Hours (Greek mythology)

See also: Hours

By the word Hours (in Latin old Horae and in Greek Ὧραι / Hōrai ), the Greeks, originally, indicated, not divisions of the day, but those of the year. The Hours were girls of Zeus and THEMIS. Hésiode counts three of them: Eunomie, Dicé and Irene, i.e. the Good Order or the Legislation, Justice and Peace, names indicating their moral role. Homère names them the doors of the sky, and the care entrusts to them to open and close the eternal doors of the Olympe. They are also the regulating ones of the human life. The Greek Mythologie thus recognized initially only three Hours or three Seasons: spring, the Summer and the Winter. Then, when one added to it the Fall and the winter solstice, i.e. its coldest part, mythology created two new Hours, Carpo (or Xarpo) and Thalatte (or Thallo), that it establishes to take care of the fruits and the flowers. Lastly, when the Greeks shared the day in twelve equal parts, the poets multiplied the number of the Hours up to twelve, employed with the Jupiter service, and named them the twelve sisters.

They often accompany the gods and the heroes and they were these divinities who undertook the education of Héra, of Dionysos, of Aphrodite, Hermes, Aristée; they had also the mission of going down to the Enfer S to take Adonis and to bring back it to Aphrodite. They governed the toilet of Aphrodite.

Often the Hours are accompanied by the Charites and the Nymphes: the poets and the artists commonly represent them like gracious dancing young girls, with a clothing which goes down only until the knees or vêtues from long clothes, holding of the grapes, ears, the branches flowered with the hand. On the monuments, they appear all of the same age: their head is crowned sheets of palm tree which are rectified.

When one fixed four Seasons, art introduced in its turn four Hours, but represented them in different ages, with long dresses and without crown of palm tree. The Hour of spring was represented under the figure of a teenager to the naive features, with the slender and mean size, the hardly marked forms. His/her three sisters increase in age by gradation.

The Hours governed the education of the children, and regulated all the life of the men: also sees them one attending all the weddings celebrated in mythology.

The Athenians offered to them the first steps of the fruits of each season. This gracious worship was not transported to Rome, where however Hersilie, the woman of Romulus, was regarded as the divinity governing the Seasons. It was called Hora.

The modern ones represent the Hours with wings of butterfly; THEMIS usually accompanies them, and they support dials, clocks, or other symbols of their attributions in the fast escape of time.

Twelve Hours

Twelve hours of the day or the night, girls of Stopwatches (Time) (according to Nonnos de Panopolis) or of Photogravure and Séléné (Quintus of Smyrna), were only ten in the beginning:

  1. Trough, the first Gleam of the day
  2. Anatole or Anatola, Dawn or the Rising of the Sun
  3. Musica or Mousika, Music or the Hour of the music and the study
  4. Gymnasia or Gymnastika, the Gymnastic or the Hour of the gymnasium
  5. Nymph or Nymph, the Bath or the Hour of ablutions and the bath
  6. Mésembria, the South
  7. Spondé or Sponde, Drinkings poured after the meal
  8. Életé or Élète, the Nap or the Hour of the prayer
  9. Act or Akté (or Cypris according to versions), the Afternoon or the Hour of the meal and the pleasure
  10. Hespéris, the Evening
  11. Dysis, Crépsucule or To lay down it Sun
  12. Arktos, the last Gleam of the
day

Certain authors do not speak about Arktros but about Chora, the Dance.

Sources

  • (I, 3,1).

  • (v. 901).
  • (V, 749; VIII, 393).
  • (v. 183).
  • (XII, 15; XXXVIII, 130 & 287; XLI, 263).
  • (II, 118).
  • (II, 20,5; IX, 35,2).
  • (I, 48; II, 490; II, 549; II, 658).
  • (III, 406).
  • (IV, 90).

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