🍐🐄 Hera Pais, the cow eyed bride🪵🏛
"I sing of golden-throned Hera whom Rhea bare. Queen of the immortals is she, surpassing all in beauty: she is the sister and the wife of loud-thundering Zeus, -- the glorious one whom all the blessed throughout high Olympus reverence and honour even as Zeus who delights in thunder." -Homeric Hymn to Hera
"The presence of a cuckoo seated on the sceptre [of Hera] they explain by the story that when Zeus was in love with Hera in her maidenhood he changed himself into this bird, and she caught it to be her pet [in order to seduce her]." - Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 17. 4
I’m currently reading "The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the Iliad" by Joan V. O’Brien. She argues, sometimes speculatively, about the early cult origins of Hera, but I still find it very interesting.
The book suggests that Hera’s early rites in Samos might have portrayed her as arriving annually on a horse drawn chariot at a confluence of waters, where her bathing and binding to a cultic tree were believed to renew all life, presenting her as a goddess of the seasons.
There also seems to be an argument that she had a connection to the Potnia Theron, based on the large animals associated with her and the artifacts found at her temples, such as lions, griffins, and sphinxes. Her association with domestic animals like cows and horses could suggest that she was seen as a tamer of beasts, and her yoking of the bull may be parallel marriage and the "taming and yoking" of the bride.
I find this especially interesting because it aligns with my view of Hera as a goddess who makes things perfect.
In some traditions, it seems that she was worshipped in different life stages with epithets such as Hera Pais (the young maiden before marriage) Hera Teleia (the married woman) Hera Chēra (the widow or separated woman)
I drew her here as Hera Pais, a young maiden, the Kore of Samos, dressed in red and yellow thought to be the colours of bridal wear in antiquity. I would like to draw her again soon, I really enjoyed drawing her but I have to work on drawing animals, the cuckoo looks too much like a pigeon lol
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