#graces

[sapocipo]

You know the saying "you are the people you surround yourself with"? I think retelling authors often neglect giving Aphrodite her Charites friends because that would mean making Aphrodite joyous and actually laughter-loving

[chthonioi]

Three Chthonic Graces

While in the Hellenic period known to us, the Three Charites came to be associated with beauty, grace and art, in fact their cult has much more ancient and chthonic roots.

The cult of the Charites is very old, with their name appearing to be of Pelasgian, or pre-Greek, origin rather than being brought to Greece by Proto-Indo-Europeans. The purpose of their cult appears to be similar to that of nymphs, primarily based around fertility and nature with a particular connection to springs and rivers. [Breitenberger, Barbara (2007). "Goddesses of Grace and Beauty: the Charites"] In some cults, they were also associated with the Underworld, Elysium, and even the Eleusinian mysteries. Pausanias in his Description of Greece wrote about that:

At the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens, there were three Charites, "by their side are celebrated mysteries which must not be divulged to the many".

In Messene, he records that the Charites were worshipped alongside the Erinyes.

Pausanias also wrote that initially the Charites were worshiped as three aniconic stones believed to have fallen from cosmos. It has been suggested that the original stone worship may have resulted from an astrological phenomenon. Specifically, there may have been a series of meteorites that were interpreted as a sign or representation of the gods or goddesses falling from heaven and descending upon earth during the time of Eteocles.

Piece of evidence for their chthonic nature also comes from the island of Paros. An aetiological myth, recorded by Apollodorus and referenced by the poet Callimachus, explains a unique local practice:

The story goes that King Minos of Crete was sacrificing to the Graces on Paros when he received the news of his son's death in Athens. In his grief, he stopped the music of the flutes and tore off his garland, but he completed the sacrifice. From then on, the Parians sacrificed to the Charites without flutes and without garlands. The absence of music and garlands which were symbols of joy and festivity shows a somber, chthonic ritual rather than an Olympian one.

The lexicographer Julius Pollux (2nd century CE) in his Onomasticon notes that one could swear by the Charites, just as one did by the deities of the "lower world". Invoking a deity in a binding oath is a practice typically reserved for solemn, often underworld, powers who could enforce the curse that would follow perjury.

The Encyclopædia Britannica (9th edition) offers a scholarly synthesis of these ideas, noting that the Charites, in their ancient form, were goddesses "of fertility and growth". It explicitly states that, in this regard, the singular goddess Charis "closely resembles Persephone", the queen of the underworld. It further notes that in later art, the Charites often hold corn ears in their hands, a symbol of agricultural fertility tied to the earth's bounty and the cycles of life and death.

During the Hellenistic period, the connection between the Charites and the chthonic forces had become almost completely obscure, but in some myths, at least a distant connection between them can still be traced. For example, in his Iliad, Homer describes an agreement between Hypnos and Hera that she would promise one of the Younger Charites, Pasithea, as a possible bride for Hypnos if he agreed to help her. This once again links at least one of the Younger Charites to the chthonic forces.

This gives an interesting perspective, where the originally chthonic goddesses of nature and growth also became associated with beauty and grace.

[gameslotel]

My oc as a grace entity

[trunswicked]

Just a Kid, I Suffocate and Slip

[virtchandmoir]

Mortgage Professionals Canada's Instagram Story (October 20th)

[cjh-137]

REALLY old art of the Graces from Hell Followed With us

[allegorypaintings]

Allegory of Spring

Artist: Francesco de Mura (Italian, 1696-1782)

Date: 1759

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, United States

Description

The inspiration for this painting comes from the first stanzas of an ode by the ancient Roman poet Horace. The ode describes the renewal of Spring in terms of Greek and Roman myth: Winter to Spring: the west wind melts the frozen rancour, The windlass drags to sea the thirsty hull; Byre is no longer welcome to beast or fire to ploughman, The field removes the frost-cap from its skull. Venus of Cythera leads the dances under the hanging Moon and the linked line of Nymphs and Graces Beat the ground with measured feet while the busy Fire god Stokes his red-hot mills in volcanic places.