Gemini

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Twins were a problem in the ancient world. They are a problem today

for astrologers who observe that twins -born under the same sign-

express very different characters. The reason for this is that fate

is decreed, but character is an individual expression...

 

This constellation (Gemini) is of the Greek Discouri (striplings of

Zeus) brothers, known as Castor and Pollux in Latin, and Polydeuces

in Greek. They were the most loving of brothers, and never fought

against each other, whether it was over kingship or anything else.

They never did anything without the other's consent. They were among

the most popular of the ancient cult divinities, and their worship

spread all over Greece and even to Sicily.

They are the brothers of Helen, the wife of Menelaus who ran off with

Paris to Troy, precipitating the Trojan War that wiped out the age of

heroes.

However, there is a more profound story relating to their birth.

Of the various forms of Necessity (Adrasteia, Tyche, Moira, Ananke,

Ate, Aisa, Dike, Erinyes, Heimarmene, all of whom are female and

against whom no one, not even the gods may rebel), Nemesis, the

daughter Nyx or night, is...that horrible force that brings down

vengeance on the impious and the evil, while the other forms of

necessity, like chance, push us and everything in the world. They are

from the time of Kronos. Nemesis...is accompanied by her friend,

Aidos, shame, everywhere she goes. Aidos keeps people from offending,

while Nemesis punishes those who do. One day Zeus was watching

Nemesis and he felt that tinge inside him...from that night's

adventure came the egg from which Castor and Polydeuces, as well as

Helen, who combines both beauty and necessity, were born.

But their glory rests in the sadness of the death of Castor, the

mortal of the twins. In a war between Sparta and Athens, Castor was

killed in Aphidnae. Grief-stricken, Polydeuces, Homer tells us, gave

his brother half of his life. Thus, part of the year, Castor goes

beneath the earth, as the constellation sets.

Twins were considered a great problem in the ancient world. But if we

are to examine the problem with some care it is obvious that they

represent the problem of the copy or image and its relationship to

the original. The image and the original are like the Dioscuri

brothers, who cannot do without each other, even though one is

immortal, the original, and the other is mortal, the perfect copy.

http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/MythsZodiac.html

 

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