The myth of Ganymede summary. Love joys of Zeus

28. Orpheus

Orpheus, the son of the Thracian king Zagra and the muse Calliope, was the most famous poet and musician who ever lived. Apollo gave him a lyre, and the muses taught him to play it, so much so that he not only charmed wild animals, but also made trees and rocks move to the sounds of his music. In Zona, in Thrace, several ancient mountain oaks remained standing in the dance, in the same form as he left them 1.

B. After visiting Egypt, Orpheus joined the Argonauts and reached Colchis with them, helping them overcome many obstacles with his music. On his return he married Eurydice, whom some call Agryope, and settled among the wild Ciconians in Thrace.

C. One day, near Tempa, in the valley of the Peneus River, Eurydice met Aristeus, who wanted to take possession of her by force. While running away, she stepped on a snake and died from its bite. But Orpheus boldly descended into Tartarus Tartarus should not be confused with Hades. Hades is an underground kingdom inhabited by the souls of the dead, ruled by Zeus' brother Hades. Every mortal is destined to go to Hades, and some (Hercules, Orpheus) managed this during their lifetime. Tartarus is the underworld, terrifying to the gods themselves, located below Hades, the place of imprisonment of Zeus’s worst enemies, such as the Titans and Typhon. in hopes of bringing her back. For his journey, he used a gap that opened up near Aorn, in Thesprotis, and upon arrival in Hades, he not only charmed the ferryman Charon, the dog Cerberus and the three judges of the dead with his sorrowful music, but also temporarily stopped the torment of the condemned. The captivating music touched even the rough heart of Hades, and he allowed Eurydice to return to the world of the living. Hades set only one condition: on the way from Tartarus, Orpheus should not turn back until Eurydice comes out into the sunlight. Eurydice walked along a dark passage, led by the sounds of the lyre, and, already seeing the sunlight, Orpheus turned around to make sure that Eurydice was following him, and at that same moment lost his wife forever 3.

D. When Dionysus attacked Thrace, Orpheus refused him honor and preached other sacred mysteries, convincing the Thracian men that sacrificial murder was an evil, and finding among them fertile ground for his sermons. Every morning he climbed to the top of Mount Pangea to greet the dawn and revered Helios, whom he called Apollo, the greatest among the gods. In Macedonian Deia, Dionysus sent maenads to kill him in revenge. First, the maenads waited until their husbands entered the temple of Apollo, of which Orpheus was the priest, and then, seizing the weapons of the men left at the door of the temple, they burst inside, killed their husbands and tore Orpheus in two. They threw his head into the Gebr River. In the end, the still singing head of Orpheus washed up on the island of Lesbos 4.

E. With tears in their eyes, the muses collected his remains and buried him in Libetra, at the foot of Mount Olympus, and the nightingales there now sing sweeter than anywhere else in the world. The maenads tried to wash off the blood of Orpheus in the Helikon River, but the river god went deep underground, appearing again almost four miles later and under a different name - Bafira. So he avoided involvement in the murder 5.

F. They say that Orpheus condemned the promiscuity of the maenads and preached love for the same sex, causing Aphrodite no less rage than Dionysus. The rest of the Olympian gods, however, did not agree that the murder of Orpheus was justified, and Dionysus managed to save the lives of the maenads only by turning them into oak trees, firmly rooted in the ground. The Thracian men, who escaped the massacre, decided to tattoo their wives from now on as a warning for killing the priests. This custom continues to this day 6 .

G. As for the head of Orpheus, after it was attacked by the envious Lemnos serpent, which Apollo immediately turned into stone, the head was buried in a cave not far from Antissa, in which Dionysus was revered. In the cave, the head prophesied day and night until Apollo, finding that no one came to his oracles at Delphi, Greenea and Clara, came and, standing over the head, shouted: “Stop interfering in my affairs, for I am enough.” I tolerated you and your songs!” After that the head became silent 7. The waves also washed the lyre of Orpheus to Lesbos, where it was placed in a place of honor in the temple of Apollo. At the request of Apollo and the muses, the lyre was placed in the heavens in the form of a constellation 8.

H. Some tell a completely different story about the death of Orpheus. They say that Zeus killed him with Perun for divulging divine secrets. They say that it was he who introduced the mysteries of Apollo in Thrace, Hecate in Aegina and the underground Demeter in Sparta 9 .

1 Pindar. Pythian Odes IV.176 and scholia; Aeschylus. Agamemnon 1629-1630; Euripides. Bacchae 561-564; Apollonius of Rhodes I.28-31.

