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Monday, May 21, 2012

Tykhe - the Goddess of Luck

Within Greek mythology, the Goddess associated with fortune, providence and fate is Tykhe, who was also honoured as Eutykhia, the Goddess of good fortune, luck, success and prosperity. 

The daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite, Tykhe was represented with different attributes.  Holding a rudder, Tykhe was conceived as the divinity guiding and conducting the affairs of the world, and in this respect she was called one of the Moirai (or Fates); with a ball she represented the varying unsteadiness of fortune - unsteady and capable of rolling in any direction; with Ploutos or the horn of Amalthea, she was the symbol of the plentiful gifts of fortune. 

According to Homer, Tykhe is mentioned as being one of the Goddesses who witnessed the abduction of Persephone by Hades, as Persephone's account of the event to Demeter (her mother) states:

"All we were playing in a lovely meadow, Leukippe and Phaino and Elektra and Ianthe, Melita also and Iakhe with Rhodea and Kallirhoe and Melobosis and Tykhe and Okyrhoe, fair as a flower, Khryseis, Ianeira, Akaste and Admete and Rhodope and Plouto and charming Kalypso; Styx too was there and Ourania and lovely Galaxaura with Pallas [Athena] who rouses battles and Artemis delighting in arrows: we were playing and gathering sweet flowers in our hands, soft crocuses mingled with irises and hyacinths, and rose-blooms and lilies, marvellous to see, and the narcissus which the wide earth caused to grow yellow as a crocus."

The following prayer to Tykhe was been found on Temple of Athena:

Hymn to Tykhe
Turret-crowned Queen, I sing
Immortal Agathe Tykhe, Fortuna to the Romans,
Elder sister of the Moiroi
Goddesses Three, Who weave the threads of mortal lives
Friend of all mankind
Who bears the cornucopia,
And metes out good and evil.
Rich and poor alike must deal with Your decrees, O Goddess.
O Primal One without parent, I pray.
Allow me to accept
The twists and turns that Fate deals
To see the opportunity in the tragedy
And to understand what I am meant to do.
Help me to make the right choices,
Where my Fate depends on it,
And to accept my lack of control,
Where it does not.
Let me always act with honour
Whatever you set before me.
Send me only hardships I can endure,
And that will make a better person.
This I pray, O Glorious Tykhe.


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