The ancient Romans used myths to explain occurrences in the natural world and the story of Proserpina's abduction was told to explain why there is winter:
Pluto was a lonely deity who lived in the gloomy underworld and rarely encountered others. Taking pity on him, Venus (Goddess of love and passion) told her son Cupid to fire one of his love arrows at Pluto so that he might become smitten with the next woman he saw. That woman was Proserpina, who was frolicking in fields of Nysa. Seized with irrepressible desire, Pluto abducted Proserpina and carried her away into the underworld, domain of the dead.
Following Proserpina’s abduction, Ceres (Goddess of agriculture and harvest) searched everywhere for her missing daughter and, full of sorrow, she neglected her oversight of the growth of crops and fertility of the fields.
As the world became barren, the other gods decided that they must intervene. The messenger God Mercury, who could travel freely between the worlds of the living and the dead, spied Proserpina in Pluto’s possession and quickly informed Jupiter (God of the sky and thunder, king of all the Gods and also father of Prosepina). Jupiter and Ceres went to demand the release of their daughter, but then they realized that Prosepina had become the unwilling bride to pluto and she was now bounded to him and be the queen of the underworld.
Ceres and Pluto argued over the custody of Proserpina and, after realizing neither would be satisfied with the absence of Proserpina in their respective domains, Jupiter dictated that Proserpina would remain with Ceres for half of the year and with Pluto for the the other half.
These periods became known as the seasons: When the daughter was annually fated to return to her husband, Ceres wept for her loss and the crops began to wither as autumn took hold, making way for winter. When Prosperina returned, however, life grew back to the fields and spring and summer reigned until the cycle repeated itself again the next year.
this same story was also told in Greek mythology with Hades (Pluto) abducting Persephone, daughter of Demeter (Ceres) and zeus (Jupiter)
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tattoo from 2020
#pratstattoo #tattoo #tattooart #bernini #mythology #roman #greek https://image.nostr.build/e37fc556443fb13df620eb3d947d880cfa7d68a68c0b2b69b6fd79e9fb38b0be.jpghttps://image.nostr.build/eb186b97e87b139034ec6041b4ab71228385176af35c33c6affa331f0f6bad07.jpg
There are many wise gods and goddesses that are featured in Greek mythology but Themis was arguably the wisest of them all. Creating a system that stopped the world from plunging into chaos, the image of Themis represents the pursuit of truth and the notion of impartiality, which justice demands.
Themis was often depicted blinfolded with a sword on one hand and a pair of scales on the other:
The blindfold represents impartiality; the idea that justice should be applied to everyone regardless of wealth, power or status.
The sword represents her ability to cut fact from fiction; there was no middle ground, you were either lying or telling the truth and she could not be fooled.
The pair of scales represents her ability to weigh out facts and determine whether someone should be punished for their crime or not (an image that we also see in Egyptian mythology with Anubis in the underwold weighing the heart of the deceased against the feather of Ma’at, goddess of truth and justice)
It is quite easy to confuse Themis with Nemesis (goddess of wrath and retribution) but Themis was in no way wrathful, she was pragmatic, extremely rational and she never allowed her emotions to influence her decisions.
(tattoo I did in 2020)
#pratstattoo #tattooart #tattoo #themis #mythology #goddess https://image.nostr.build/744add2cb1128e630cda06d4eacd5a46719f3cd2be4529659b01789e02e56f71.jpg
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