Greek Goddess Hera Research Paper
The Greek Goddess Hera As author Adolf Guggenbühl Craig said, “The marriage of Zeus and Hera can hardly be reframed into a "happy one" and yet Hera is the Goddess of marriage. Hera and Zeus could be described as quarrelsome predecessors of the Holy Family. For the Greeks they symbolized marriage par excellence." Hera is known amongst people as the goddess of marriage and fertility. Her sacred animals is the cow, and the peacock. She is known as the queen of the heavens, and queen of the gods. She is married to Zeus, the king of gods, and has 5 children: Ares, Eris, Hephaestus, Hebe, and Eileithyia. Hera is most famous for her jealousy and harmful nature toward all of Zeus’s affairs. She has many famous stories including the characters Zeus,
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Her never-ending hatred of Heracles, the illegitimate son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene stemmed from his continuous adultery and, amongst other things, Hera raised a storm at sea in order to drive Heracles out of his course to kill him. Zeus became so angry that he hung her in the clouds by a golden chain, and attached heavy anvils to her feet. Her son Hephaestus tried to release his mother from her chains, for which Zeus threw him out of heaven, and his leg was broken by the fall. After her son attempt none of the other gods dared to intervene. Her weeping kept Zeus up all night, so the next morning he promised to release her if she promised to never rebel against him again. While she kept to her promise, she was able to outwit him many times.
Another tale of Hera is of how an echo came to be. Her husband often visited the nymphs, and to deter Hera from finding out, a nymph named Echo would distract her by talking nonstop. Eventually, Hera got frustrated with her enough that she cursed Echo to only be able to repeat whatever someone spoke to her. After she was cursed, Echo became infatuated with Narcissus, but was only ever able to repeat what he said. However, he fell in love with his reflection and rejected Echo’s affection. Eventually, Echo died and left only her
Her never-ending hatred of Heracles, the illegitimate son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene stemmed from his continuous adultery and, amongst other things, Hera raised a storm at sea in order to drive Heracles out of his course to kill him. Zeus became so angry that he hung her in the clouds by a golden chain, and attached heavy anvils to her feet. Her son Hephaestus tried to release his mother from her chains, for which Zeus threw him out of heaven, and his leg was broken by the fall. After her son attempt none of the other gods dared to intervene. Her weeping kept Zeus up all night, so the next morning he promised to release her if she promised to never rebel against him again. While she kept to her promise, she was able to outwit him many times.
Another tale of Hera is of how an echo came to be. Her husband often visited the nymphs, and to deter Hera from finding out, a nymph named Echo would distract her by talking nonstop. Eventually, Hera got frustrated with her enough that she cursed Echo to only be able to repeat whatever someone spoke to her. After she was cursed, Echo became infatuated with Narcissus, but was only ever able to repeat what he said. However, he fell in love with his reflection and rejected Echo’s affection. Eventually, Echo died and left only her