2 Diodorus Siculus IV.25; Gigin. Myths 14,251; Athenaeus XIII.7.

3 Gigin. Ibid; Diodorus Siculus. Ibid; Pausanias IX.30.3; Euripides. Alcestis 357 and scholia.

4 Aristophanes. Frogs 1032; Ovid. Metamorphoses XI.1-85; Konon. Narratives 45.

5 Aeschylus. Bassarids. Quote by: Eratosthenes. Transformation into stars 24; Pausanias IX.30.3-4.

6 Ovid. Ibid; Konon. Ibid; Plutarch. Why does the deity delay in rewarding 12.

7 Lucian. Against the Ignorant II; Philostrat. Heroic Deeds V.704; Life of Apollonius of Tyana IV.14.

8 Lucian. Ibid; Eratosthenes. There are also 24; Gigin. Poetic astronomy II.7.

9 Pausanias IX.30.3; II.30.2; III.14.5.

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1. Being a priest-king, Orpheus found himself struck by Perun, i.e. killed with a double-edged ax in an oak grove during the summer solstice. Then he was torn apart by the maenads of the bull cult, as they were torn apart by Zagreus (see 30.a), or by the stag cult, like Actaeon (see 22.i). Maenads were actually muses. In classical Greece, tattoos survived only in Thrace; on a vase depicting the murder of Orpheus by the maenads, one of the maenads has a small deer tattooed on her forearm. This Orpheus did not come into conflict with the cult of Dionysus because he himself was Dionysus and played a simple alder pipe, and not a noble lyre. So Proclus, in his comments to Plato’s “Republic” (I b. 174.30 175.3 Kroll. - Ed.) writes: “As the main figure of the Dionysian rites, Orpheus is believed to have shared the fate of God himself.” Apollodorus (I.3.2) ascribes to him the authorship of the Mysteries of Dionysus.

2. The new cult of the sun as the all-generating father probably came to the north of the Aegean Sea along with the fleeing priests of the monotheistic cult of Akhenaten in the 14th century. BC. and connected with local cults. This is why Orpheus supposedly visits Egypt. Mention of such a cult can be found in Sophocles (fr. 523 and 1017), where the sun is addressed as “the most ancient flame, dear to all Thracian horsemen” and as “the progenitor of the gods and the father of all things.” Probably, this cult met quite energetic resistance from the conservative Thracians and was brutally destroyed in some areas of the country. However, later Orphic priests, wearing Egyptian robes, called him the demigod Dionysus and ate the raw meat of his sacred animal, the bull. They reserved the name Apollo for the immortal sun, believing that Dionysus is the god of feelings, and Apollo is the god of reason. This explains why the head of Orpheus ended up in the sanctuary of Dionysus, and the lyre in the temple of Apollo. The head and lyre reportedly floated to Lesbos, famous for its lyrical music. Terpander, the oldest recorded historical musician, was from Antissus. The attack of the serpent on the head of Orpheus either indicates the opposition of the former hero-oracle to the appearance of Orpheus in Antissa, or that the Pythian Apollo opposed him, which is more definitely stated by Philostratus.

3. Eurydice's death from a snake bite and Orpheus' failure to return her to the world of sunlight appear only in later versions of the myth. They seem to have arisen from a misinterpretation of the images of Orpheus, who was welcomed into Hades, where his music so charmed the serpent-goddess Hecate or Agryope, that she made various concessions to the souls of all initiates into the Orphic mysteries, and also from the misinterpretation of others images where Dionysus, whose priest was Orpheus, descended into Hades in search of his mother Semele (see 27. k). It is not Eurydice who dies from a snake bite, but her victims (see 33.1).

4. The month of alder was the fourth month of the sacred calendar of trees, preceding the month of willow, which was associated with the water magic of the goddess Helika (“willow” - see 44.1). The willows gave the name to the river Helikon, which flows around Parnassus and is considered the sacred river of the muses, i.e. triad of mountain goddess of inspiration. That is why on the temple painting at Delphi Orpheus is depicted leaning against a willow tree and touching its branches (Pausanias X.30.3). The cult of alder in Greece degenerated a long time ago, but echoes of it were preserved in classical literature: the island of death of the sorceress-goddess Kirka was overgrown with alder (Homer. Odyssey V.64 and 239). In Colchis she owns a cemetery under the shade of willows (Apollonius of Rhodes III.200 - see 152. b). As Virgil points out, Phaethon's sisters turned into thickets of alder (see 42.3).

5. However, this does not mean that the beheading of Orpheus is nothing more than a metaphor behind which is hidden a severed alder branch. The priest-king was necessarily cut into pieces, and the Thracians may well have had a custom that still exists among the Iban Dayaks of Sarawak. When the men return home after a successful bounty campaign, the Iban women use the spoils for spells to increase the rice harvest. The head is made to sing, mourn, answer questions, and is given all kinds of attention until it agrees to take a place in the oracle and give advice on all important problems, and also (like the heads of Eurystheus, Bran and Adam) scare away the attacking enemy (see 146.2 ).

29. Ganymede

Ganymede, the son of Tros, after whom Troy is named, was the most beautiful youth who ever lived on earth, and therefore the gods gave him the honor of being the cupbearer of Zeus. They also say that Zeus, desiring to have Ganymede in his bed, hid under eagle feathers and kidnapped the young man who was walking through the Trojan meadows 1 .

B. In payment for his lost son, Hermes, on behalf of Zeus, gave Tros a golden vine made by Hephaestus and two beautiful horses and convinced him that from now on his son would become immortal, the hardships of old age would not touch him and he would always offer sparkling nectar to his father in a golden cup with a smile heaven 2.

C. Some argue that Eos initially kidnapped Ganymede to make him her lover, but Zeus took the youth from her. Be that as it may, Hera considered the appearance of Ganymede as a cupbearer as an insult to herself and her daughter Hebe and annoyed Zeus until he placed an image of Ganymede among the stars in the form of the constellation Aquarius 3.

