Eos

Cephalus rose before dawn to hunt deer. Eos, the goddess of the dawn, often saw the handsome hunter as the day began. She fell in love with him and carried him away. Cephalus was newly married to Procris, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, and he remained faithful to her. Eos tried to weaken his devotion, but he refused her. Angered by his resistance, she released him and sent him back to his wife.

Before he left, Eos told Cephalus to make certain that Procris had remained as faithful to him as he had to her. Her words made him doubt his wife. He had been absent for a long time, and Procris was beautiful. He decided to test her by disguising himself and offering her money in exchange for one night with him. Procris refused him several times. At last, he offered an enormous fortune, and she accepted.

Cephalus then revealed his identity. Procris was ashamed and left him for the woods, where she became a companion of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. Cephalus apologised, and he won her back. In another account, Eos changed Cephalus into the likeness of Pteleon and told him to tempt Procris with a golden crown. Procris accepted the crown and went to bed with the disguised Cephalus. He then lay with Eos, of whom Procris was jealous. Eos bore him a son named Phaethon. A later account says that Procris went to Crete, where Minos seduced her with a hound that never failed to catch its quarry and a dart that never missed its mark.

Hyperion and Theia brought forth Eos, Dawn, alongside her brother Helios, the Sun, and her sister Selene, the Moon. Eos joined the second generation of the divine family descended from the Titans. She had rosy fingers and wore saffron robes.

At the close of each night, Eos rose from her couch in the east. She mounted a chariot drawn by Lampus and Phaéthon and rode towards Olympus. There she announced the approach of Helios. When Helios appeared, Eos became Hemera and travelled with him. At evening, as they reached the western shores of Ocean, she became Hespera and announced their safe arrival.

Eos married Astraeus, who came from Titan stock. She bore the winds Zephyr, Boreas, and Notus, along with Phosphorus, the Morning Star. Some tellings also made the other stars of heaven their children. Hyperion and Theia were also named as the parents of Dawn, the Sun, and the Moon.

After Aphrodite found Eos with Ares, she cursed Eos with a constant longing for young mortals. Eos then took Orion, Cephalus, Cleitus, Tithonus, and Ganymedes. One telling named Tithonus as a son of Tros or Ilus. Another named him as a son of Laomedon. Cephalus had recently married Procris, and Eos set in motion the events that led to Procris’s death at his hands.

Eos fell in love with Orion, the giant hunter, and carried him away to be her lover. Orion had accepted her invitation to her couch on the holy island of Delos. Dawn was later said to blush each day when she remembered this affair with a mortal.

Orion had come to Hyria in Chios, where he fell in love with Merope, the daughter of Oenopion. Oenopion promised her to Orion if he cleared the island of its dangerous wild beasts. Orion killed the beasts and brought their pelts to Merope each evening. When the task was finished, Oenopion refused to honour the promise. In anger, Orion drank deeply of Oenopion’s wine, entered Merope’s room, and forced himself on her. At dawn, Oenopion called on Dionysus. Satyrs gave Orion more wine until he slept, and Oenopion put out his eyes.

Guided by Cedalion, Orion sought Helios, who restored his sight. Orion then searched for Oenopion to take revenge, but could not find him. He went to Crete instead, where he met Artemis. She shared his love of the chase and persuaded him to abandon his vengeance and hunt with her.

Apollo knew that Orion had been Eos’s lover. He also knew that Orion boasted he would rid the whole earth of wild beasts and monsters. Apollo feared that Artemis might become as susceptible to Orion as Eos had been. Orion was later killed by Artemis. One account says that she shot him because she mistakenly believed him to be the man who had raped her priestess, Opis.

At Memnon’s funeral, Eos, also called Eos, came in the evening with the Hours and the Pleiads. She wept and lamented over her son. Night shared her grief and covered the sky with clouds. The whole of nature mourned for Memnon, who had died while fighting bravely to aid his father’s kindred in the Trojan War. Achilles had killed him with his spear when Memnon was still in his prime.

Memnon was the son of Eos and Tithonus. He was king of the Ethiopians and lived in the far east, on the shore of Ocean. The Ethiopians raised his tomb beside the river Esepus in Paphlagonia, within a grove belonging to the nymphs. Eos grieved for him without comfort.

Zeus caused the sparks and cinders from Memnon’s funeral pyre to become birds. They divided into two flocks and fought over the remains of the pyre. The birds continued their combat until they fell into the flames. They became known as the Memnonid birds.

Each year, on the anniversary of Memnon’s death, the birds return to his tomb. They repeat the fighting and mourning that marked his funeral, then perish in the fire. Eos’s tears continue to fall for her son. They appear at dawn as drops of dew on the grass.