Aurora (mythology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Categories: Roman goddesses | Solar goddesses | Roman mythology | Ancient Roman mythology stubs

This article is about the Roman goddess of dawn; for the asteroid, see 94 Aurora.

Aurora e Titone: Aurora, goddess of the morning and Tithonus, Prince of Troy, painted by Francesco de Mura

Aurora is the Latin word for dawn, the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry. Aurora is comparable to the Greek goddess Eos, though Aurora did not bring with her any resonance of a greater archaic goddess. The Hindu goddess of dawn is Ushas.

1 Roman mythology
2 Usage in literature
3 Depiction in art
4 External links

Roman mythology

In ancient Roman mythology Aurora, goddess of the dawn, renews herself every morning and flies across the sky, announcing the arrival of the sun. She has two siblings, a brother (Sol, the sun) and a sister (Luna, the moon).

A myth taken from the Greek Eos by Roman poets tells that one of her lovers was the prince of Troy, Tithonus. Tithonus was a mortal, and would age and die. Wanting to be with her lover for all eternity, Aurora asked Zeus to grant immortality to Tithonus. Zeus granted her wish, however Aurora had failed to ask him for eternal youth. As a result, Tithonus ended up aging eternally. Aurora ended up turning her beloved Tithonus into a grasshopper.

Image:Guercino 001.jpg

Aurora, by Guercino, 1621-23: the ceiling fresco in the Casino Ludovisi, Rome, is a classic example of Baroque illusionistic painting

Usage in literature

From Virgil's "Aeneid" :

Aurora now had left her saffron bed,

And beams of early light the heav'ns o'erspread,

When, from a tow'r, the queen, with wakeful eyes,

Saw day point upward from the rosy skies.

These lines and the following 12 were used by the experimental electronic band Placement in the song "Rosy Skies."

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (I.i) Montague says of his lovesick son Romeo

But all so soon as the all-cheering sun

Should in the furthest east begin to draw

The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,

Away from the light steals home my heavy son...

In the poem "Tithonus" by Lord Alfred Tennyson, Aurora is described thus:

Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals

From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,

And bosom beating with a heart renewed.

Thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom,

Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,

Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team

Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,

And shake the darkness from their loosened manes,

And beat the twilight into flakes of a fire

In chapter two of Walden, Where I Lived and What I Lived for, Henry David Thoreau states, "Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did."