Friday, April 06, 2007

Graces and Furies

Good Friday is here - I hope everyone has a pleasant Easter weekend. It'll be business (or lack of it) as usual for me, so I'll continue to natter on into cyber space.

Here's a Google trail I've wandered along:

The artist Raphael was born this day, 6 April, in 1483, in Urbino, Italy. One of his famous paintings depicts The Three Graces. The three graces in mythology were goddesses, daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, said to rule beauty and charm in nature and humanity. Other artists and sculptors have painted the three sisters. One, damaged, sculpture in The Louvre, Paris dates from around 2 centuries before Christ.

Aglaia represents radiance or splendor. Euphrosyne represents joy. Thalia represents fruitfulness or good cheer.

Which planets might the three sisters personify ? I'd guess at The Sun for radiance and splendor, with Venus and Jupiter for the other two, not sure which is which though.


Raphael's painting led me to think about another set of three - The Three Furies, the Greek Erinyes, daughters of Gaia (Earth) sprung from the blood of Uranus. This painting is by W. Bouguereau "Orestes and the Furies".

Tisiphone (avenger of blood) Alecto (the implacable) and Megaera (the jealous one). Said to be merciless goddesses of vengance whose punishments continued after death. So which planets might carry the attributes of these three lovelies? Mars, Saturn, and what about "the jealous one"? The Moon, perhaps? I tend to give the Moon a positive interpretation, but in tarot,the Moon card isn't one of the true "goodies". The Moon is changeable, temperamental, could easily be jealous. Yes, I'll go for the Moon to represent "the jealous one".

So each planet except Mercury could have a Grace or a Fury to its name. Mercury has the job of bouncing around between them all.

Graces and Furies - we've got 'em all within us - somewhere !

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