Episode 413: Hathor
/This goddess is giving mother. Literally. This many-named deity, Hathor, is the goddess of love, sex, makeup, and even hangovers. You can see why we’re excited to talk about her.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of sex, genitals, childbirth, death, blood, and colonization.
Housekeeping
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And Amanda, we are back at it again here on Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, it's also what we've been doing by keeping an Egyptian mythology series from you on Spirits Podcast by Spirits Podcast.
AMANDA: You love to hear it. You're getting so good at this.
JULIA: Hoo. Yeah, it's always, like, a deep breath. I feel like I'm running a marathon almost.
AMANDA: And the year is almost over, so it's just like when you kind of, like, are on vacation, then you finally learn how to, like, lock the damn Airbnb.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And then it's time to go home.
JULIA: And I have news for you, too. We're not the ending when the year is over, because—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —there's a lot more gods and goddesses for us to cover.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: But this episode, Amanda, we're gonna be talking about a goddess that is giving mother.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Quite literally, in the sense, because we were talking about Hathor.
AMANDA: Okay. We've talked about her.
JULIA: Yes. We've talked about her casually in the past, I would say.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But Hathor, the golden goddess, the helper of women giving birth, the dead to be reborn, the renewer of the cosmos. She is a mother, but she's also a consort. She's also daughter to Ra. And her roles really kind of shift and change over time and depending on the story that is being told. So she kind of swings between this, like, very sexual figure and also a motherly one. It's a real like Madonna and horror situation before—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —that was even a thing.
AMANDA: But less problematic, I hope?
JULIA: Yes, very much less problematic than that. But she is, for example, both said to be married to Horus, but she was also said to have nursed him during his infancy.
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: So it's— she's playing a lot of roles here. But before we dig into all of that, we're gonna have a little epithet corner, because—
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: —Hathor, Amanda, she's got a lot of names, and it'll really give you a good sense of, like, who she is and her many roles.
AMANDA: I love an epithet. It feels like the evolution of poetry corner. And also, when I was an English major, I loved the paratextual details, the stuff around it. What is the book like to hold, to feel, to look at. And I love that we have so many things that this god or goddess is known for that you can play with in poetry—
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: —and an imagery for gods.
JULIA: Oh, Amanda, don't worry. We're gonna have a poetry corner at the end.
AMANDA: Yay.
JULIA: All right. So here— here's her little epithet corner. She is the Eye of Ra. She is the Lady of the Holy Country, Lady of the West, the Distant Goddess, the Foremost One in the Bark of Millions, Lady of the Stars, and Lady of the Southern Sycamore. She is the Hand of God, Mistress of the Desert, Mistress of Heaven. And perhaps most aptly, for this list, One of so Many Names.
AMANDA: Hey, I love that. There's like so much we can't even cover, you know, all in one name, how good this lady is.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. And I loved that when we were doing our Greek mythology series, the idea of, like, these gods have so many different titles and so many different names. And I like that we're really honing that in for Hathor here, because I think she is well deserving of it. And with so many names, you can tell she's a pretty important goddess. She's tied to a lot of things that we know were very important to the ancient Egyptians. So love, beauty, music, dancing, fertility, pleasure, as well as being a protector of women.
AMANDA: Right on.
JULIA: She's also kind of, unsurprisingly, very identifiable in art. She is portrayed as a beautiful woman wearing a red solar disc between a pair of cow's horns, which is an allusion to her animal form, which is, of course, a cow.
AMANDA: Very, very motherly, an animal close to my heart.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: It was a cow, you know, stuffy when I was first born, and I continue to have. Cowie, Jr., the sequel to my original Cowie, because the original Cowie is so loved that he is threadbare, that now we have Cowie, Jr., continues to be on my bed today.
JULIA: Have you ever seen the services that, like, restore old very well-loved, like, plushies to their pre-existing condition?
