Personality Pages

The Gossip

Hera, Hestia, Demeter, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades are all brothers and sisters.

Hera is married to Zeus, who cheats on her with just about everyone he can. Hera always goes after the 'other woman' with a vengeance, even when it's rape. They have one child: Ares, who is a disappointment (too emotional). Hera also had Hephaestus (no father), but she didn't like him either (born with a club foot).

Artemis and Apollo are Zeus' twin children by Leto (an affair). Athena is Zeus' child by Metis, his first wife. Zeus heard that Metis' son would overthrow him so he swallowed her when she was pregnant. Some time later Athena was born full-grown out of Zeus' head, in armour with spear (think business suit with briefcase), with no memory of her mother and total loyalty to her father. Hermes is the son of Zeus and Maia. Dionysus is the son of Zeus and Semele (who died before giving birth, so Zeus sewed Dionysus up into his thigh and gestated him himself). Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione in one version, but in the other she is born out of the sea foam after Uranus' (Zeus' grandfather) genitals are cut off and thrown into the sea (and therefore is older than Zeus). Either way she's a law unto herself.

Artemis, Athena and Hestia never marry, although Artemis had a boyfriend (Orion the hunter) at one point. She killed him in a competetition by mistake. Demeter has a daughter, Persephone, by Zeus (one of his earlier marriages, before Hera, who is wife number seven).

Persephone is abducted by Hades with Zeus's permission, but in the end decides to marry him and spend part of the year in the underworld with him, and the rest above ground with her mother.

Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus, but carries on a long term affair with Ares. She and Ares have three children: Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror), and Harmonia (Harmony, sometimes known as Discord, her other aspect). Aphrodite and Hermes have a bisexual child called Hermaphroditus. Eros (Cupid) may be her son, with no father. Aphrodite also has an affair with Adonis, a variation of Dionysus, who is slain by a boar sent by the jealous Ares and ends up spending four months of the year with her, four months with Persephone in the Underworld, and four months recovering from both of them.

Poseidon is married to Amphitrite, but cheats on her, and then has to win her back (oops!). Apollo is single. Hermes is single, but is paired with Hestia in temples (she inside, he outside the door). Dionysus is initially single, but then marries Ariadne, a variation of Aphrodite, and they party on. Dionysus, incidently, is the dying god (like Adonis) and therefore is also seen as the consort/son of Persephone, queen of the Underworld, and the above ground aspect of her husband Hades. Hades tried to get it on with a couple of other women but it didn't work, since he just isn't smooth enough (unlike Zeus and Poseidon), so it looks like he's a one-woman man by default. (Though it's interesting that Freud (Poseidon) and Adler (Zeus) were not philanderers while Jung (Hades) was.)

Famous Couples (+ some successful marriages in my family)

Artemis and Zeus

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (1940 - 1960, ended in divorce)
Ike and Tina Turner (1962 - 1978, ended in divorce)
Sonny and Cher (1964 - 1975, ended in divorce)

Artemis and Poseidon

Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1814, m. 1816 - 1822, ended in his death)
Bo and John Derek (1973 - 1998, ended with his death)

Artemis and Hermes

Amelia Earhart and George Palmer Putnam (1931 - 1937, ended with her death)

Artemis and Dionysus

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (1920 - 1940; ended with his death)
Paul and Linda McCartney (1969 - 1998, ended with her death)
an aunt and uncle: 40 years +

Athena and Zeus

Hilary and Bill Clinton (1975 - )

Athena and Apollo

Margaret and Denis Thatcher (1951 - )

Athena and Hermes (in mythology: Athena and Odysseus)

Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre (1929 - 1980; ended with his death)
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (1942 - 1967; ended with his death)

Hestia and Poseidon

Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett Roddenberry (1969 - 1991, ended with his death)

Hestia and Hermes

Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy (1942 - 1994, ended with her death)
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip (1947 - )
Dick and Mary Francis (1947 - )
Angela Lansbury and Peter Shaw (1949 - )
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward (1958 - 2008, ended with his death)

Hestia and Apollo

George W. and Laura Bush (1977 - )
an aunt and uncle (1970? - )

Hestia and Hephaestus

Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville (1926 - 1980, ended with his death)

Hera and Zeus

Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg (1927 - 1936; ended with his death)
Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti (1957 - 1962, annulled; 1966 - 2007, ended with his death)
Barbara Taylor Bradford and Robert Bradford (1963 - )
Jacqueline and Aristotle Onassis (1968 - 1975; ended with his death)
an aunt and uncle: 50 years +

Hera and Poseidon

Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh (1940 - 1960, ended in divorce)
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (1964 - 1974; 1975, divorced twice)
Prince Charles and Princess Diana (1981 - 1996, ended in divorce)

Hera and Hades

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (1945 - 1957, ended with his death)

Hera and Apollo

Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy (1953 - 1963; ended with his death)
my father's parents (early 1930s - 1979, ended with his death)
my parents (1963 - )

Demeter and Apollo

George and Barbara Bush (1945 - )

Persephone and Hades

Charlie Chaplin and Oona O'Neill Chaplin (1943 - 1977, ended with his death)
George and Olivia Harrison (1974, m. 1978 - 2001, ended with his death)

Persephone and Dionysus

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning (1846 - 1861, ended with her death)
Marian Evans (George Eliot) and George Henry Lewes (1854 - 1878, ended with his death)
Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson (1972 - )

Aphrodite and Ares

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell (1983 - )