Chapter XXXVI: Section III: Ἡρα—Hera

The name of the white-armed, ox-eyed queen of heaven, Ἡρα or Ἡρη (Hera or Heré), is derived by philologists from the same root as the familiar German _herr_ and _herrinn_, and thus signifies the lady or mistress. Indeed the masculine form ἥρως, whence we take our hero, originally meant a free or noble man, just as _herr_ does in ancient German, and came gradually to mean a person distinguished on any account, principally in arms; and thence it became technically applied to the noble ancestors who occupied an intermediate place between the gods and existing men. The Latin _herus_ and _hera_ are cognate, and never rose out of their plain original sense of master and mistress, though the _heros_ was imported in his grander sense from the Greek, and has passed on to us.

It is curious that whereas the wife of Zeus was simply the lady, it was exactly the same with Frigga, who, as we shall by-and-by see, was merely the Frau—the free woman or lady.

Hera herself does not seem to have had many persons directly named after her, though there was plenty from the root of her name. The feminine Hero was probably thus derived,—belonging first to one of the Danaïdes, then to a daughter of Priam, then to the maiden whose light led Leander to his perilous breasting of the Hellespont, and from whom Shakespeare probably took it for the lady apparently “done to death by slanderous tongues.”

It is usual to explain as Ἡρα-κλῆς (fame of Hera) the name of the son of Zeus and Alcmena, whose bitterest foe Hera was, according to the current legends of Greece; but noble fame is a far more probable origin for Herakles, compound as he is of the oft-repeated Sun-myth mixed with the veritable Samson, and the horrible Phœnician Melkarth or Moloch, with whom the Tyrians themselves identified Herakles.

A few compounds, such as Heraclius, Heraclidas, Heracleonas, have been formed from Herakles, the hero ancestor of the Spartan kings, and therefore specially venerated in Lacedæmon. The Latins called the name Hercules; and it was revived in the Cinque-cento, in Italy, as Ercole. Thus Hercule was originally the baptismal name of Catherine de Medici’s youngest son; but he changed it to François at his confirmation, when hoping to mount a throne. Exceptionally, Hercules occurs in England; and we have known of more than one old villager called Arkles, respecting whom there was always a doubt whether he were Hercules or Archelaus.

Hence, too, the name of the father of history, Herodotus (noble gift); hence, likewise, that of Herodes. Some derive this last from the Arab _hareth_ (a farmer); but it certainly was a Greek name long before the Idumean family raised themselves to the throne of Judea, since a poet was so called who lived about the time of Cyrus. If the Herods were real Edomites, they may have Græcized Hareth into Herodes; but it is further alleged that the first Herod, grandfather of the first king, was a slave, attached to the temple of Apollo at Ascalon, taken captive by Idumean robbers. Hateful as is the name in its associations, its feminine, Herodias, became doubly hateful as the murderess of John the Baptist.