Hera - The Queen of Olympus | Greek Mythology Explained

[Music] it is time again to return to the olympians as there are several still left to cover today's video will be dedicated to the queen of olympus herself hera as one of the original six olympians hera was the daughter of the titans cronus and reya the four main domains of hera include women childbirth family and most ironically marriage because it is rather strange that the goddess of marriage would spend such a large portion of time seeking revenge against the many lovers and illegitimate children of her husband but you'll soon learn that jealousy and the desire for vengeance were two of hera's defining characteristics being married to zoo certainly would have come with its own challenges but it also meant that hera ruled olympus as the queen of gods you often see her portrayed as a beautiful woman wearing a crown with a lotus tip scepter sitting on her throne accompanied by a variety of her favorite sacred animals which include the peacock the lion the hawk and the cuckoo bird compared to her sisters demeter and hestia hera plays a very large part in greek mythology not just in terms of her cult and worship but also in the dozens of stories she appeared in one of the things you may not have read about is hera's deep hatred for large and bulky wallets luckily for all of us today's video is sponsored by ridge the ridge wallet's compact and sleek design means it can hold your cards and cash but still easily fit into your pocket they come in a variety of different designs and colors and ridge are so confident that you will love their wallets they even give you a free 45-day money-back guarantee go to ridge.com mythology to get 10 percent of your order today that's ridge.com mythology not only does it support the channel it also appeases hera and trust me you do not want to be on her bad side [Music] let's start with the story of how zeus and hera became husband and wife or what is commonly referred to as the seduction of hera when zeus first proposed marriage hera declined his offer but as we know with zeus persistence is key he then decided to use hera's love and empathy for animals to his own advantage zeus conjured up a terrible storm and transformed himself into a cuckoo bird when hera came across the tiny frightened bird she embraced it and kept it warm zeus then transformed back to himself and revealed this was all part of his plan to convince her to marry him for whatever reason this worked and the first olympian wedding would take place the wedding itself was a large and prestigious event with gifts being showered upon hera from all across the land her grandmother gaia gave her an entire garden filled with golden apples which would be looked after by the hesperides and guarded by the serpent ladon many of the greek islands and states claim that the wedding took place on their land as hosting such a prestigious event could only bring good fortune it also became tradition for those native to these lands to honour this day every year with a sacrifice as with most deities there is always an interest in their children and hera had numerous children zeus being the father of most with some rather weird exceptions the most well-known of these children who needs very little introduction is ares the god of war and the resident hothead of olympus similar to ares you have enyo a goddess of war who would be seen by the side of ares whenever a city was sacked or destroyed according to homer eris and enyo were very similar if not the same individual however hessia disagrees believing eris was instead the daughter of nyx hephaestus certainly falls into the weird category jealous of zeus giving birth to athena without her hera tried to do the same hephaestus however wasn't the perfect specimen that athena was hera found herself repulsed by his deformities and so when he was born poor baby hephaestus was yeasted off mount olympus and left to fend for himself there are some accounts that suggest that this may have happened again with the goddess of youth most commonly described as the daughter of hera and zeus there are some rare versions where she was born after hera consumed a magical piece of lettuce some other children worthy of a mention include the goddess of childbirth elephia and the personification of liberty eletheria one of the first stories i remember hera being mentioned in is in the argonautica the story of jason and the argonauts here she appears to jason in disguise in order to set in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead to jason's quest for the golden fleece and the attempt to reclaim his kingdom however hera's motivation in this story is not just to help jason because it's the right thing to do it's more so revenge or justice against king peleus the king had murdered his grandmother in one of hera's temples jason and peleus were destined to cross paths eventually and so hera sped up this process and convinced jason and medea to kill the king who stood in their way some of the most well-known stories of hera involved greek mythology's most iconic hero heracles whose name ironically means glory of hera despite his name hera despised heracles which probably had more to do with zeus than heracles himself when zeus heard of alcamini's pregnancy he announced to all the gods that on this particular date a child of zeus would be born who would rule all those around him hera had zeus were an oath to this claim and so began her hatred of heracles when that day finally came she visited stenelus the son of perseus whose wife was due to have a child in two months time but as the goddess of childbirth she made the birth happen on that day she then visited alcamini and delayed the birth of heracles meaning zeus's oath would be honoured and the prophecy he made would refer to eurystheus the great grandson of zeus as opposed to heracles whilst heracles was still a baby hera sent two snakes into the boy's bed chamber to kill him while he was sleeping to her surprise heracles was found the next morning joyfully waving around the two snakes he had strangled when heracles came of age and started his own family hera drove him into a state of madness where he murdered said family in order to redeem himself he would have to complete his labors which coincidentally were chosen by hera and king eurystheus labours they