1 Homer. Iliad XX.231-235; Apollodorus III.12.2; Virgil. Aeneid V.252 et seq.; Ovid. Metamorphoses X.155 et seq.

2 Euripides. Orestes 1391 and scholium; Homer. Iliad V.266; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 202-217; Apollodorus II.5.9; Pausanias V.24.1.

3 Apollonius of Rhodes III.115 and scholia; Virgil. Aeneid I.32 and scholia; Gigin. Myths 224; Virgil. Georgics III.304.

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1. The duties of Ganymede as the cupbearer of all the gods - and not just Zeus, as reported in the early presentation of the myth - and also the pair of horses given to King Tros as compensation for his death, indicate that there has been a misreading of the ancient image, where the new king prepared for the sacred marriage. Ganymede's cup contained a drink with which his royal predecessor was commemorated, and the priest who presided over the ceremony, to whom Ganymede offers symbolic resistance, was incorrectly perceived as the loving Zeus. In the same way, the waiting bride turned into Eos thanks to the mythographer, who knew the plot where Eos kidnaps Tithon, the son of Laomedon, since Euripides (“The Trojan Women” 822) also calls Laomedon the father of Ganymede. The painting could just as easily depict the marriage of Peleus to Thetis, whom the gods watch from their twelve thrones; a pair of horses is an accessory to a ritual during which the participant first experiences his conditional death and is then reborn as a king (see 81.4). The notorious abduction of Ganymede by an eagle is explained by one of the black-figure vases found in the Etruscan city of Caere: the eagle at the hip of the newly enthroned king named Zeus is the personification of the king’s divine nature, his ka, or second self, which brings him closer to the solar falcon, which flies to the pharaoh during the coronation. However, the traditional mention of the youth of Ganymede suggests that the king in such an image only replaces the real king - this is an interrex, ruling only for one day, like Phaethon (see 42.2), Zagreus (see 30.1), Chrysippus (see. 105.2) and others. Therefore, the eagle of Zeus is not only a sign of accession, but also a bird that delivers the king to Olympus.

2. Ascension to heaven on the back of an eagle or in the form of an eagle is a widespread religious theme. It is parodied in Aristophanes' "World" (1ff.), where the main character goes riding on a scarab. The soul of the Celtic hero Lugh, who appears in the Mabinogion under the name Llu-Llau, flies into heaven like an eagle when the tanist kills him on the day of the summer solstice. After the sacred marriage at Kish, the Babylonian hero Etana, riding an eagle, goes to the heavenly halls of Ishtar, but falls into the sea and drowns. His death, by the way, is not an ordinary annual sacrifice, such as the death of Icarus (see 92.3), but a punishment for a bad harvest during his reign, and he goes for the magic herb of fertility. This story is woven into the plot of the ongoing struggle between the eagle and the serpent, symbolizing the new and old year or the king and the tanist, and in the myth of Llu-Llau, after his last breath at the winter solstice, the eagle again regains life and its former strength with the help of magic. No wonder Psalm 103.5 says: “...your youth is renewed like an eagle.”

3. The myth of Zeus and Ganymede gained extraordinary popularity in Greece and Rome, since it was seen as a religious justification for the passion of men for boys. Until this time, sexual perversion was allowed only as an extreme form of worship of the goddess: the priests of Cybele, wishing to achieve ecstatic unity with her, subjected themselves to emasculation and wore women's clothing. The priesthood that practiced these extremes was legitimized in the temples of the Great Goddess in Tire, Joppa, Hierapolis and Jerusalem (1 Kings 15, 12 and 4 Chronicles 23, 7) until the Babylonian captivity The Babylonian Captivity is the name commonly used to refer to the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem to Babylon during the reign of the Babylonian king Nebucadnezzar II (usually Nebuchadnezzar). Three such actions are mentioned: the first - in 597 BC, the second and third - 11 and 16 years after the first, respectively. The eruptions were caused by uprisings in Jerusalem and were accompanied by its destruction. The disasters of the Babylonian captivity are reflected in several biblical psalms. The circumstances surrounding the return of the Jews from captivity are unclear.. This new passion, the culprit of which Apollodorus names Thamiris (see 21. m), further emphasizes the victory of patriarchy over matriarchy. In this regard, Greek philosophy turned into a kind of intellectual game in which men could easily do without women, since the area of ​​​​homosexual attraction suddenly opened up for them. Plato wrote extensively on this topic, using the myth of Ganymede to explain his own sentimental feelings towards his disciples (Phaedrus 279 a–b); although in his other works (“Laws” I.636 d) he branded same-sex love as contrary to human nature, and called the myth that Zeus also paid tribute to it an evil invention of the Cretans. In this he found support from Stephen of Byzantium [under the word Harpagia], who writes that the Cretan king Minos kidnapped Ganymede to make him a partner for his nightly entertainment, “having received permission from Zeus.” With the spread of Plato's philosophy, women, who until then occupied intellectually leading positions in Greek society, turned into free labor, giving birth to children in addition, while Zeus and Apollo finally occupied a leading position among the gods.

4. The name "Ganymede" is most likely associated with the feeling that arises on the eve of marriage, and not with the passion that Zeus felt when accepting a cup of refreshing nectar from the hands of his favorite. However, in Latin, from the word "Ganymede" came catamitus, which in English became catamite, meaning the passive object of male homosexual desire.

