![]() The farmer said, ‘O sea, it would have been better if no one had ever set sail on you! You are a pitiless element of nature and an enemy to mankind.’ When she heard this, Thalassa (the Sea) took on the shape of a woman and said in reply, ‘Do not spread such evil stories about me! I am not the cause of any of these things that happen to you the Winds (Anemoi) to which I am exposed are the cause of them all. "A farmer saw a ship and her crew about to sink into the sea as the ship's prow disappeared beneath the curl of a wave. They told her, ‘Why is it that we come to you with waters that are sweet and fit to drink, but you change them into something salty and undrinkable?’ In response to the Potamoi's (Rivers') criticism, Thalassa (the Sea) replied, ‘Don't come, and you won't get salty!’" "The Potamoi (Rivers) came together in order to make a complaint against Thalassa (the Sea). Thalassa (the Sea), assuming the form of a woman, replied to him : ‘Blame not me, my good sir, but the winds, for I am by my own nature as calm and firm even as this earth but the winds suddenly falling on me create these waves, and lash me into fury.’" He argued that it enticed men with the calmness of its looks, but when it had induced them to plow its waters, it grew rough and destroyed them. After a while he awoke, and looking upon the Sea (Thalassa), loaded it with reproaches. A shipwrecked man, having been cast upon a certain shore, slept after his buffetings with the deep. "Ion says in a dithyramb that Aigaion (Aegaeon) was summoned from the ocean by Thetis and taken up to protect Zeus, and that he was the son of Thalassa (Sea)."Īesop, Fables 245 (from Chambry & Babrius, Aesopeae Fabulae 71) (trans. Greek Lyric IV) (Greek lyric C6th B.C.) : Ion of Chios, Fragment 741 (from Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes) (trans. It was a thing of awe whether for deathless gods or mortal men to see: from its root grew a hundred blooms and it smelled most sweetly, so that wide Ouranos (Uranus, Heaven) above and Gaia (Gaea, Earth) and Thalassa's (Sea) salt swell laughed for joy." to be a snare for the bloom-like girl -a marvellous, radiant flower. "The narcissus, which Gaia (Gaea, Earth) made to grow at the will of Zeus. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C7th or 6th B.C.) : Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.ĬLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES Thalassa the Sea, Greco-Roman mosaic from Antioch C5th A.D., Hatay Archaeology Museum THALASSA (Thalassa), a personification of the Mediterranean, is described as a daughter of Aether and Hemera. THE FISHES (by Pontos) (Hyginus Preface) APHRODITE (by the severed members of Ouranos) (Nonnus Dionysiaca 12.43) ![]() THE TELKHINES, HALIA (Diodorus Siculus 5.55.1) AIGAION (by Aigaios ?) (Ion of Chios Frag 741) AITHER & HEMERA (Hyginus Preface) OFFSPRING Thalassa is depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a matronly woman, half-submerged in the sea, with crab-claw horns, seaweed for clothes, and a ship's oar in her hand. Poseidon and Amphitrite, the anthropomorphic king and queen of the sea, were the rulers of the elemental Pontos and Thalassa. Thalassa was the literal body of the sea and in the fables of Aesop, manifests as a woman formed of sea-water rising from her native element. Mingled with Pontos (Pontus), her male counterpart, she produced the fish and other sea creatures. THALASSA was the primordial goddess ( protogenos) of the sea. Sea (thalassa) Thalassa the Sea, Greco-Roman mosaic from Antioch C5th A.D., Hatay Archaeology Museum ![]()
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