雅思阅读材料：古希腊主神介绍（一）

　　赫拉Hera

　　古希腊神话中的天后，她是克罗诺斯(Κρ?νο?)和瑞娅(Ρ?α)的长女，宙斯(zeus)的姐姐和第三位妻子，相对应于罗马神话的朱诺。赫拉是古希腊神话中奥林匹斯主神之一，主管婚姻和家庭，被尊称为“神后”。她在奥林匹斯山的地位仅次于她的丈夫宙斯。

　　Hera ( /?h?r?/; Greek ?ρα, Hēra, equivalently ?ρη, Hērē, in Ionic and Homer) was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and thepeacock were sacred to her. Hera's mother was Rhea and her father Cronus.

　　Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos (a high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), Hera may bear a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. A scholar of Greek mythology Walter Burkert writes in Greek Religion, "Nevertheless, there are memories of an earlier aniconic representation, as a pillar in Argos and as a plank in Samos."

　　Hera was known for her jealous and vengeful nature, most notably against Zeus's lovers and offspring, but also against mortals who crossed her, such as Pelias. Paris offended her by choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess, earning Hera's hatred.

　　波塞冬Poseidon

　　希腊神话中的主神之一，又名涅普顿(Neptune)，是天神宙斯的哥哥，地位也仅次于他，是掌管海洋的最高神仙，拥有强大的法力。

　　Poseidon or Posidon (Greek: Ποσειδ?ν) is one of the twelve Olympian deities of the pantheon in Greek mythology. His main domain is the ocean, and he is called the "God of the Sea". Additionally, he is referred to as "Earth-Shaker" due to his role in causing earthquakes, and has been called the "tamer of horses".[2]

　　The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology; both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon. Linear B tablets show that Poseidon was venerated at Pylos and Thebes in pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece as a chief deity, but he was integrated into the Olympian gods as the brother ofZeus and Hades. According to some folklore, he was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have given birth to a colt, which was devoured by Cronos.

　　There is a Homeric hymn to Poseidon, who was the protector of many Hellenic cities, although he lost the contest for Athens to Athena. According to the references from Plato in his dialogue Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was the chosen domain of Poseidon.

　　赫斯提亚Hestia

　　希腊神话中的女灶神、家宅的保护者。赫西奥德及其以后的作家认为她是克罗诺斯和瑞亚的女儿，赫拉、得墨忒尔等的姊妹，宙斯的姐姐。是早一辈的神，不过并非奥林匹斯12众神之一(据说有一种说法是赫斯提亚是12主神之一，而冥帝哈德斯不是12主神之一)。

　　In Ancient Greek religion Hestia (Ancient Greek: ?στ?α, "hearth" or "fireside") is the virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity, the family and the state. In Greek mythologyshe is a daughter of Cronus and Rhea.[1]

　　Hestia received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official sanctuary. With the establishment of a new colony, flame from Hestia's public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new settlement. She sat on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion and did not trouble to choose an emblem for herself.[1] Her Roman equivalent is Vesta.

　　Myths and attributes

　　Hestia is a goddess of the first Olympian generation, along with Demeter and Hera. She was a daughter of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister toZeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera and Hades. Immediately after their birth, Cronus swallowed all but the last and youngest, Zeus, who forced Cronus to disgorge his siblings and led them in a war against their father and the other Titans. As "first to be devoured... and the last to be yielded up again", Hestia was thus both the eldest and youngest daughter; this mythic inversion is found in the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite (700 BC). Hestia rejects the marriage suits of Poseidon and Apollo, and swears herself to perpetual virginity. She thus rejects Aphrodite's values and becomes, to some extent, her chaste, domestic complementary, or antithesis. Zeus assigns Hestia a duty to feed and maintain the fires of the Olympian hearth with the fatty, combustible portions of animal sacrifices to the gods.

　　Hestia's Olympian status is equivocal. At Athens "in Plato's time," notes Kenneth Dorter "there was a discrepancy in the list of the twelve chief gods, as to whether Hestia or Dionysus was included with the other eleven. The altar to them at the agora, for example, included Hestia, but the east frieze of the Parthenon had Dionysus instead." Hestia's omission from some lists of the Twelve Olympians is sometimes taken as illustration of her passive, non-confrontational nature – by giving her Olympian seat to Dionysus she prevents heavenly conflict – but no ancient source or myth describes such a surrender or removal. "Since the hearth is immovable, Hestia is unable to take part even in the procession of the gods, let alone the other antics of the Olympians," Burkert remarks. Her mythographic status as first-born of Rhea and Cronus seems to justify the tradition in which a small offering is made to Hestia before any sacrifice ("Hestia comes first").