5. The constellation Aquarius, which is associated with Ganymede, was originally considered the Egyptian god of the source of the Nile, who poured water, not wine, from a vessel (Pindar. Fr. 110 Böckh = 282 Snell. - Ed.); the replacement occurred because the Greeks were practically indifferent to the Nile.

6. The nectar of Zeus, which later mythographers describe as a magical red wine, was in fact a primitive honey drink (see 27.2), and ambrosia, considered the unsurpassed food of the gods, was most likely barley porridge seasoned with vegetable oil and crushed fruit (see 98.6), with which kings indulged themselves when their subjects were still content with asphodel (see 31.2), mallow and acorns.

30. Zagreus

Persephone secretly conceived Zagreus from Zeus even before Hades, who was her uncle, took her to his underground kingdom. Zeus ordered the sons of Rhea - the Cretan Curetes or, as some claim, Corybantes - to guard the cradle with the baby in a cave on Mount Ida, jumping around him and rattling their weapons, as they had done before, jumping around Zeus himself on Mount Dikta. However, Zeus' enemies are titans The Titans are a group of the oldest gods; together with the Cyclops and Hecatoncheires (one-hundred-armed), they were generated by the cosmic principles of Earth and Sky. According to the ideas of the Homeric hymn (II. 158), both gods and people descend from the Titans. In order to remain unrecognized, they painted themselves with white plaster and began to wait for the Kuretes to fall asleep. At midnight they lured Zagreus out with the help of children's toys: a pine cone, a shell, golden apples, a mirror, dough and a tuft of wool. Zagreus did not show weakness in front of the titans who attacked him and, in order to deceive them, began to change his appearance. First he turned into Zeus in a cape made of goatskins, then into Cronus, who makes rain, into a lion, a horse, a horned serpent, a tiger and, finally, into a bull. At that moment, the titans managed to grab him tightly by the horns and legs, tear him apart and devour his raw flesh.

B. Athena interrupted this terrible feast when it was already coming to an end. She managed to save Zagreus's heart, put it in a plaster figure and breathe life into it. Thus Zagreus gained immortality. His bones were collected and buried in Delphi, and Zeus struck all the titans with Peruns 1.

1 Diodorus Siculus V.75.4; Nonn. Acts of Dionysus VI.209 et seq. and XXVII.228; Tsets. Scholium to Lycophron 355; Eustathius on Homer's Iliad II.735; Firmic Matern. On the fallacy of pagan religions VI; Euripides. Cretans, French 472.

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1. This myth tells of the annual sacrifice of a boy that took place in Crete, with the boy standing in for the bull king Minos. The boy reigned for only one day, then participated in a dance symbolizing the five seasons - lion, goat, horse, snake and calf, after which he was eaten alive. All the toys with which the Titans lured Zagreus were objects used by Orphic philosophers, who adopted the custom of such a sacrifice, but instead of the boy they ate the meat of a bull. The shell was not real, but was a perforated stone or a specially shaped ceramic object, which was blown into to produce a sound reminiscent of a strong gust of wind, and a tuft of wool was quite suitable for applying a layer of wet plaster to the curettes, and the curettes were young men , who, as a sign of abstinence, sacrificed a lock of hair to the goddess Kar (see 95.5). They were also called "corybantes", which means comb-decorated dancers. Other gifts received by Zagreus are intended to explain the meaning of the ceremony during which the participants achieve union with the deity: the cone was an ancient symbol of the goddess in whose honor the Titans sacrificed Zagreus (see 20.2); the mirror should reflect the other self of each participant in the initiation ceremony or his spirit; golden apples are a pass to Elysium after ritual death, and grandmothers symbolize fortune-telling abilities (see 17.3).

2. A Cretan hymn, recently discovered near the Dictaean Cave, near Palekastro, contains an appeal to Kronidas, the greatest of youths, who dances and jumps with his Lords, so that the fields and herds will bring greater harvests and that the fishermen will return with a rich catch. Jane Garrison, in her work Themis, suggests that the armored leaders referred to in this hymn, who “took thee, immortal child, from Rhea,” are simply pretending to kill and eat the victim, which is the youth, undergoing initiation upon joining their secret society. However, all such ritual deaths during initiation ceremonies, which were common in various parts of the world, are based on the tradition of actual human sacrifice. Zagreus is distinguished from ordinary members of the totem brotherhood only by calendar transformations.

3. The non-canonical tiger in the transformation of Zagreus indicates his identity with Dionysus (see 27.e), whose death and rebirth are told in the same story, with the only difference that this time the meat is boiled, and not eaten raw, and at the feast It is not Athena who intervenes, but Rhea. Dionysus was also a horned serpent - he had horns and snake-like curls at birth (see 21.a), and was ritually eaten in the form of a bull by the Orphics who worshiped him. Zagreus became "Zeus in a goatskin cape" because Zeus, or a boy who replaced him, ascended to heaven wearing a cape made from the skin of the goat Amalthea (see 7. b). “Cronus making rain” is an indication that rattles were used in rain-making ceremonies. In this context, titans are curetes who have changed their appearance so much that the spirit of the victim cannot recognize them. When human sacrifice fell out of use, Zeus was seen throwing lightning at the Titans due to their hostility towards him. Not one of the Orphics, having once tasted the flesh of their god, never again touched any meat.

