E is for Eos

The Sun has disappeared and the Moon has appeared in the night sky. The night is growing long and dark. Hours later, you see weak sunlight in the distance, making all the shadows of night soon disappear and the sky beginning to brighten up in lighter colours.
This passage is describing the time of dawn. Eos is the goddess of dawn. She is my favourite minor goddess and my friends say if I was a demigod (like in the Percy Jackson series), she would be my mother because I seem to always wake around dawn and I help people like Eos does.




Eos is the daughter of the Titans, Hyperion (titan of light) and Theia (titaness of sorcery). She has two siblings, Helios (god of the sun) and Selene (goddess of the moon). Each morning, she would drive away the shadows of night and open up the gates to heaven and help her brother Helios ride his chariot across the sky. She was often described as a "rosy-fingered" goddess. Her Roman name is Aurora.




She was also known to have many affairs with men, especially mortals. This was because she was once in love with Ares (god of war) and Aphrodite (goddess of love),who was his official lover, became very jealous putting her under a curse where she would have to be in eternally in love with someone. So she had no choice.




One of her love affairs was with a Trojan named Tithonus who she kidnapped and took to Ethiopia. They had two sons, Memnon and Emathion. She and Tithonus loved each other so much that she asked Zeus (god of sky and also King of the gods) to grant Tithonus eternal life. However, she forgot to ask for him to be young forever. So Tithonus kept aging and soon Eos shut him up in her palace where he kept shrinking until he was nothing but a grasshoper.




In the Trojan war, Eos's son Memnon was fighting Achilles. Eos and Achilles' mother Thetis (a sea nymph and one of Zeus' lovers) ran to Zeus to beg mercy for Memnon. Zeus put both boys "fates" on a scale. Since Memnon's "fate" was heavier, he was the one that was to be killed. Soon Memnon was slain and Eos grieved for him. It is said that her tears were became the dew on the fields we see each morning.




Many tradgies have happened to this goddess. She lost lots of lovers, and lost some of her children including Memnon. She should be appreciated more in my opinon. Not many people remember her because she has seemed to faded away out of Greek mythology. I think this is sad because she is somewhat of a important goddess since she helps the Sun rise everyday. Did you know she is the mother of Astraios' (god of stars, one of her lovers) children: Eosphoros (the morning star), Hesperos (the evening star), Boreas (North Wind), Eurus (East Wind), Notus (South Wind) and Zephyrus (West Wind)? As I said before, she had many other children, but I think these are her most famous. Each of the Winds are connected to the seasons: Boreas being the cold breath of winter, Eurus being the crisp breezes of fall, Notus being the rainstorms of summer and Zephyrus being the fresh breezes of spring.


Well that's about it. I hope I didn't bore you to death about this post and that you learned something a bit more about Greek mythology.


Life Lesson:
Even though Eos is not as important as the major gods or goddesses like the Olympians, she makes her contribution and without her, the day would never begin. Therefore even though we may do just the smallest of things, we can still make a positive contribution to any group effort.


Ms. Weldon, I commented on Chloe's blog this week.