Hera, Queen of the Gods

Greetings, fans of Greek mythology! After having spoken somewhat at length about Zeus, let's talk about his twin sister, Hera.
Hera, one of the original six Olympians (Demeter, Zeus, Hestia, Hades, Poseidon), was born as Zeus's twin from her mother Rhea's womb, but was immediately consumed by Cronus, who was in the habit of swallowing all of his just-born children so that he needn't fear being supplanted by them, as he had conquered his own father Ouranos (Uranus). After Zeus had returned from Crete, and had given Cronus the emetic that caused him to belch forth all of his children, Hera helped defeat the Titans in the Titanomachy, or War between the Gods and the Titans.
After Zeus became king of the sky and supreme ruler amongst the gods, he promptly fell in love with Hera. To us mere mortals, this might seem a bit, well, strange, since Hera was after all his twin sister, but things are very different for the gods. Hera wanted nothing to do with Zeus, and refused his offer of marriage. Not to be outdone, Zeus planned a clever ruse to trick Hera into marrying him.
Hera's favorite bird was the cuckoo, which sang a pretty little "cuckoo, cuckoo." One day, a marvelous cuckoo bird landed on Hera's shoulder and began cooing oh so sweetly; Hera had had quite the day with Zeus badgering her, so she said, perhaps with not enough foresight, "If only you were Zeus, I'd marry you in a heartbeat." Imagine Hera's surprise when the sweet little cuckoo bird suddenly transformed into the commanding Zeus himself, who immediately held her to her promise!
And thus Hera was forced to marry Zeus. The gods could never renege on a promise or even a hint of a promise that they had made; it seemed as if the river Styx, or the river of the Unbreakable Oath, were always nearby.
Zeus and Hera had three children together, including Hephaestus (Roman: Vulcan); Ares (Roman: Mars), and Hebe, the goddess of youth. Hera spent her life being, well, displeased with Zeus since he had many other children as well, but again, the life of the gods, especially the king of the gods, was different than with mortals. In fact, Hera was so disgruntled with her life as the wife of Zeus that, when she asked the Theban prophet Teiresias, who had lived life as both a man and a woman (after seeing an oroboros, which had changed him from a man into a woman for nine years), whether it was better to be a man or a woman, and Teiresias had responded that it was much better to be a woman, she struck him, in a fury, blind.
Hera was the goddess of marriage. We see that today through Hera's Roman name, Juno, from which English derived its month name "June." June, then as now, was considered the best month in which to get married because of the pleasantness of its weather: neither too cold nor too hot.
Hera's symbol was the peacock, her favorite bird. This derives from the story of Io. Io was a young girl with whom Zeus fell madly in love. Hera was suspicious, so one day she found out that Zeus was meeting Io under a tree, and she stormed off to confront him. When she arrived, however, all she saw was Zeus with a white cow; being even more suspicious, Hera set her guard, Argus Panoptes, a gruesome monster who had 100 eyes (centoculated) to watch over the supposed cow. Zeus, in turn, sent Hermes to try to put the unsleeping Argus to sleep with a very boring tale that lasted for a very long time...and in fact, when all of the eyes of Argus did at long last close, Hermes promptly chopped off his head. Hera, sad for the death of her favorite watchman, transferred the eyes of Argus into the tail of the peacock, which we can still see today.
Stay tuned for my next blog post, which will discuss the sister of both Zeus and Hera, Demeter, the goddess of the Earth and the harvest.

Mythology Book Corner:  This book corner is devoted to great reads on mythology.   In my last post on Zeus, I suggested the first book in The Lightning Thief series.  Once getting hooked on that one, you would be hard pressed not to continue!  And so, the sequel to The Lightning Thief is The Sea of Monsters, a great read.  Check it out!

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