AMANDA: I have, and I cry and cry every damn time I see images of that. My grandma did a little repair on Cowie when I was young because the nose was like pleather and got flaked away.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And so she replaced it with suede, which I love, my favorite part of Cowie.
JULIA: Also, the fact that she is a cow is very relevant to the fact that that is the form she took when she was nursing the baby Horus.
AMANDA: Hmm. Makes sense.
JULIA: So she is, as her association with love, beauty and pleasure and fertility suggest, considered the most seductive and alluring of the Egyptian deities.
AMANDA: That's awesome. I— again, like I read a lot about motherhood and mothers, even though that's not an experience that I have or intend to have.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And I know that it can be— it can feel complex to kind of, like, transition from, you know, a person who defines yourself or is excited about, like your sexual, you know, appeal or interest, or just like your own sexuality. And you often have to, like, kind of rediscover what that is like once you are a parent. And so I love that Hathor is like best mom, so sexy. Let's take both of those together.
JULIA: So sexy and also, like— you know, again, neither of us are mothers, and I know that kind of dealing with the literal physical transformation that—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —happens to your body during pregnancy and then after birth is something that takes a lot of time to adapt to. So—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —shout out to Hathor for being, like, the embodiment of that.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: She also is so tied to love, beauty, pleasure, fertility, that when the Greeks colonize Egypt, they actually associate Hathor with Aphrodite.
AMANDA: Oh, right on.
JULIA: Yeah. So additionally, her erotic nature made her the patron goddess of Egyptian poetry, especially poems about lovers.
AMANDA: Incredible. Lots of good reasons to use poetry, but one of the best, is to send to a lover.
JULIA: Yes, I agree. I love just erotic poetry in both the Greek sense and also in the sexy sense.
AMANDA: I know it's a thing. I read lots of romance novels, but erotic poetry doesn't do it for me.
JULIA: Okay. That's fair.
AMANDA: And so I think it's a wonderful art that I'm glad people enjoy. It's not my ministry, as they say.
JULIA: I think that there is a nice middle ground between, like, well-written romance novels—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —and erotic poetry, where you're like, "All right, we're getting a little flowery when describing a penis." But then, like, you get it in the romance novel, you're like, "No, no, that's hot. I get it."
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah. yeah, I need it like— as, like, one line on a page, you know?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And not like the whole poem, but that— that's just my preferences, you know?
JULIA: That's fair. Hey, listen, everyone's got a yuck, everyone's got a yum, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah. And if your yum is sexy poetry, Hathor has got you.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. Also Sappho, so just saying.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So I mentioned earlier that Hathor is known as the Mistress of the Sky and the Mistress of the Stars, and part of that is because she is a celestial goddess. She is said to dwell in the sky with Ra and the other sun deities. And part of this association is because of a slightly different creation story than what we've heard before in this series. Now, the Egyptians believed that the sky was a body of water through which the sun god sailed, which we've discussed before. We've talked about the kind of bark the ship that Ra sails across the sky every day. But they also believed that the water that the sky is connected to is the cosmic waters from which the sun emerged at the beginning of time.
AMANDA: Nice. This does make me picture, Julia, for your bachelorette party. We did drinking around the world—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —in Epcot.
JULIA: Yes, we did.
AMANDA: And we concluded with you sobbing and looking up at the manatees in in the aquarium. And I don't think this aquarium had this, but do you know the aquariums where you can, like, kind of walk through a tunnel?
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Where the tank goes above you?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: That's what I'm picturing the world as—
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: —in these cosmic waters—
JULIA: That is kind of beautiful.
AMANDA: —like under the cosmic archway.
JULIA: It always makes me think of like when you were learning about what, particularly Europeans believed the— like, the world was. It was like Earth, and then the sky, and then the dome, and then the firmament above that.
AMANDA: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
JULIA: You know what I mean? So this was— in my mind, this is like the firmament, but the firmament is water.
AMANDA: Yeah. Oh, so good. And also, like how Dr. McTier talks about the— you know, like the nebula—
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: —and the beginning of the universe. So I love the watery, swampy metaphors for the start of life.