4. Zagreus-Dionysus was also known in southern Palestine. According to the Ras Shamra tablets, Asthar temporarily found himself on the heavenly throne while the god Baal languished in the underworld after eating the food of the dead. Astar was still a child and, sitting on the throne, his feet could not even reach the foot; Baal returned and killed him with a club. The laws of Moses prohibited initiation ceremonies in honor of Ashtar: “Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk,” reads the order repeated three times (Ex. 23:19; 24:26; Deut. 14:21).

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There are myths that claim that before Zeus abducted Ganymede, Eos was abducted and became her lover. The abduction of Ganymede is described in Homer in the same words as the abduction of Cleitus by Eos.

Because of his extraordinary beauty, Ganymede was kidnapped by Zeus - transferred by Zeus's eagle to Olympus (or Zeus himself turned into an eagle),

The abduction took place either near Cape Dardania (near Dardanus), or in the area of ​​​​Harpagia on the border of Cyzicus and Priapus, or on Ida. Ganymede's father Tros received as consolation the golden vine of Hephaestus's work, a pair of horses and assurances that his son would become immortal.

Whether Ganymede was the lover of Zeus is a debatable question, and different authors have answered it differently. According to Euripides, he lives on Olympus, sharing a bed with Zeus.

According to some authors, Zeus placed it in the sky in the form of the constellation Aquarius.

At the request of Ganymede, Zeus temporarily prevented the Achaeans from capturing Troy.

According to interpretation, he was kidnapped by King Zeus. According to the poet Fanocles, he was captured by Tantalus, who kidnapped children for the pleasures of Zeus, which started a war. According to another interpretation, because of his abduction, a war between the Phrygian Ilus and the Lydian Tantalus occurred; in Pessinunt, Ganymede disappeared when his brother and lover dragged him in different directions. According to another version, he was kidnapped by Minos. According to Plato, it was the Cretans who invented the myth of Ganymede.

Mentioned in Sophocles' tragedy "The Colchian Women" (fr. 345 Radt). There were a number of comedies about Ganymede (Eubulus, Alcaeus). Statues of Zeus and Ganymede by Aristocles, donated by the Thessalian Gnaphis, stood at Olympia. Another statue of Ganymede was dedicated by Mycythus. The image of the abduction of Ganymede was on the cloak of Cloanthes, as well as on the shield of Dionysus.

The abduction of Ganymede is a frequent subject in the visual arts (works by Leochar, Correggio, Rembrandt, Thorvaldsen, etc.). The Ganymede Club was the name of the club for butlers and valets in the famous comic works of P. G. Wodehouse about Jeeves and Wooster.

The moon of Jupiter Ganymede, discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, and the asteroid (1036) Ganymede, discovered in 1924 by German astronomer Walter Baade, are named after Ganymede.

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Excerpt characterizing Ganymede

Ganymede, the son of Tros, after whom Troy is named, was the most beautiful youth who ever lived on earth, and therefore the gods gave him the honor of being the cupbearer of Zeus. They also say that Zeus, desiring to have Ganymede in his bed, hid under eagle feathers and kidnapped the young man who was walking through the Trojan meadows.

b. In payment for his lost son, Hermes, on behalf of Zeus, gave Tros a golden vine made by Hephaestus and two beautiful horses and convinced him that from now on his son would become immortal, the adversities of old age would not touch him, and he would always, with a smile, offer sparkling nectar in a golden cup to the father of heaven.

With. Some argue that Eos initially kidnapped Ganymede to make him her lover, but Zeus took the youth from her. Be that as it may, Hera considered the appearance of Ganymede as a cupbearer as an insult to herself and her daughter Hebe and annoyed Zeus until he placed an image of Ganymede among the stars in the form of the constellation Aquarius.

1 Homer. Iliad XX.231-235; Apollodorus III.12.2; Virgil. Aeneid V.252 et seq.; Ovid. Metamorphoses X.155 et seq.

2 Euripides. Orestes 1391 and scholium; Homer. Iliad V 266; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 202-217; Apollodorus II.5.9; Pausanias V. 24.1.

3 Apollonius of Rhodes III.115 and scholia; Virgil. Aeneid 1.32 and scholia; Gigin. Myths 224; Virgil. Georgics III.304.

1. The duties of Ganymede as the cupbearer of all the gods - and not just Zeus, as reported in the early presentation of the myth - and also the pair of horses given to King Tros as compensation for his death, indicate that there was a misreading of the ancient image, where the new king prepared for the sacred marriage. Ganymede's cup contained a drink with which his royal predecessor was commemorated, and the priest who presided over the ceremony, to whom Ganymede offers symbolic resistance, was incorrectly perceived as the loving Zeus. In the same way, the waiting bride turned into Eos thanks to the mythographer, who knew the plot where Eos kidnaps Tithon, the son of Laomedon, since Euripides ("The Trojan Women" 822) also calls Laomedon the father of Ganymede. With the same success, the picture could depict the marriage of Peleus with Thetis, behind whom

Γανυμήδης “starting fun”) - in Greek mythology, a beautiful young man, the son of the Trojan king Tros (after whom Troy was named) and the nymph Callirhoe, brother of Ila and Assarak; kidnapped by the gods because of his extraordinary beauty and taken to Olympus, became the favorite of Zeus and his cupbearer.

