She is life and being, starry-bright, sparkling, blinding, mobile, whose sweet strangeness draws man on the more irresistibly the more disdainfully it dismisses him an essence crystal-clear, which is nevertheless intertwined with the dark roots in all animate nature a being childishly simple and yet incalculable, sweetly amiable and diamond-hard girlishly demure, fleeting, elusive, and suddenly brusque and contrary playing, frolicking, dancing, and in a flash most inexorably serious lovingly anxious and tenderly solicitous, with the enchantment of a smile that outweighs perdition, and yet wild to the point of gruesomeness and cruel to the point of repulsiveness.Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Hercules Furens (54 A.D.).O three-formed Hecate, lo, thou art at hand, favouring our undertaking. O Diana queen of the groves, thou who in solitude lovest thy mountain-haunts,Īnd who upon the solitary mountains art alone held holy,Ĭhange for the better these dark, ill-omened threats.īright orb of heaven, glory of the night,īy whose changing beams the universe shines clear, Hecate triformis, en ades coeptis fauens. Unknown author, Homeric Hymn 27 (Greek epic 4th-7th century B.C.).The tops of the high mountains tremble and the tangled wood echoes awesomely with the outcry of beasts.

Over the shadowy hills and windy peaks Artemis draws her golden bow.Homer, Iliad 21 (Greek epic 7th century B.C.).Artemis of the wilderness ( agrotera), lady of wild beasts ( potnia theron).The goddess Diana is her Roman equivalent. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth, virginity, fertility, the hunt, and often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows. In the classical period of Greek mythology, Artemis (Greek: (nominative) Ἄρτεμις, (genitive) Ἀρτέμιδος) was often described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. ~ Walter Friedrich OttoĪrtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. In her the piously intuitive spirit has learned to perceive this eternal image of sublime femininity as a thing divine.

Homeric hymn to artemis