapiths were in comparison considerably more refined and cultured. The clash of the two tribes is the stuff of legend.

Centaurs were fond of one thing even more than fighting. Apparently, they appreciated the female form, and many tales from myth depict Centaurs attempting to abduct women. Indeed, one of the key causes of the conflict between the Centaurs and Lapiths was due to the former trying to carry away the women of the latter. Kind of makes a social situation awkward when you are invited to a wedding and you think that the female guests would make a perfect “hey, thanks for coming!” gift.

A notorious example of the lengths a Centaur would go to claim a lovely woman as his prize involves, again, the hero Herakles. The Centaur in this myth was named Nessus, and his profession was ferrying - or rather carrying - people across a river. The tale of how Nessus encountered Herakles and got involved with the hero is worth discussing, but that, as I am fond of saying, is a tale for another day.

Centaurs are called Kentauroi in Greek by the way.

Pandora plays an intriguing role in Greek mythology. According to one version of the legend, she was the first woman. She was created by the ruler of the gods, Zeus. Zeus was assisted in his task by other Greek deities, including Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, who used her powers to bestow upon Pandora grace and loveliness; Hermes, messenger of the gods, gave Pandora persuasion; and Apollo, god of music and the arts, favored the woman with musical skill. Because of the gifts of the gods, Pandora was very attractive - her name even means “all gifts”.

However, Pandora had one flaw - she was extremely curious. When she encountered a jar (or, in some versions, a box) that belonged to Epimetheus, she could not resist learning about its mysterious contents, and so she simply opened it. This jar contained all of the evils, which were then released into the world. The only thing that remained in the jar was hope (which, incidentally, the Greeks referred to as elpis).

This part of myth is depicted in Rossetti’s image. The emphasis is on Pandora, her hand poised over the box that contains the evils that are shown escaping as a cloud of smoke. This billowing smoke is enveloping Pandora, and forming a sort of halo around her head. As with many of Rossetti’s images of women, Pandora is a languid beauty with flowing hair and a pensive expression.