There are other versions of his origin from kings and heroes (son of Lamedon; or son of Dardan; or son of Asparak; or son of Erichthonius; or son of Troilus).

There are myths that claim that before being kidnapped by Zeus, Ganymede was kidnapped by the goddess of the dawn Eos and became her lover. The abduction of Ganymede is described in Homer in the same words as the abduction of Cleitus by the goddess Eos.

But the main myth is that because of his extraordinary beauty, Ganymede was kidnapped by Zeus and carried by the eagle of Zeus to Olympus (according to another version, Zeus himself turned into an eagle),

Trojan prince, mentioned in Homer as the son of King Tros, kidnapped by Zeus to Olympus, where he became a cupbearer; according to another version, he was exchanged for several magnificent horses or, in the post-Homeric epic, for a golden vine. On a red-figure crater of the late 5th century. BC e. on one side there is a bearded Zeus with a scepter, and on the other there is a beautiful Ganymede holding a hoop and a rooster - a favorite gift from men to boy lovers. In a later, more popular version of the legend, he was kidnapped by an eagle sent by Zeus, or Zeus in the form of an eagle, who desired the most beautiful of mortals. Thus Ganymede is represented on a beautiful painted terracotta from the 5th century. in Olympia and Roman copies of Greek statues. Aristophanes parodies this myth in his "World", where the hero is carried away to heaven on the back of a large dung beetle. Plato uses it in the Phaedrus when referring to Socrates' feelings for his students.

Greek red-figure vase. Zeus and Ganymede.

The abduction took place either near Cape Dardania (near Dardan), or in the area of ​​​​Harpagia on the border of Cyzicus and Priapus, or on Ida. Ganymede's father Tros received as consolation a golden vine made by Hephaestus himself, as well as a pair of horses and assurances that his son would become immortal.

Ganymede was given eternal youth. According to the poets, on Olympus he became cupbearer at the feasts of the gods, replacing Hebe in this post, and the favorite of Zeus. According to Aristotle, although the gods do not drink wine, he is called the "cupbearer" of Zeus, here a figurative usage. According to Cicero, he serves the gods with nectar and ambrosia.

Whether Ganymede was the lover of Zeus is a debatable question, and different authors have answered it differently. According to Euripides, Ganymede lives on Olympus, sharing a bed with Zeus.

According to the poet Fanocles, he was captured by Tantalus, who kidnapped children for the pleasures of Zeus, which started the war. According to another interpretation, because of the abduction of Ganymede, a war broke out between the Phrygian Ilus and the Lydian Tantalus; in Pessinunte, Ganymede disappeared when his brother and lover dragged him in different directions. According to another version, Ganymede was abducted by Minos. According to Plato, it was the Cretans who invented the myth of Ganymede.

There were a number of comedies about Ganymede (Eubulus, Alcaeus); Euripides also mentioned Ganymede in the tragedy “The Colchis Women”. The statues of Zeus and Ganymede by Aristocles, donated by the Thessalian Gnaphis, stood in Olympia. Another statue of Ganymede was dedicated by Mycythus. The image of the abduction of Ganymede was on the cloak of Cloanthes, as well as on the shield of Dionysus. In other words. This plot was quite popular and was in no way considered obscene.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Ganymede symbolized homosexuality, and the "pro" and "contra" of the two types of love are discussed in the frivolous Latin poem "The Dispute between Helen and Ganymede." Only the Neoplatonist allegorists of the Renaissance read something more spiritual in the myth and found in it a symbol of the ascension of the soul to the absolute, and there were even theologians who compared the ascending Christ with Ganymede. Similarly, Goethe’s Ganymede ascends into the ethereal embrace of the all-loving Father. But for artists it remains in the flesh: for example, Cellini adds the head and limbs of an eagle to the antique torso. Correggio and Rubens interpreted the myth just as sensually. Only Rembrandt, with characteristic humanity, painted him in the talons of an eagle as a frightened, resisting child.

The abduction of Ganymede is a frequent subject in the visual arts (works by Leochar, Correggio, Rembrandt, Thorvaldsen, etc.).

Correggio. The Rape of Ganymede.

Nicholas Mas. The Rape of Ganymede.

Rubens. The Rape of Ganymede.

Rembrandt. The Rape of Ganymede.

b. In payment for his lost son, Hermes, on behalf of Zeus, gave Tros a golden vine made by Hephaestus and two beautiful horses and convinced him that from now on his son would become immortal, the adversities of old age would not touch him, and he would always, with a smile, offer sparkling nectar in a golden cup to the father of heaven.

With. Some argue that Eos initially kidnapped Ganymede to make him her lover, but Zeus took the youth from her. Be that as it may, Hera considered the appearance of Ganymede as a cupbearer as an insult to herself and her daughter Hebe and annoyed Zeus until he placed an image of Ganymede among the stars in the form of the constellation Aquarius.

1 Homer. Iliad XX.231-235; Apollodorus III.12.2; Virgil. Aeneid V.252 et seq.; Ovid. Metamorphoses X.155 et seq.

2 Euripides. Orestes 1391 and scholium; Homer. Iliad V 266; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 202-217; Apollodorus II.5.9; Pausanias V. 24.1.

