The Goddess Aurora

Aurora’s tale a sad one of love May 05, 2008 05:07 PM Faces and Places By: Sean Pearce, Staff Writer Ever been to Machell’s Corners? Chances are if you are reading this, you’re sitting there right now. That’s because from 1804 until January 1, 1854, Aurora was called Machell’s Corners. With the arrival of the railway and what was perceived as the dawning of a new era, postmaster Charles Doan decided to re-christen the town, Aurora, the Latin name for the Greek goddess of the dawn. But who was Aurora? In mythology, Aurora was, as was previously mentioned, the goddess of the dawn. Each morning, she renewed herself and flew across the sky heralding the arrival of the sun.According to ancient lore, Aurora, or Eos as she was known in Greek mythology, was the daughter of the titan, Hyperion. In addition to her father, she also had a brother named Sol/Helios, the sun and a sister named Luna/Selene, the moon. Despite her role as the herald of the sunrise and her frequent references in Homeric poetry as the “rosy-fingered”, her love life was anything but rosy. One myth, adapted by a Roman poet from a story about the goddess, tells Aurora once fell madly in love with a prince of Troy named Tithonus. The tragedy being that Tithonus was doomed, as all mortals are, to age and die. Hoping she could cheat fate and be with Tithonus forever, Aurora went to Olympus and asked Zeus, the king of the gods, to grant her love immortality. Zeus consented, but, seeing as Aurora neglected to ask for Tithonus to remain eternally young, he was condemned to age forever. Realizing her error, Aurora, for some reason, turned Tithonus into a grasshopper. Still, Aurora couldn’t have been too heartbroken as she had many relationships before and after Tithonus and bore many children as a result. While a relatively minor figure in mythology, Aurora was immortalized by numerous artists. The Greek bard, Homer, made reference to her in the Iliad and the Odyssey and Aurora was also mentioned frequently by Shakespeare in his poems and plays. Incidentally, the tale of doomed love between Aurora and Tithonus was also adapted as a poem by the British poet laureate, Lord Alfred Tennyson. Apart from that, Aurora was also a well represented figure in other artistic mediums and, thus, her name has survived from antiquity until present day. Of course, around these parts, her legacy is most recognizably her role as the namesake of the community that still bears the name; Aurora.