12/24/2023 0 Comments Hesperides greek mythology![]() ![]() In fact, the Hesperides aren't always depicted as children of Atlas and, depending on the source, may have a different set of parents entirely. There are many different mythological nymphs as well as many different iterations of the same nymphs, as mythology is a complicated canon that does have some contradictions and competing truths. A nymph is a spirit of nature that takes the form of a beautiful woman who inhabits that area of nature. They were nymphs of the evening and were represented by the evening star, which is what the ancient Greeks called the planet Venus. However, Atlas did have a set of daughters called the Hesperides. Hespera is played by Helen Mirren in the film, but her character isn't based on a real figure from Greek mythology. These competing ideals and changing alliances make for a unique take on the villain role in a superhero story. Hespera and Kalypso are angry about the death of their father and believe themselves better than humanity, whereas Anthea is more curious about humans and genuinely wishes them no harm. ![]() Hespera and Anthea are most closely aligned as they both want to restore their home, but Kalypso is more vengeful and wishes to destroy humanity more than she wishes to rebuild. RELATED: Zachary Levi Pins Shazam 2's Failure on Poor Marketing, Toxic DC Fans It makes the battle more complicated because it is hard to defeat not only a team of gods, but the unpredictable nature that their unique motivations cause make planning against them difficult. ![]() Hespera, Kalypso, and Anthea make an interesting set of antagonists for the Shazam family because each sister has their own motivations as well as unique strengths and weaknesses. And it’s one of these that sparked the interest of those 17thc garden writers.Īthenaeus writes that “Juba, king of Mauretania mentions the citron in his History of Libya, asserting that among the Libyans it is called the Apple of Hesperia, whence Herakles brought to Greece the apples called, from their colour, golden.” Athenaeus’s text was “rediscovered” in the 16thc and republished several more times between then and the late 17thc.Shazam! Fury of the Gods introduces a trio of sisters as the antagonists to the titular hero and his family. While this might sound a bit bizarre it is very useful to historians because not only does Athenaeus include a wealth of information about daily life but most usefully of all he includes extracts from earlier, often lost, Greek literature. His Deipnosophistae professes to be an account of the conversations held at series of banquets. One of these authors was Athenaeus, who lived in the 3rd century AD. Some authors of late antiquity attempted to rationalise the myth of the Hesperides and decided the golden apples might not be apples after all – since apples were generally red or green – perhaps they were actually another fruit. The Garden of the Hesperides is the setting for several well known myths, before, in the 17thc it was picked up and reinvented by artists and garden writers writing about “golden apples” of a different sort.įrontispiece to the 1657 edition of the Deipnosophists, The golden glow from these apples was also thought to be the source of sunsets. The job of looking after the garden was given to the Hesperides who were the nymphs of the sunset, but because Hera didn’t entirely trust them she installed another guardian as well – Ladon, the multi-headed dragon who somehow never needed to sleep. In it grew a tree which bore golden apples said to give immortality to those who ate them. The garden belonged to the queen of the gods – Hera in Greek, and lay somewhere at the western edge of the known Mediterranean world. ![]() Greek myths are eternally popular, so after a recent post on the story behind aquilegias today I’m turning my attention to another garden-related classical legend, that of the Garden of the Hesperides. The frontispiece of Ferrari’s Hesperides, 1646 ![]()
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