3 Apollonius of Rhodes III.115 and scholia; Virgil. Aeneid 1.32 and scholia; Gigin. Myths 224; Virgil. Georgics III.304.

1. The duties of Ganymede as the cupbearer of all the gods - and not just Zeus, as reported in the early presentation of the myth - and also the pair of horses given to King Tros as compensation for his death, indicate that there has been a misreading of the ancient image, where the new king prepared for the sacred marriage. Ganymede's cup contained a drink with which his royal predecessor was commemorated, and the priest who presided over the ceremony, to whom Ganymede offers symbolic resistance, was incorrectly perceived as the loving Zeus. In the same way, the waiting bride turned into Eos thanks to the mythographer, who knew the plot where Eos kidnaps Tithon, the son of Laomedon, since Euripides ("The Trojan Women" 822) also calls Laomedon the father of Ganymede. With the same success, the picture could depict the marriage of Peleus with Thetis, behind whom

the gods watch from their twelve thrones; a pair of horses is an accessory to a ritual during which the participant first experiences his conditional death and is then reborn as a king (see 81.4). The notorious abduction of Ganymede by an eagle is explained by one of the black-figure vases found in the Etruscan city of Pere: the eagle at the hip of the newly enthroned king named Zeus is the personification of the king’s divine nature, his ka, or second self, which brings him closer to the solar falcon, which flies to the pharaoh during the coronation. However, the traditional mention of the youth of Ganymede suggests that the king in such an image only replaces the real king - this is an interrex, ruling only for one day, like Phaethon (see 42.2), Zagreus (see 30.1), Chrysippus (see. 105.2) and others. Therefore, the eagle of Zeus is not only a sign of accession, but also a bird that delivers the king to Olympus.

2. Ascension to heaven on the back of an eagle or in the form of an eagle is a widespread religious theme. It is parodied in Aristophanes' "World" (1ff.), where the main character rides on a scarab. The soul of the Celtic hero Lugh, who appears in the Mabinogion under the name Llu-Llau, flies into heaven like an eagle when the tanist kills him on the day of the summer solstice. After the sacred marriage at Kish, the Babylonian hero Etana, riding an eagle, goes to the heavenly halls of Ishtar, but falls into the sea and drowns. His death, by the way, is not an ordinary annual sacrifice, such as the death of Icarus (see 92.3), but a punishment for a bad harvest during his reign, and he goes for the magic herb of fertility. This story is woven into the plot of the ongoing struggle between the eagle and the serpent, symbolizing the new and old year or the king and the tanist, and in the myth of Llu-Llau, after his last breath at the winter solstice, the eagle again regains life and its former strength with the help of magic. No wonder Psalm 103.5 says: “...your youth is renewed like an eagle.”

3. The myth of Zeus and Ganymede gained extraordinary popularity in Greece and Rome, since it was seen as a religious justification for the passion of men for boys. Until this time, sexual perversion was allowed only as an extreme form of worship of the goddess: the priests of Cybele, wishing to achieve ecstatic unity with her, subjected themselves to emasculation and wore women's clothing. The priesthood that practiced these extremes was legitimized in the temples of the Great Goddess in Tire, Joppa, Hierapolis and Jerusalem (1 Kings 15, 12 and 2 Kings 23, 7) until the Babylonian captivity *. This new passion, the culprit of which Apollodorus names Thamiris (see 21.m), further emphasizes the victory of patriarchy over matriarchy. In this regard, Greek philosophy turned into a kind of intellectual game in which men could easily do without women, since the area of ​​​​homosexual attraction suddenly opened up for them. Plato wrote extensively on this topic, using the myth of Ganymede to explain his own sentimental feelings towards his disciples (Phaedrus 279 a-b); although in his other works ("Laws" I. 636 d) he branded same-sex love as contrary to human nature, and called the myth that Zeus also paid tribute to it an evil invention of the Cretans. In this he found support from Stephen of Byzantium [under the word Harpagia], who writes that the Cretan king Minos kidnapped Ganymede to make him a partner for his nightly entertainment, “having received permission from Zeus.” With the spread of Plato's philosophy, women, who until then occupied intellectually leading positions in Greek society, turned into free labor, giving birth to children in addition, while Zeus and Apollo finally occupied a leading position among the gods.

4. The name "Ganymede" is most likely associated with the feeling that arises on the eve of marriage, and not with the passion that Zeus felt when accepting a cup of refreshing nectar from the hands of his favorite. However, in Latin, from the word "Ganymede" came catamitus, which in English became catamite, meaning the passive object of male homosexual desire.

5. The constellation Aquarius, which is associated with Ganymede, was originally considered the Egyptian god of the source of the Nile, who poured water, not wine, from a vessel (Pindar. Fr. 110 Bockh = 282 Snell. - Ed.); the replacement occurred because the Greeks were practically indifferent to the Nile.

6. The nectar of Zeus, which later mythographers describe as a magical red wine, was in fact a primitive honey drink (see 27.2), and ambrosia, considered the unsurpassed food of the gods, was most likely barley porridge seasoned with vegetable oil and chopped fruit (see 98.6), with which kings indulged themselves when their subjects were still content with asphodel (see 31.2), mallow and acorns.

1 Homer. Iliad XX.231-235; Apollodorus III.12.2; Virgil. Aeneid V.252 et seq.; Ovid. Metamorphoses X.155 et seq.

2 Euripides. Orestes 1391 and scholium; Homer. Iliad V 266; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 202-217; Apollodorus II.5.9; Pausanias V. 24.1.

