Hera

Who She Is

Hera is the wife of Zeus and the goddess who, on Olympus, works against Troy and for the Achaeans. She says of herself that she is the eldest daughter of Cronus, of the same lineage as her husband, and called the wife of Zeus, and she does not accept seeing in vain the effort she put into gathering the army against Priam and his sons. The poem shows her arguing, bargaining, lying, and seducing, and also retreating. Behind each of these actions there is a declared motive, that of seeing Ilion razed, and a motive the text suggests, that Zeus is hateful to her when she sees him on Ida. The goddess who cannot defeat her husband by force defeats him by deceit once, and for that she hears the threat.

Trajectory

In Book I, Hera, who suffers to see the Greeks dying of plague, inspires Achilles to call the assembly, and sends Athena, visible only to him, to stop the hero's hand. On Olympus, she perceives Zeus's conversation with Thetis and accuses him of plotting in secret. Zeus orders her to be silent under threat of violence, and Hephaestus, her son, persuades his mother to yield and serves the wine limping, which provokes unending laughter.

In Book II, when the army rushes to the ships, Hera sends Athena to stop the Achaeans: she will not accept that they flee and leave Priam and the Trojans the glory of Helen, for whom so many Achaeans died far from home. In Book IV, when Zeus proposes to the gods that they decide between war and friendship, she does not hold back her anger and complains of her own labor: the sweat and the horses worn out as she gathered the people.

Zeus answers her that her rancor would be healed only if she ate Priam raw, and yields in exchange for the right to destroy cities dear to her. Hera offers Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae and proposes that Athena make the Trojans break the oath first.

In Book V, she and Athena mock Zeus because of Aphrodite, and seeing the defeat, she yokes the golden horses and asks Zeus's leave to remove Ares from the battle. Zeus tells her to set Athena against him instead. Hera, in the form of Stentor, of bronze voice, shouts to the Argives that, while Achilles went to war, the Trojans never passed the Dardanian Gates.

In Book VIII, Hera shakes the throne when she hears Hector's boasting and asks Poseidon to help the Greeks, which he refuses. She puts into Agamemnon's breast the impulse to rouse the Achaeans. She arms herself with Athena against Zeus's order, but Iris brings the threat, and Hera yields: it is not worth fighting Zeus over mortals. She repeats to her husband Athena's words, that they know his strength and pity the Danaans. In Book XI, Hera and Athena thunder in honor of King Agamemnon.

In Book XIV, Hera rejoices to see Poseidon helping the Achaeans and finds Zeus hateful on the peak of Ida. She decides to deceive him: she bathes in ambrosia, puts on the robe Athena wove, asks Aphrodite for love and desire, and lies, saying that she is going to Oceanus and Tethys, the ancient sea goddess, to end the quarrel between them. Aphrodite gives her the embroidered belt, where love, desire, intimate talk, and the seduction that steals the wits even of the sensible are woven.

In Lemnos, she asks Sleep to put Zeus to sleep. Sleep refuses, remembering the last punishment. Hera answers with a question and a reward, one of the youngest Graces, and swears by the Styx. At Gargarus, she repeats the lie to Zeus, objects that the peak of Ida is visible, and lets herself be led into the golden cloud.

In Book XV, Zeus wakes and accuses her, recalling the day he hung her between the aether and the clouds, with two anvils on her feet and golden fetters. Hera trembles and swears by the Styx and by the marriage bed that Poseidon acts of his own will. On Olympus, she laughs only with her lips and gives Ares the news of his son's death as one who drives in a thorn, and Ares wants to avenge him, but Athena restrains him.

In Book XVI, when Zeus considers taking Sarpedon out of the fight, Hera tells him to do it, but the other gods will not approve, and others too will take their sons out of the war. Zeus yields.

In Book XVIII, she sends Iris to Achilles without Zeus or the other gods knowing, so that he will show himself to the Trojans, and she makes the Sun sink into the currents of Oceanus, against his will, so that the fighting will cease. Zeus tells her that at last she has roused Achilles. She replies that even a mortal can do harm to his neighbor, and that she, the first of the goddesses by origin and as Zeus's wife, could not refrain from plotting evil against the Trojans.

In Book XIX, Agamemnon tells the story of Ate to explain the blindness that led him to take Achilles's prize. Hera deceived Zeus on the day Alcmene was to give birth to Heracles, and hastened the birth of Eurystheus. Hera also gives voice to the horse Xanthus, who foretells Achilles's death.

In Book XX, seeing Aeneas advance, she gathers Poseidon and Athena, proposes that one of them stand beside Achilles so that he knows the best of the immortals love him, and declares that the protection is for today only: afterward he will suffer what fate spun for him at his birth. She reminds them that she and Athena swore before everyone never to turn away from the Trojans the day of their ruin.

In Book XXI, when Achilles is overwhelmed by the current, Hera shouts to Hephaestus to rise with fire against Xanthus. She orders him to stop as soon as the river yields: it is not fitting that an immortal god be so mistreated for the sake of mortals. In the fight among the gods, she seizes Artemis by the wrists and strikes her on the ears with her own bow.

In Book XXIV, when Apollo accuses the gods of preferring Achilles to Hector, Hera answers angrily that the two cannot have equal honor: Hector is mortal and was suckled by a woman, Achilles is the son of a goddess whom she herself raised. The narrator says that she, Poseidon, and Athena have continued to hate Troy since Paris offended the goddesses and preferred the one who offered him desire.

Themes Embodied

Hera embodies War as an enterprise she wants to see end in ruin: her sweat is in the troops, and she holds Zeus to account for it. She embodies Fate and Free Will through the deception that almost changes the course of the day and through the limit she herself acknowledges: Achilles's fate, the day of Troy's ruin, the son of Zeus who cannot be saved. Honor and Reputation appears when she measures the honor of Achilles and Hector and when she says she is the first of the goddesses.

Hera has two reasons that the text does not separate: the ruin of Troy, which she calls her labor, and a revulsion toward Zeus that the narrator gives in one word, hateful. The plan of Book XIV involves seducing him and putting him to sleep, not persuading him, and for that reason the poem spends so many verses on the bath, the oil, and the garments. What she gets is a short window, and Sleep warns that the favor has a deadline. When she is discovered, the text shows her real power over him: she trembles, swears, and Zeus smiles. The goddess who withdraws out of memory of punishment is the same one who, in Book XVI, uses an argument from precedent and gets Zeus to withdraw.

Relationships

• Zeus: the husband she deceives, whom she obeys under threat, and whom she persuades with an argument from precedent.
• Athena: the ally she sends into the field, and with whom she arms herself against her husband's order.
• Achilles: the hero she inspires and then makes appear, and whose fate she speaks of without being able to change it.
• Priam: the king whose house she wants to see razed.
• Apollo: the god to whom she replies in Book XXIV about the honor of Achilles and Hector.
• Thetis: the goddess whom Hera says she raised and gave to Peleus.
• Aphrodite: the goddess who gives her the belt.
• Poseidon: the brother-in-law and brother of Zeus whom she summons and to whom she turns.
• Sleep: the god whom she persuades with a Grace.