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XVIII Selene
But now through the wide domains which Phoebus, his day’s work ended, had left bare, rose the Titanian queen, borne upward through a silent world, and with her dewy chariot cooled and rarefied the air; now birds and beasts are hushed, and sleep steals o’er the greedy cares of men, and stoops and beckons from the sky, shrouding a toilsome life once more in sweet oblivion.
Statius, Thebaid, ca. 50CE
Though in later literature, Selene the Moon became associated with witches and therefore strangeness, she was most often seen as a sweet goddess whose radiance soothed and guided humanity, and caused the earth to weep dew upon beholding her beauty.
Image source: Greek Red Figure Ware, ca. 450 BCE
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