JULIA: And there is a lot of liquid, and universe, and stars metaphors in Egyptian mythology that we'll talk a little bit about—
AMANDA: Julia, if somebody else spills their seed on the ground and consumes it to prove dominance over another, you have to tell me upfront.
JULIA: It's not this one. It's not this one. I promise, I promise.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: There's a little bit of a sexy part in this, but it's not that.
AMANDA: It wasn't sexy was the problem.
JULIA: Yeah. Well, sexual, I guess then, instead.
AMANDA: Okay, okay.
JULIA: All right. So the spin in this version of the creation story, however, is that Hathor was said to be a cow that emerged from those cosmic waters and then gave birth to the sun god and placed him between her horns, hence, the imagery that I was describing earlier. And as such, it was said that Hathor gives birth to the sun god each and every dawn. Obviously, this story doesn't quite work with the other myths that we've discussed so far in the series, so it's not really like the Egyptian canon as we know it.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But a lot of, like, early Egyptian mythology was not codified in the way that we understand it to be codified now, and so you have a lot of different creation stories and a lot of different like sun gods and a lot of different cosmic mothers. And in this particular one, Hathor is our cosmic mother.
AMANDA: If Hathor has to give birth every day, then she sure does deserve worship.
JULIA: Damn, right. I'm just saying. So her other names, as I mentioned, kind of link her to celebration. She is the mistress of music and dance and garlands and, funnily enough, drunkenness.
AMANDA: Oh, okay.
JULIA: Fun fact, she is the goddess that you would pray to if you want a hangover cure.
AMANDA: Hey.
JULIA: I love that.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Big fan of that.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: So hymns and temple music were played in her honor, especially songs including tambourines, harps and lyres, but she was particularly associated with the sistrum, which we've talked about before, I think, in our Isis episode. It's this rattle-like instrument—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —that often Isis is seen holding, but also Hathor is also seen holding.
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: But because religious music is associated with Hathor, it was also very important that this instrument is hers, particularly this version of the sistrum that is carved into a sort of U-shape like that.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: And it is mimicking the head and horns of Hathor.
AMANDA: Nice. I love the shape, echoing the shape of the goddess that it's meant to use. Oh, so good.
JULIA: So I really like this one. It also has a little bit of, like— the sistrum has a little bit of, like, a erotic connotation, and it was used on a lot of fertility rituals because it alludes to the creation of new life.
AMANDA: Okay. Yeah. Kind of like, you know, a U sort of— I don't know.
JULIA: It's kind of vaginal shape.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: I see it.
JULIA: Yeah. So now when you think of that little rattle, you're only gonna think of vaginas. Sorry.
AMANDA: Julia, do you remember the first time that you realized that Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings do indeed look like vulvas?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: I remember specifically someone being like, "Well, obviously, they look like vulvas." And I was like, "Oh."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: That makes so much sense.
JULIA: That's why I like it so much sense.
AMANDA: That makes so much sense. But it's like, I can't unsee it, and now I feel like if I ever look up an image of this instrument, I'll be like, "Ah."
JULIA: I'll pull one up for you. I will pull one up real quick. So this is the particular one that—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —would be for Hathor.
AMANDA: Yeah. No, I see it. Yeah.
JULIA: They're kind of U-shape. Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah. Any shape can be a vagina if you try hard enough.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. That is true. That is true. I've heard that said before. You might remember, Amanda, the fact that I referenced the sycamore tree as one of her epithets as well. And this is because the Egyptians believed that the sycamore tree, especially the milky sap of the sycamore tree—
AMANDA: I see.
JULIA: —was seen as a symbol of life.
AMANDA: I see where this is going.
JULIA: It's not the kind of milky sap that you're thinking of.
AMANDA: Oh no.
JULIA: But rather, it was said to be Hathor's milk.
AMANDA: Oh, okay. All right. All right.
JULIA: Remember, we're talking about a goddess and not a god.
