Aurora (mythology)
Template:Short description Template:Infobox deity Aurora (Template:IPAc-en or Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx, Template:IPA) is the Latin word for dawn, and the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry. Like Greek Eos and Rigvedic Ushas, Aurora continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, Hausos.
Name
Aurora stems from Proto-Italic *ausōs, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *haéusōs, the "dawn" conceived as divine entity. It has cognates in the goddesses Ēṓs, Uṣas, Aušrinė, Auseklis and Ēastre.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Roman mythology
In Roman mythology, Aurora renews herself every morning and flies across the sky, announcing the arrival of the Sun. Her parentage was flexible: for Ovid, she could equally be Pallantis, signifying the daughter of Pallas,<ref>"When Pallantis next gleams in heaven and stars flee..." (Ovid, Fasti iv. 373.</ref> or the daughter of Hyperion.<ref>Fasti v.159; also Hyginus, Preface to Fabulae.</ref> She has two siblings, a brother (Sol, the Sun) and a sister (Luna, the Moon). Roman writers rarely imitated Hesiod and later Greek poets by naming Aurora as the mother of the Anemoi (the Winds), who were the offspring of Astraeus, the father of the stars.
Aurora appears most often in sexual poetry with one of her mortal lovers. A myth taken from the Greek by Roman poets tells that one of her lovers was the prince of Troy, Tithonus. Tithonus was a mortal, and would therefore age and die. Wanting to be with her lover for all eternity, Aurora asked Jupiter to grant immortality to Tithonus. Jupiter granted her wish, but she failed to ask for eternal youth to accompany his immortality, and he continued to age, eventually becoming forever old. Aurora turned him into a cicada.
Mention in literature and music
1704, by Francesco Solimena
Ovid's Heroides (16.201-202), Paris names his well-known family members, among which Aurora's lover as follows: Template:Poemquote
Virgil mentions in the fourth book of his Aeneid:<ref>The Aeneid by Virgil - Translated by John Dryden</ref> Template:Blockquote
Rutilius Claudius Namatianus mentions in his 5th century poem De reditu suo:<ref>LacusCurtius ● Rutilius Namatianus — A Voyage Home to Gaul</ref> Template:Blockquote
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (I.i), Montague says of his lovesick son Romeo: Template:Poemquote
In traditional Irish folk songs, such as "Lord Courtown": Template:Poemquote
In the poem "Let me not mar that perfect Dream" by Emily Dickinson: Template:Poemquote
In "On Imagination" by Phillis Wheatley: Template:Poemquote
In the poem "Tithonus" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson,<ref>D. A. Harris, Tennyson and personification: the rhetoric of 'Tithonus' , 1986.</ref> Aurōra is described thus: Template:Poemquote
In singer-songwriter Björk's Vespertine track, Aurra is described as Template:Poemquote
In Chapter 8 of Charlotte Brontë's Villette, Madame Beck fires her old Governess first thing in the morning and is described by the narrator, Lucy Snowe: All this, I say, was done between the moment of Madame Beck's issuing like Aurora from her chamber, and that in which she coolly sat down to pour out her first cup of coffee.
The 20th-century Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert wrote about Aurora's grandchildren. In his poem they are ugly, even though they will grow to be beautiful ("Kwestia Smaku").
The first and strongest of the 50 Spacer worlds in The Caves of Steel and subsequent novels by Isaac Asimov is named after the goddess Aurora. Its capital city is Eos.
Depiction in art
- Aurora, fresco by Guido Reni (1614) in Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, Rome
- Aurora (Artemisia Gentileschi) (c.1625-1627)
- Aurora by Guercino (1591–1666)
- The Countess de Brac as Aurōra by Jean-Marc Nattier (1685–1766)
- Aurora e Titone by Francesco de Mura (1696–1782)
- Aurra and Cephalus, by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1767–1824)
- The Gates of Dawn by Herbert James Draper (1863–1920)
- Aurōora and Cephalus by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774–1833)
- Aurora by Odilon Redon (1840–1916).
- Aurore by Denys Puech (1854–1942).
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