Thursday, July 22, 2010

Myths and Legends: Birth of Apollo and Artemis

Birth of Apollo and Artemis. To find out more about Leto's travail, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

This image shows the famous story of the goddess Leto (Latona) giving birth to Zeus's twin children, Apollo and Artemis. Leto was unable to give birth on terra firma because all the lands had been commanded by Hera, the jealous wife of Zeus, to reject her. Leto therefore had recourse to the floating island of Delos. She gave birth to Artemis first, and then Artemis acted as midwife for the birth of her brother Apollo.

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of July 22-28 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths and Legends Widget Reference Page.