AMANDA: No, you're right.
JULIA: If we're talking about a god, it would be another milky substance, however.
AMANDA: You're right. It's the only substance that female-bodied gods make is milk, yeah.
JULIA: Only milk.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Yeah. There's nothing else.
AMANDA: Nothing else.
JULIA: There's no— what else would we be thinking of?
AMANDA: No. Nothing happened.
JULIA: No. No, no, no.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: Hathor's milk, which is represented by the sap of the sycamore tree, was said to have life-giving properties like the water of the Nile.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Which is, again, linking her to fertility.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: So we see her nursing the king, nursing gods like Horus, often in her cow form, or that sort of anthropomorphic mix of cow and human.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Interestingly, Amanda. So she's associated with the sycamore tree. She's associated with cows, not her only animal association.
AMANDA: Really?
JULIA: Yes. So the uraeus, which is the sacred cobra of Egyptian mythology, you often see it on, like, crowns that the pharaohs would wear.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Or like pendants that the pharaohs would wear, et cetera, et cetera. That was also associated with Hathor, often seen in art of her, representing her ferocious and protective nature, especially in her role as the Eye of Ra.
AMANDA: That's awesome, because the cow is definitely, like, docile, you know, nurturing, et cetera—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —sustaining, but, like, she's got some bite to her, and I love that she's got the cobra, too.
JULIA: Yeah. And a mother cow is very protective of her babies as well. Like she will— she'll run you down and stuff like that.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But it makes sense to include the cobra into this, and we'll really talk about her position as the Eye of Ra, which is like this kind of protective force a little bit later. But in this form as the uraeus, she is known as Hathor of the Four Faces—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —which is represented by a set of four cobras emerging from the sun disc in her head, each facing in one of the cardinal directions to watch for threats against the sun god.
AMANDA: Incredibly metal. I would like a compass with that engraving, please.
JULIA: Ooh, that would be hot, actually. I'm kind of into that. I'm really into that. She's also seen sometimes in lioness or cat form, which is how she is seen when she has been, like, pacified in her peaceful state. So the lioness is the non-peaceful state.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: The cat form is the more peaceful state. And it also ties her to two other goddesses that we'll be talking about in future episodes, Bast and Sekhmet.
AMANDA: Nice. I'm excited.
JULIA: Which we've done a whole episode on Sekhmet, but we're gonna revisit Sekhmet, because I freaking love Sekhmet. She's one of my favorite goddesses.
AMANDA: Hooray.
JULIA: And finally, she is sometimes shown as being a sycamore tree, not just associated with it, but also— like her upper body is human and then she's emerging out of the trunk.
AMANDA: Oh, like a mermaid situation.
JULIA: Kind of like mermaid situation.
AMANDA: Bottom half tree.
JULIA: Yes, bottom half tree.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: But also kind of like a dryad situation, I would say
AMANDA: Julia, as long as the trees got titties, I'm okay with that.
JULIA: That tree got titties. That tree had titties. It, like, stops at the waist, so tree had titties.
AMANDA: That's important.
JULIA: So we've talked a little bit about her mythological origins, this idea that she emerges out of the cosmic waters. There are some stories where she is another one of the children of Nut and Ra. And rather than being the mother of Ra, she is a child of Ra, the daughter of Ra.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: But in most major myths, she is the wife of Horus when he becomes the sun god, when he takes over for Ra.
AMANDA: Nice. That makes sense, because he's, like, elevated to, like, cosmic daddy, and then she's going to be cosmic mommy.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. But important for us to know is her historical origins.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So she was worshiped very early in Egyptian history, possibly even starting in the pre-Dynastic Period.
AMANDA: Oh, damn.
JULIA: So she's, like, one of the first ones in there.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So we know that there were other cattle goddesses as early as the fourth millennium BCE, but Hathor herself might not have appeared until the Old Kingdom. So we know, like, a version of her was being worshiped at some time, but, like, the solidification and the name of Hathor didn't appear until the Old Kingdom.
