“Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpina in hell.”
“Luna in heaven, Diana on earth,
and Proserpina in hell.”
“Luminous Hecate presided over the Avernus. Hecate is the deity of the three powers: for she is Luna, Diana, Proserpina. But he could not say only Proserpina, because of the groves which are Diana's, nor also (just) Diana, because he says 'Avernis': whence he chose a name which consisted in both. Whence Lucanus says of Proserpina, "Hecate is our last part." Servius, Commentary on Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 6 118
“because of the groves which are Diana's”: the groves here mentioned are the invisible regions closely tied to the material realm, though which the soul goes after physical death. Groves because they are misty, like entering into another dimmension. The allegory is clear. Even though Artemis is called Lochia, presiding over human births, maybe another meaning is that she also presides over physical death, and the transitioning into the invisible realms, which is another kind of birth. As hindu philosophy teaches, the soul of the deceased is born in Preta Yoni, but it is a transient state.
In that capacity, she is also the inspective guardian presiding over generation, over souls that enter and over souls that exit, of which her dog is an emblem, since the dog is a guard(1); her hunting activities to signify her sublimating or holding-tight powers over souls that enter her groves, as she is the “abiding” godddess, or, in the realm of generation, the power that recollects and guides the souls into their original condition of being whole (monadic, abiding on high) and unaffected, pure, “virginal” (Kore), as She is called. In that capacity she is the same as the Indian Bhairava who presides over cremation grounds and cemeteries, the deity who illuminates the soul on their journey, and is a form of Shiva, who is Bhuta Nath, the Lord of Ghosts. But perhaps also similar in a way to Yama, since She with her arrows stops and separates from the soul the parts which have to be left behind (the irrational parts as Plato says) from the ones that belong to the Higher soul. That is why She sides with the trojans, who represent material life, since She is the source of material life, of which She is the agent of perfection:
“Proclus pointed to the conflict between Hera and Artemis in the Illiad as a representation of the two kinds of human souls. Where Hera creates the higher, more cultured, or "worthy" souls, Artemis brings light to and perfects the "less worthy" or less rational. As explained by Ragnos (2000), "The aspect of reality which Artemis and Hera share, and because of which they engage in a symbolic conflict, is the engendering of life." Hera elevates rational living beings up to intellectual rational existence, whereas Artemis's power pertains to human life as far as its physical existence as a living thing. "Artemis deals with the most elementary forms of life or the most elementary part of all life, whereas Hera operates in the most elevated forms of life or the most elevated part of all life.” Diana
“between the arms the numerous breasts symbolical of her nourishing the world.”
Her arrows then signify the far-reach and immediacy of her power, like a flash of lightning, since as an immortal godddess, She is beyond, but because the human soul is fire from Olympus, her power is also present in the human soul, in the form that yearns wholeness and transcendency, impelling the soul iItself in that direction. The deer or stag, the souls that inhabit her groves, since the spotted skin of deer resembles the starry sky, or the supermundane origin of the soul, and because the departing soul, leaving the body, becomes confused, frightened like a deer, and vulnerable to negative influences. Thus She is said to hunt deer, so that the soul might belong to Her, and not to other forces.
So being a hunter of souls could explain why at her cult in Brauron, Attica, in the festival dedicated to Her, Brauronia, young girs danced the arkteia “made up of slow, solemn steps meant to imitate the movements of a bear”, for Her name may also come from Arktos, Bear, and Temenos, sanctuary/holy grove (aluding to Her groves, since in ancient times rites were performed in forests). for it is the bear who hunts deer (souls) in the forest (netherworld) like She does, and like the Chthonic Erlik of Siberia, whose totem is also the Bear, She is also the Great-She-Bear or Hunter of Souls., not to mention that the bear resembles a giant dog, the companion of Artemis in the hunt.(2)
Also called Phosphoros, Light-Bearer, she holds intact the nature of the soul before incarnation and after (death), preserving it with adamant power.
Roman villa, Pompei.
As such, she is surely worthy of our praise:
“Hear me, Daughter of Leto, Celebrated, Noble, Bacchian Queen, rejoicing in Your silver arrows,
Torch-bearing Goddess Dictunna, who presides over births and relieves the pain of labor,
Divine Maiden, who glories in the Sylvan hunt,
Swift and fierce, no one is Your equal with the bow.
Wandering by night, reveling in the flowering meadows,
Brave and beautiful Nurturer of mortals,
Eternal and Earthly, Bane of fell monsters,
Dweller in the hills whom the woods and dogs delight,
You hunt the stag and give the Earth a store of bounteous fruit to bear.
Oh Universal Queen, You flourish in endless youth,
Wield the Cydonian Power, Dread Guardian Goddess,
With benevolence come to these mystic rites,
Send us gentle Peace and Health, and drive disease and care far from us.”
Notes:
1- “By Cerberus we must understand the discriminative part of the soul, of which a dog, on account of its sagacity, is an emblem; and the three heads signify the triple distinction of this part, into the intellective [or intuitional], cogitative [or rational], and opinionative powers.” Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, by Thomas Taylor
2 - Here it becomes obvious how ridiculous modern psycho-cultural interpretations of the Bear become, when the cultural, spiritual and theological symbolisms and contexts are ignored. For the Bear is not an isolate symbol, like meaning Fear, or Courage, or whatever as some pretend, but in the context of theology it’s a symbol linked to others, with several ramifications, of which it’s dependent and inseparable, as I’ve demonstrated, namely: forest and deer, i.e.,, netherworld and ghost or spirit of the departed.
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