Mythology
In the Orphic cosmogony originally there was the unexpressed Thesis (goddess) ( tithimi, τίθημι: put or join together) . Chronos ( unaging time) was engendered by the first two principles ( water and mud) and he was represented as a dragon (serpent) with extra heads growing upon him. He was united with Ananke ( or Adrasteia, inescapable) who had the same serpentine nature, and they produced the cosmic egg which had the dyad of the two natures (male and female) inside it. The theology of the Orphic rhapsodies begins with the first-born (Protogonos) bisexual god Phanes (phainomai, φαίνομαι: " to appear") who is also called Zeus, the order of all, and of the whole world.
The one before the two Thesis, however, he leaves unexpressed, his very silence being an intimation of its ineffable nature. The third principle after the two was engendered by these -- Ge (mud) and Hydros (Water), that is -- and was a Serpent (Drakon) with extra heads growing upon it of a bull and a lion, and a god’s countenance in the middle; it had wings upon its shoulders, and its name was Khronos (Unaging Time) and also Herakles. United with it was Ananke (Inevitability, Compulsion), being of the same nature, or Adrasteia, incorporeal, her arms extended throughout the universe and touching its extremities. Orpheus says, Khronos (Time) generated an egg and it is from these that "Protogonos-Phanes" was produced. What is this triad, then? The egg; the dyad of the two natures inside it (male and female), and the plurality of the various seeds between; and thirdly an incorporeal god with golden wings on his shoulders. And the third god of the triad this theology too celebrates as Protogonos (First-Born) Phanes, and it calls him Zeus the order of all and of the whole world, wherefore he is also called Pan ( παν :all).
The altenative names of Ananke are Adrasteia and Tekmor.
Read more about this topic: Ananke (mythology)
Famous quotes containing the word mythology:
“One memorable addition to the old mythology is due to this era,—the Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, and blood these centuries have woven this and added it to the mythology of mankind! The new Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency has this mythus been stamped on the memory of the race! It would seem as if it were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in his stead.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“Love, love, love—all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)