AMANDA: Makes sense.
JULIA: And scholars actually believe that Hathor absorbed a previous cow deity known as Bat, who was said to have made the Milky Way, or was the personification of the Milky Way.
AMANDA: Hey.
JULIA: Because the stories go that it was the milk that flowed from the udders of the heavenly cow.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Isn't that beautiful?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Again, we were kind of going back to this idea of, like, "Ah, the nebula and the cosmic waters and stuff like that." The fact that this goddess that is pre-Hathor is so, like, associated with the Milky Way, and seeing that, like, beautiful pattern of stars overhead.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I truly love that.
AMANDA: Kind of blows my mind that we were calling it, you know, some version of milky or milk-like, you know, 4,000 years ago.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: It's incredible.
JULIA: I mean, humans are unique in a lot of ways, but sometimes we're just like, "Yeah, it looks like milk."
AMANDA: "That's milk right there."
JULIA: "Yeah, that's milk. That's milk." I don't know. So under the Old Kingdom, she became one of the most important deities worshiped across all of Egypt. She had more temples dedicated to her than any other goddess, and she was also worshiped in the temples of Ra and Horus as her association with them as both, like, consort or daughter or, you know, mother.
AMANDA: Important feminine figure.
JULIA: Yes, important feminine figure. Doesn't matter if it's wife or mother or daughter. She was important, regardless. She also was associated with foreign lands, kind of similar to Set.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But rather than like, you know, the foreign armies are heading towards Egypt, it was more like, you know all those, like, valuable goods we have, like incense and precious stones that we can't get here?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Hathor brings them back to Egypt for us.
AMANDA: So mom-coded.
JULIA: So mom-coded.
AMANDA: I mean, Julia, how many times do you go to someone else's house as a kid and you're just like, "Whoa, the hand soap smells so good or just different."?
JULIA: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Like, we always had, like, Dial hand soap—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —like from Costco sizes that we refilled, but some houses had, like, lavender soap, and I was like, "Whoa."
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: And it just like— to me, it's just like the feminine mystique is smelling of something.
JULIA: Amanda, I know exactly what you're talking about, because when we got our house, I was like, "No, no, I'm gonna buy the fancy hand soap."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And now we got the Meyer's hand soap that smells—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —like honeysuckle, and I have different flavors. Flavors?
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah.
JULIA: Scents for, like, the kitchen versus the bathroom and stuff like that.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: Rain in the bathroom, honeysuckle in the kitchen, obviously.
AMANDA: Do we build equity? I don't know.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: Do we have multiple flavors of Mrs. Meyer's? Yes, we do.
JULIA: Yes, we do. Yes, we do. So as time went on, Hathor's domain was somewhat encroached by other goddesses like Isis. However, she still remained widely worshiped until kind of the end of ancient Egyptian religion. Which is honestly very impressive to start pre-dynastic and go all the way into, like, the Roman conquering period. It really speaks to how important she was.
AMANDA: It does. And we've also seen a lot of examples of kind of this, like, you know, predominant religion, like feminine, you know, figure or god, that ends up being kind of like, "Well, she kind of becomes, like, aspects of her," or like worship in other ways—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —like later gods. We talked about this with some, like, old Celtic goddesses, for example.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But for her to, like, retain an identity and a worship, despite having other sort of more specified women gods develop over time—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —pretty impressive.
JULIA: Yes, honestly, very impressive. Really, Isis took a lot of her worship, which makes sense as the mother of Horus.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And so the fact that Hathor comes in and she's like, "All right, well, I'm— then I'm the wife of Horus," is kind of impressive in both a religious and a mythological sense.
AMANDA: It is. Well, I want to hear some more of her stories.
