Aurora stems from Proto-Italic*ausōs, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European*haéusōs, the "dawn" conceived as divine entity. It has cognates in the goddessesĒṓs,Uṣas,Aušrinė,Auseklis andĒastre.[2][3]
InRoman mythology, Aurora renews herself every morning and flies across the sky, announcing the arrival of the Sun. Her parentage was flexible: forOvid, she could equally bePallantis, signifying the daughter ofPallas,[4] or the daughter ofHyperion.[5] She has two siblings, a brother (Sol, the Sun) and a sister (Luna, the Moon). Roman writers rarely imitated Hesiod and later Greek poets by naming Aurora as the mother of theAnemoi (the Winds), who were the offspring ofAstraeus, the father of the stars.
Aurora appears most often in sexual poetry with one of her mortal lovers. A myth taken from the Greek by Roman poets tells that one of her lovers was the prince ofTroy,Tithonus. Tithonus was a mortal, and would therefore age and die. Wanting to be with her lover for all eternity, Aurora askedJupiter to grantimmortality to Tithonus. Jupiter granted her wish, but she failed to ask for eternal youth to accompany his immortality, and he continued to age, eventually becoming forever old. Aurora turned him into acicada.
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun Should in the furthest east begin to draw The shady curtains from Aurora's bed, Away from the light steals home my heavy son...
In traditional Irish folk songs, such as "Lord Courtown":
One day I was a-musing down by the Courtown banks The sun shone bright and clearly, bold Neptune played a prank... There was Flora at the helm and Aurora to the stern And all their gallant fine seamen, their course for to steer on.
In the poem "Let me not mar that perfect Dream" byEmily Dickinson:
Let me not mar that perfect Dream By an Auroral stain But so adjust my daily Night That it will come again.
In "On Imagination" by Phillis Wheatley:
From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise, Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies, While a pure stream of light o'erflows the skies.
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure, And bosom beating with a heart renewed. Thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom, Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine, Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, And shake the darkness from their loosened manes, And beat the twilight into flakes of fire
In singer-songwriterBjörk'sVespertine track, Aurra is described as
Aurora Goddess sparkle A mountain shade suggests your shape
I tumble down on my knees Fill my mouth with snow The way it melts I wish to melt into you
In Chapter 8 ofCharlotte Brontë'sVillette, Madame Beck fires her old Governess first thing in the morning and is described by the narrator, Lucy Snowe:All this, I say, was done between the moment of Madame Beck's issuing like Aurora from her chamber, and that in which she coolly sat down to pour out her first cup of coffee.
The 20th-century Polish poetZbigniew Herbert wrote about Aurora's grandchildren. In his poem they are ugly, even though they will grow to be beautiful ("Kwestia Smaku").
The first and strongest of the 50 Spacer worlds inThe Caves of Steel and subsequent novels byIsaac Asimov is named after the goddess Aurora. Its capital city is Eos.
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