The Myths of the Zodiac- Virgo the Virgin

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The Myths of the Zodiac- Virgo the Virgin

Post by swetha » Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:21 pm

The Virgin is one of the most intriguing of the constellations, for there appears to be an exoteric and esoteric side to her.

Hesiod in the Theogony associates the constellation with Dike or Justice, the daughter of Zeus and Themis, who was once the mistress of all-divine order and law before the Olympians. Dike once lived among men, but withdrew from them when they no longer upheld justice.

Other associated the constellations with Demeter, the mother of Persphone, and the goddess of the harvest, because the constellation holds sheaf of grain. Others say Virgo is Isis, other Aragatis, and some consider her to be Tyche, luck, but in Greek is has a much more random character. This association with Tyche comes about because Virgo apparently has no head. Another possibility is Apollo’s daughter by Chrysothemis, who was called parthenos ("virgin"), and who because she died young was placed in the heavens.

Yes, these examples are all good possibilities, but the more likely candidate—who also fits in the character of the astrological sign itself—is Erigone, the daughter of Icarius, about whom almost nothing is known.

Icarius was a poverty-ridden farmer of great piety and justice, who once entertained Dionysos who came incognito, with the greatest hospitality that a man like himself could muster. Perhaps to reward him, Dionysos introduced him to wine, something new to humanity. He had Erigone pour cup after cup of the marvelous drink for her father. Demeter may have given men bread, but wine was something special as it could dissolve a man’s sorrows, put him to sleep, or even make him powerful. As Triptolemus had been given the task to bring bread to the rest of humanity, Icarius was now to spread the gift of wine to men.

It is not known whether Dionysos had seduced Erigone while Icarius drank. Ovid gives us a hint in the tapestry that Arachne wove in competition with Athena. In that tapestry that included many victimized women and the multitudes of shameful acts by the gods, this doomed woman, soon to be a spider, included a picture of how Dionysos had hidden in a bowl of grapes and tricked Erigone. Some say Erigone would later give birth to a child, Staphylus, "a bunch of grapes".

Icarius obeyed Dionysos, and with his cart set off around Attica to reveal to them what the god had given him. One night, while he was drinking with some shepherds, some of them fell into a very deep sleep and they feared that Icarius was up to something horrible, possibly poisoning them to steal their sheep. They surrounded Icarius (remember, they had been drinking), and one picked up a sickle, another an ax, and another a shovel, and the fourth a large stone. They hit with their weapons, and to finish the job off they put a spit through him from the cooking pit.

As Icarius lay dying, he remembered how Dionysos had taught him out to plant the vines and care for them, and how he would have to squeeze the grapes. One day, a goat came by and ate all the tender shoots he had planted with such loving care. The angry Icarius killed the goat, skinned it, filled it with air, and then tied it around him. He then invited his neighbors, and they danced around it. Eratosthenes says, in that kind of almost riddling laconic sentence, "Men first danced around the goat of Icarius."

Dying, Icarius realized that the goat he had killed was himself.

What Icarius did not realize, however, was that this incident was the origin of all tragedy. From Eratosthenes we find that Icarius and his neighbors danced around the goat. However, Aristotle says that the origin of tragedy was the singing and dancing of the goats. Of course, they are talking of the same thing. To dress up as a satyr, you have to kill the goat and skin it. So all tragedies begin with the slaying; stretching its skin into a wineskin; and Icarius and his friends dance around the goat and stamp on the wineskin while wearing the skins. It is a dance of goats around a goat. All our great tragedies, our plays, come from this death.

What of Erigone? She was the poorest of all who were ever enshrined in the skies. She wandered around the earth looking for father, with what we would think of as Virgonian duty. She roved like a beggar, like Isis did when she searched for the dead Osiris. Accompanying her on her wanderings was Icarius’s dog, Maera. One day, the dog tugged at her, and led Erigone to a well beneath a tree where the shepherds had thrown her father’s body. Erigone buried him, and then climbed this tree, the great vast cosmic one spreads over the entire earth, and hanged herself. Maera stayed there to watch over the two bodies until he starved himself to death.

According to Hyginus, "Meanwhile, many maidens in the Athenian land committed suicide by hanging for no apparent reason, for Erigone, dying, had prayed that the daughters of the Athenians should be afflicted with the same death she was about to suffer, until such time as the Athenians found the murderer of Icarius and punished him." The Athenians instituted a ritual of sacrifice in her name. Meanwhile, the murderers had gone to the island of Ceos in the dog days when Sirius was in the ascendant. The island suffered a horrible heat wave, and everything burned up and died. Apollo spoke to the king of the land and told him that the murderers had to be punished. Once they were executed, the cool breeze that makes life possible in the summer reappeared as they do every year during the Dog Days.

Maera became either Canis Major or Minor, depending on whom we read. Icarius may be Bootes, but not far from Virgo near the Dog, Erigone tore out a lock of her hair in mourning. Erigone’s lock lies on top of the lock of Berenice, the same lock of hair that so many women have taken out of their hair in mourning or as the votive offering. Nonnos, the last great epic poet before the end of the classical world, uses the word lock, botrys, as well to mean a bunch of grapes.

By Kalev Pehme
winshop.com.au/annew/MythsZodiac.html

InfernoX13
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Post by InfernoX13 » Fri Oct 06, 2006 2:04 am

wow... thatz sumthin interestin to know

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