The image of the goddess in Greek mythology encompasses many faces. The goddess archetype stretches from the life giving fertility goddesses, to the destructive goddesses of the underworld, to goddesses of love and war. Fertility goddesses are usually paired with husbands who are sky-gods, as depicted in the marriages of Gaia and Uranus and Rhea and Cronus. In the myths of Gaia and Uranus, Rhea and Cronus, and Persephone and Cupid, and Demeter the good life-giving mother archetype is repeated. However, in many cases, as in Rhea and Cronus, life giving is accompanied by savagery, jealousy, and other human characteristics.
As mother Earth, Gaia is a life giving force and is responsible for creating her husband Uranus. She is of great importance as a female fertility goddess as the mother of Earth and through Uranus, the sky. She is also the mother of the pantheon of Greek gods at Mount Olympus (Morford and Lenardon 54). Although she betrays Uranus, it is because she is a mother, a protector and wishes to keep their children safe and grant them their freedom. Her motherly instincts lead her to savagery and to betray Uranus. In this myth, Gaia and Uranus have twelve titans, cyclops, and three hundred handers with fifty heads (Cottus, Briareus, Gyes) together. By Uranus’ orders, their offspring are kept deep within the mother for his fear of being overthrown. Uranus’ orders anger Gaia and she devises a plan to punish him. She creates a great sickle and asks her children who would be willing to fight against their father to defend their mother and punish him for his lusty nature (Morford and Lenardon 63). Cronus, her youngest son, agrees to her scheme and as Uranus exposed himself to have intercourse with Gaia, the son jumped in and castrated him. This is a case where a life giving mother goddess story is intermingled with brutality and violence.
The good mother archetype is repeated in Rhea and Cronus, who are Gaia and Uranus’ children who marry each other. Cronus consistently makes the decision to swallow their children in fear of his children overthrowing him as he did to Uranus. Rhea and Cronus’ union produces the gods and goddesses Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus (Morford and Lenardon 77). As each was born, Cronus swallowed them so that none would attempt to overcome him as he had done to Uranus. Eventually Rhea grew tired of this bestiality and wanting to save her last child, decides to deceive her spouse in order to free her children. She plots to save one child in hopes of motherhood, and takes Zeus to the island of Crete so that he escapes being devoured by his father Cronus. Her last son Zeus, grows up in Crete with bees to feed him and nymphs to nourish and foster him. The Curetes clashed their spears and shields to drown the sounds of Zeus’ cries. We see how the birth of Zeus shows her devotion to her children. Later, Zeus overthrows Cronus and frees his siblings, which, in turn shows an obedient child.
The myth of Persephone, a vegetation goddess, takes place when Hades took Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, as his wife. Demeter, her mother, was furious when Hecate told her the situation. Demeter was furious when she found out that Zeus had approved it so she decided to stay away from the gods and wander among men. Her crops had started to die and led to a terrible famine, which worried the gods. Demeter gives up everything to get her daughter back and even though the gods tried hard to get Demeter to return to her vegetation she refused and eventually Zeus ordered the return of Persephone. Hades is sent to the Underworld to retrieve Persephone. Persephone comes back but since she ate pomegranate seeds she has to go back to Hades for a third of the year. Demeter gave up her crops and allowed for the famine to begin for the sake of her love for her daughter, Persephone.
Psyche is another goddess who is famed for her beauty. Aphrodite in her jealousy orders her son, Eros, or Cupid, to make her fall in love with the ugliest monster. Yet, when Eros goes down to visit her, he ends up falling in love with her. Eros secretly marries Psyche but when Aphrodite finds out she decides to punish Psyche for this deed. We can see here that we get a contrasting idea of motherhood as we see Aphrodite taking a selfish act and punishing a loving relationship due to her anger towards Psyche (Morford and Lenardon 193-195). She gives Psyche many tasks to complete which through much difficulty she completes up until the beauty of Persephone causes her eternal sleep in the Underworld. She hits a startling point in which she is helpless until Eros comes to her aid. Though Aphrodite was frustrated and upset with Eros and Psyche she eventually agreed to the marriage showing that her love for her child overpowered her anger.
Gaia, Rhea, Demeter, and Aphrodite are all mother goddesses with strong wills, life givers, with a streak of vengefulness. In each story, these goddesses go against their male counterparts to protect their children. Gaia and Rhea both design plans in order to overtake their husbands and give their children freedom. These mother figures show an unbreakable, nurturing bond with their children that even superceded their marriages in some cases. Yet, these same mother goddesses have the capacity to become violent and brutal toward forces that would disrupt their children’s freedom. Perhaps their strength as life givers is paralleled with their ability to defend it at any cost. Therefore, the goddess mother archetype is rarely one-dimensional, but fused with cunning, wits, deceit as in the case of Gaia, violence and even jealously as in Aphrodite’s case.
- Morford, M. P. O. and Robert J. Lenardon. Classical Mythology (9th ed). Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002. Print.