　　The ambiguities in Hestia's mythology are matched by her indeterminate attributes, character and iconography. She is identified with the hearth as a physical object, and the abstractions of community and domesticity, but portrayals of her are rare, and seldom secure. In classical Greek art, she is occasionally depicted as a woman, simply and modestly cloaked in a head veil. She is sometimes shown with a staff in hand.

　　Homeric hymn 24, To Hestia, is a brief invocation of five lines:

　　Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo, the Far-shooter at goodly Pytho, with soft oil dripping ever from your locks, come now into this house, come, having one mind with Zeus the all-wise: draw near, and withal bestow grace upon my song.

　　The hymn locates Hestia in ancient Delphi, the central hearth of all the Hellenes, rather than at the hearth of Zeus on Mount Olympus.

　　德墨忒尔Demeter

　　希腊神话中丰产、农林女神，是天空之神克罗诺斯与时光女神瑞亚的女儿，宙斯的二姐与第四位妻子，生下了冥后珀耳塞福涅Persephone。在西方，德墨忒尔是最受欢迎的神祇。

　　In ancient Greek religion and myth, Demeter (/di?mi?t?r/; Attic Δημ?τηρ Dēmētēr. DoricΔαμ?τηρ Dāmātēr) is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains and the fertilityof the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (σ?το?: wheat) as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros (θεσμ??, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law) as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.

　　Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of marriage, the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughterPersephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. In the Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of circa 1400-1200 BC found at Pylos, the "two mistresses and the king" are identified with Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon. Her Romanequivalent is Ceres.

　　Agricultural deity

　　According to the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates, Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were agriculture, particularly of cereals, and the Mysteries which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife. These two gifts were intimately connected in Demeter's myths and mystery cults. In Homer's Odyssey she is the blond-haired goddess who separates the chaff from the grain. In Hesiod, prayers to Zeus-Chthonios (chthonicZeus) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong. Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley.

　　In Hesiod's Theogony, Demeter is the daughter of Cronus and Rhea. At the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, Demeter lured Iasion away from the other revelers. They had intercourse in a ploughed furrow in Crete, and she gave birth to a son, Ploutos. Her daughter by Zeus was Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.

　　阿佛洛狄忒Aphrodite

　　阿佛洛狄忒(APHRODITE)，古希腊神话人物，爱与美的女神。罗马神话中称为维纳斯。她生于海中，以美丽著称。被认为是锻冶工匠之神赫准斯托斯的妻子，有关她的恋爱传说很多。在古希腊、罗马艺术作品中被塑造成绝色美女，最著名的雕像是在米洛斯岛出土的“米洛斯的阿佛洛狄忒”。 她是宙斯和大洋女神狄俄涅的女儿。又说她从浪花中出生，故称阿佛洛狄忒(出水之意)。

　　Aphrodite (/?fr??da?ti/ af-r?-dy-tee; Greek ?φροδ?τη) is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus.

　　Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia.

　　According to Hesiod's Theogony, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the sea foam (aphros) arose Aphrodite. Thus, Aphrodite is of an older generation than Zeus.

　　Because of her beauty, other gods feared jealousy would interrupt the peace among them and lead to war, soZeus married her to Hephaestus, who was not viewed as a threat. Aphrodite had many lovers, both gods such asAres, and men such as Anchises. Aphrodite also became instrumental in the Eros and Psyche legend, and later was both Adonis' lover and his surrogate mother. Many lesser beings were said to be children of Aphrodite.

　　Aphrodite is also known as Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus) after the two cult-sites,Cythera and Cyprus, which claimed her birth. Myrtles, doves, sparrows, horses, and swans are sacred to her. The Greeks further identified the Ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor with Aphrodite. Aphrodite also has many other local names, such as Acidalia, Cytherea and Cerigo, used in specific areas of Greece. Each goddess demanded a slightly different cult, but Greeks recognized in their overall similarities the one Aphrodite. Attic philosophers of the fourth century separated a celestial Aphrodite (Aprodite Urania) of transcendent principles with the common Aphrodite of the people (Aphrodite Pandemos).