thought would finally kill heracles but they were wrong heracles would eventually die but it wasn't at the hands of hera he would then also become a permanent resident on olympus so i guess you could say heracles had the last laugh hera also played a large role in the events that led to the trojan war this story begins with the nymph thetis more commonly known as the mother of achilles thetis was to marry king peleus a union advised by zeus all the gods and goddesses were to attend this wedding and each bring a gift the only deity to be declined entry was eris the goddess of discord and strife when hermes turned her away as zeus ordered she was furious she had brought with her a golden apple with the inscription to the fairest after being denied entry she threw the apple into the room where the ceremony was taking place athena aphrodite and hera all looked down at the apple and claimed it belonged to them and so began a dispute as to which of the three goddesses was the most beautiful as there was no agreement in sight they took this dispute to zeus who wisely decided he wanted no part in any of this instead he passed the buck to the trojan prince paris all three goddesses appeared before paris undressed and asked him to be the judge of this beauty contest paris however was unable to decide and so the three took to bribing him instead athena offered him all the wisdom and fame he desired hera offered him political power an aphrodite promised him the most beautiful mortal woman as his bride paris eventually chose aphrodite and the woman promised to him was helen of troy who already happened to be married to the king of sparta needless to say athena and hera were less than pleased with paris's decision and his eventual abduction of helen would lead to the great trojan war there are many small actions that led to this war but it's fair to say that athena hera and aphrodite all played a significant role now we move on to the segment i like to call every time hera caught zeus with his hands in the cookie jar and then proceeded to blame said cookie jar we are of course referring to the many affairs of zeus that hera was at least aware of the story of io definitely falls into the weird category in this story hera was sure she would catch zeus in the act this time with a woman named io zeus however knew hera was suspicious and before she appeared he transformed io into a cow in order to hide his new mistress hera not falling for this trick insisted that zeus gave her this cow as a gift she then instructed the hundred-eyed giant argus to stand guard whenever he would fall asleep half of his eyes would remain open ensuring no one could sneak past him zeus not wanting to intervene himself in order to avoid suspicion had hermes free io on his behalf hermes was able to send all 100 of argus's eyes into a deep slumber before slaying him and setting io free to honor his service heretic argus his eyes and placed them on her favorite animal the peacock the ancient greeks also used this story as a way to explain the eye pattern found on peacocks when hera found out about lito being pregnant with artemus and apollo she made sure that as long as lito was on the mainland she couldn't give birth the goddess of childbirth and her own daughter elithia was forbidden from offering assistance poseidon guided leto to the island of delos away from the eyes of hera the other deities distracted hera with a beautiful necklace long enough for elepha to slip away and ensure both artemis and apollo were born dionysus is another olympian who was almost never born because of hera when she discovered a woman named emily was pregnant with the child of zeus she disguised herself as emily's nurse and convinced her that unless zeus showed her his true appearance he did not love her this emily had zeus swear an oath and when he did eventually show himself she burst into flames and died zeus then had the unborn child sewn into his own thigh this child was of course dionysus [Music] the last story i will leave you with is the rather puzzling case of tyracius a prophet and priest of zeus one day tyrussius came across two snakes mating he then for whatever reason took a stick and began to beat the snakes away for this he was transformed into a woman and so he was now a priestess of hera the next time she came across snake's mating tyracius trampled all over them and was transformed back into a man during an argument between zeus and hera as to who had the most pleasure during sex teresias found himself in the middle hera was adamant that it was men and zeus that it was women they used tyracius as the decider because he had experienced it from both sides tyracius sided with zeus hera not liking this answer then blinded him zeus unable to undo the actions of his wife gave tyracius the gift of prophecy to make up for his loss of sight the portrayal of hera's overall character is slightly odd for the goddess of marriage family childbirth and women you'd expect a stable caring and forgiving nature at times this may be the case with hera but there are plenty of occasions where she is the exact opposite with athena it makes sense because you have the conflicting accounts of the greek and roman poets but with hera the same can't be said an interesting explanation that i came across which is pretty much just an unproven theory is that hera could predate the hellenis to a period in ancient greece that was much more matriarchal when the shift to a more patriarchal society happened hera's attempts to challenge zeus's rule or authority was seen in a much more comical manner hence the over-the-top jealousy and the acceptance that zeus will do whatever he wants to do this theory is rejected by most scholars because of a lack of evidence if you ask me the answer is simple being married to zeus is probably enough to drive anyone insane but let me know what you think in the comment section as always i've been your host mythology and fiction explained [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Mythology & Fiction Explained

Views: 138,904

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Keywords: Hera, greek mythology, olympians, greek deities, mythology and fiction explained, greek mythology stories, greek myth, zeus, olympus, greek folklore

Id: LKaOkKJh50w

Length: 15min 52sec (952 seconds)

Published: Thu May 13 2021