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Eos, the Dawn, like her brother Helios, whose advent she always announced,was also deified by the early Greeks. She too had her own chariot, whichshe drove across the vast horizon both morning and night, before and afterthe sun-god. Hence she is not merely the personification of the rosy morn,but also of twilight, for which reason her palace is placed in the west, onthe island Ææa. The abode of Eos is a magnificent structure, surrounded byflowery meads and velvety lawns, where nymphs and other immortal beings,wind in and out in the mazy figures of the dance, whilst the music of asweetly-tuned melody accompanies their graceful, gliding movements.
Eos is described by the poets as a beautiful maiden with rosy arms andfingers, and large wings, whose plumage is of an ever-changing hue; shebears a star on her forehead, and a torch in her hand. Wrapping round herthe rich folds of her violet-tinged mantle, she leaves her couch before thebreak of day, and herself yokes her two horses, Lampetus and Phaethon, toher glorious chariot. She then hastens with active cheerfulness to open thegates of heaven, in order to herald the approach of her brother, the god ofday, whilst the tender plants and flowers, revived by the morning dew, lifttheir heads to welcome her as she passes.
Eos first married the Titan Astræus,[29] and their children were Heosphorus(Hesperus), the evening star, and the winds. She afterwards became unitedto Tithonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, who had won her affection byhis unrivalled beauty; and Eos, unhappy at the thought of their being everseparated by death, obtained for him from Zeus the gift of immortality,forgetting, however, to add to it that of eternal youth. The consequencewas that when, in the course of time, Tithonus grew old and decrepid, andlost all the beauty which had won her admiration, Eos became disgusted withhis infirmities, and at last shut him up in a chamber, where soon littleelse was left of him but his voice, which had now sunk into a weak, feeblequaver. According to some of the later poets, he became so weary of hischeerless and miserable existence, that he entreated to be allowed to die.This was, however, impossible; but Eos, pitying his unhappy condition,exerted her divine power, and changed him into a grasshopper, which is, asit were, all voice, and whose monotonous, ceaseless chirpings may notinaptly be compared to the meaningless babble of extreme old age.