3 Apollonius of Rhodes III.115 and scholia; Virgil. Aeneid 1.32 and scholia; Gigin. Myths 224; Virgil. Georgics III.304.

* * *

1. The duties of Ganymede as the cupbearer of all the gods - and not just Zeus, as reported in the early account of the myth - and also the pair of horses given to King Tros as compensation for his death, indicate that there has been a misreading of the ancient image, where the new king prepared for the sacred marriage. Ganymede's cup contained a drink with which his royal predecessor was commemorated, and the priest who presided over the ceremony, to whom Ganymede offers symbolic resistance, was incorrectly perceived as the loving Zeus. In the same way, the waiting bride turned into Eos thanks to the mythographer, who knew the plot where Eos kidnaps Tithon, the son of Laomedon, since Euripides ("The Trojan Women" 822) also calls Laomedon the father of Ganymede. With the same success, the picture could depict the marriage of Peleus with Thetis, behind whom

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the gods watch from their twelve thrones; a pair of horses is an accessory to a ritual in which the participant first experiences his conditional death and is then reborn as a king (see 81.4). The notorious abduction of Ganymede by an eagle is explained by one of the black-figure vases found in the Etruscan city of Pere: the eagle at the hip of the newly enthroned king named Zeus is the personification of the king’s divine nature, his ka, or second self, which brings him closer to the solar falcon, which flies to the pharaoh during the coronation. However, the traditional mention of the youth of Ganymede suggests that the king in such an image only replaces the real king - this is an interrex, ruling only for one day, like Phaethon (see 42.2), Zagreus (see 30.1), Chrysippus (see 105.2) and others. Therefore, the eagle of Zeus is not only a sign of accession, but also a bird that delivers the king to Olympus.

2. Ascension to heaven on the back of an eagle or in the form of an eagle is a widespread religious theme. It is parodied in Aristophanes' "World" (1ff.), where the main character rides on a scarab. The soul of the Celtic hero Lugh, who appears in the Mabinogion under the name Llu-Llau, flies into heaven like an eagle when the tanist kills him on the day of the summer solstice. After the sacred marriage at Kish, the Babylonian hero Etana, riding an eagle, goes to the heavenly halls of Ishtar, but falls into the sea and drowns. His death, by the way, is not an ordinary annual sacrifice, such as the death of Icarus (see 92.3), but a punishment for a bad harvest during his reign, and he goes for the magic herb of fertility. This story is woven into the plot of the ongoing struggle between the eagle and the serpent, symbolizing the new and old year or the king and the tanist, and in the myth of Llu-Llau, after his last breath at the winter solstice, the eagle again regains life and its former strength with the help of magic. No wonder Psalm 103.5 says: “...your youth is renewed like an eagle.”

3. The myth of Zeus and Ganymede gained extraordinary popularity in Greece and Rome, since it was seen as a religious justification for the passion of men for boys. Until this time, sexual perversion was allowed only as an extreme form of worship of the goddess: the priests of Cybele, wishing to achieve ecstatic unity with her, subjected themselves to emasculation and wore women's clothing. The priesthood that practiced these extremes was legitimized in the temples of the Great Goddess in Tire, Joppa, Hierapolis and Jerusalem (1 Kings 15, 12 and 2 Kings 23, 7) until the Babylonian captivity *. This new passion, the culprit of which Apollodorus names Thamiris (see 21.m), further emphasizes the victory of patriarchy over matriarchy. In this regard, Greek philosophy turned into a kind of intellectual game in which men could easily do without women, since the area of ​​​​homosexual attraction suddenly opened up for them. Plato wrote extensively on this topic, using the myth of Ganymede to explain his own sentimental feelings towards his disciples (Phaedrus 279 a-b); although in his other works ("Laws" I. 636 d) he branded same-sex love as contrary to human nature, and called the myth that Zeus also paid tribute to it an evil invention of the Cretans. In this he found support from Stephen of Byzantium [under the word Harpagia], who writes that the Cretan king Minos kidnapped Ganymede to make him a partner for his nightly entertainment, “having received permission from Zeus.” With the spread of Plato's philosophy, women, who until then occupied intellectually leading positions in Greek society, turned into free labor, giving birth to children in addition, while Zeus and Apollo finally occupied a leading position among the gods.

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4. The name "Ganymede" is most likely associated with the feeling that arises on the eve of marriage, and not with the passion that Zeus felt when accepting a cup of refreshing nectar from the hands of his favorite. However, in Latin, from the word "Ganymede" came catamitus, which in English became catamite, meaning the passive object of male homosexual desire.

5. The constellation Aquarius, which is associated with Ganymede, was originally considered the Egyptian god of the source of the Nile, who poured water, not wine, from a vessel (Pindar. Fr. 110 Bockh = 282 Snell. - Ed.); the replacement occurred because the Greeks were practically indifferent to the Nile.

6. The nectar of Zeus, which later mythographers describe as a magical red wine, was in fact a primitive honey drink (see 27.2), and ambrosia, considered the unsurpassed food of the gods, was most likely barley porridge seasoned with vegetable oil and chopped fruit (see 98.6), with which kings indulged themselves when their subjects were still content with asphodel (see 31.2), mallow and acorns.