RARE ROYAL BABIES Viewing all the excitement about the new British prince parented by William and Kate, I was reminded of two remarkable Greek royal babies parented by Zeus and Hera, individually. The first child was the goddess Athena. It was prophesied that Zeus would be supplanted on the throne by a son, so when his first wife Metis was pregnant he swallowed her. It seemed a good idea at the time. However he suffered from a terrible headache and had the god Hephaestus take an ax to his head. Out came not the son he had feared but a beautiful, full-grown daughter who became the ‘apple of her father’s eye’, a true ‘daddy’s girl’. As a birth story this surely overshadows the tale of the stork bringing the baby. The second child, Hephaestus, was the son of Hera, Zeus’ queen. She was so angry at all Zeus’ love affairs and the children he fathered without her that she decided to give him a taste of his own medicine and have a child without him. Unfortunately her son did not measure up to Mt. Olympus standards. First of all he was born lame--hardly godlike. Then he was the ‘god of the forge’ which meant he worked. Who ever heard of a god who worked. Hera did the only thing she could. She threw him out of heaven. I think this is an extreme case of what happens when a child doesn’t measure up to his parent’s expectations. Let us hope that Prince George Alexander continues to delight his royal family.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 16:13:05 +0000
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