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Tuesday 23 February 2016

FORTUNA, GODDESS OF LUCK, FATE, AND FORTUNE

                                                               




                         FORTUNA, GODDESS OF LUCK, FATE, AND FORTUNE

                                               THE GODDESS FORTUNA (Poem)

                                                           
                   


                                                                         WIKI









The earliest reference to the Wheel of Fortune, emblematic of the endless changes in life between prosperity and disaster, is from 55 BC.[14] In Seneca's tragedyAgamemnon, a chorus addresses Fortuna in terms that would remain almost proverbial, and in a high heroic ranting mode that Renaissance writers would emulate:
"O Fortune, who dost bestow the throne’s high boon with mocking hand, in dangerous and doubtful state thou settest the too exalted. Never have sceptres obtained calm peace or certain tenure; care on care weighs them down, and ever do fresh storms vex their souls....great kingdoms sink of their own weight, and Fortune gives way ‘neath the burden of herself. Sails swollen with favouring breezes fear blasts too strongly theirs; the tower which rears its head to the very clouds is beaten by rainy Auster.... Whatever Fortune has raised on high, she lifts but to bring low. Modest estate has longer life; then happy he whoe’er, content with the common lot, with safe breeze hugs the shore, and, fearing to trust his skiff to the wider sea, with unambitious oar keeps close to land."[15]
Ovid's description is typical of Roman representations: in a letter from exile[16] he reflects ruefully on the "goddess who admits by her unsteady wheel her own fickleness; she always has its apex beneath her swaying foot."























The iconography of Tyche shared some attributes with Cybele, especially the wearing of the turreted or mural crown as a patron of cities. According to Zosimus, who appears not to have converted to Christianity, Constantine had one statue of Rhea-Cybele altered "through his disregard for religion, by taking away the lions on each side and changing the arrangement of the hands; for whereas previously she was apparently restraining lions, now she seemed to be praying and looking to the city as if guarding it." His intention seems to have been to render Cybele as the Tyche of Constantinople,[8] in keeping with a general adaptation of Imperial cult for the newly Christianized regime.[9] Proskynesis (prostration as submission to authority) was performed before emperors and symbols of imperial authority including the Tyche, and later before Christian symbols.[10]
One tradition held that Constantine had a cross inscribed on the Tyche of Constantinople near the Milion,[11] and that the emperor Julian, who opposed Christianity, rejected this manifestation of Tyche.[12] The Tyche of Constantinople continues to appear in art of the Eastern Roman Empire into the 6th century, among such examples as a consular diptych and jewelry ornaments.[13]

During the ceremonies for the founding of Constantinople in 313 AD, the Christian Kyrie was sung together with a chant to the pagan Goddess Fortune, (REFERENCE PLEASE!). The Kyrie may itself be of pagan origin
   
                                                      HISTORY OF KYRIE

                        Kyrie eleison (Κύριε ἐλέησον)
                           Lord, have mercy
                    Christe eleison (Χριστέ ἐλέησον)
                       Christ, have mercy
                      Kyrie eleison (Κύριε ἐλέησον)
                             Lord, have mercy

                                               HISTORY OF CONSTANTINOPLE


                                               

                                                         THE ORIGINS OF SUN WORSHIP



                                                                             

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