JULIA: Yes. I'm really excited to tell you more about her as a goddess and her important stories, but Amanda, we got to get a refill first.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
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JULIA: Hey, it's Julia, and welcome to the refill. Let's start, of course, by thanking our newest patrons, uh…manda and Anna. Thank you so much for joining our Patreon at patreon.com/spiritspodcast, where you get a bunch of really cool rewards, like ad-free episodes, recipe cards, both cocktails and mocktails for every single gosh darn episode, and a bonus urban legends episode each and every month. If that is something that interests you, go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast right now, where you can sign up and become a patron like our supporting producer level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Scott.
And our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. All that and more at, again, patreon.com/spiritspodcast. My recommendation for you this week is a book that I am, according to my Libby account, 20% of the way through, but am very much enjoying, it is The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal. I am very much enjoying it. Is a murder mystery set on a galactic cruise ship going from Earth to Mars. And it is very enjoyable. I love a sci-fi twist on a classic murder mystery, and this is really doing it for me. So that is The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal. And hey, just as a reminder, you know that you can call us and leave us a voicemail about your urban legends. We ask that they are about a minute long, give or take, and you try to get the best recording quality possible. But you can call us at 617-420-2344, and submit a urban legend voicemail. We really are excited about this, so check it out and call us. And also check out another show here at Multitude, Big Game Hunger. Big Game Hunger is a weekly comedy show where Jenna Stoeber and friends craft the next big video game every episode. Starting with a randomly generated genre, concept and vibe, Jenna and a variety of funny game-obsessed guests, myself included, will take these ideas far enough that they can pitch them to a shadowy board of rich investors. And by the end of the episode, they'll have honed an IP so irresistible that you will be ready to risk $25 for it on Steam. So get ready to laugh about games you love, learn about game trends, and yearn for titles that will surely never make their release date. New episodes every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. And hey, I want you to think about someone in your life, whether that is your loved ones, your friends, your family, your therapist. Think about how they have supported you over the last year, and how incredibly important they have been to your growth, and your mental health, and your kindness to yourself. And this is a month that is all about gratitude, and along with the person that you just thought of just now, there is another person that we don't get to thank enough, and that is ourselves. It's sometimes hard to remind ourselves that we are trying our best to make sense of everything in this crazy world, and it is not always easy. So here is a reminder to send some thanks to the people in your life, yourself included, and the best way to start thanking yourself and reminding you that, hey, you're doing your best out there in this very difficult world, is to start going to therapy. I know therapy has really benefited me in a lot of ways. Therapy has just made a rough year a lot easier, and I want that for everyone. I want everyone to have a better year than what it started like. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/spirits today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits. Spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from Uncommon Goods. The holiday season is here, as much as I don't want it to be, but it is time to start thinking about, hey, what are you going to give your loved ones for the holidays? And Uncommon Goods makes that a less stressful thing for me every single year, because they have incredible handpicked gifts for everyone on your list all in one spot. They scour the globe for original, handmade, absolutely remarkable things. And somehow they know exactly the perfect gift for every single person that you might be buying a gift for. I know for a fact that I am getting a friend of mine, from Uncommon Goods, a sweatshirt that has her dog's face embroidered, like right on the chest there, and I know she is going to love it. And it is so cool that Uncommon Goods has all of these incredible, customizable gifts that I can get my friends and family for the holidays. And when you shop at Uncommon Goods, you're supporting artists and small independent businesses. Many of their handcrafted products are made in small batches, so you have to shop now, before they sell out for the holiday season. And they look for products that are high-quality, unique, and often handmade, and made in the US. They have the most meaningful out of ordinary gifts anywhere. And they even have gifts that you can personalize, like I mentioned. So to get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommon goods.com/spirits. That's uncommon goods.com/spirits for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon Goods, we are all out of the ordinary.
LUCY: Before there was internet fraud and phone scams, there were always swindlers. Female swindlers, too. Discover the stories of women from the past who not only survived, but fly as con artists and thieves. How did they use their feminine characteristics to swindle in a world where men made the rules? Join me, Lucy Worsley, historian and author, and my all-female team in Lady Swindlers, wherever you get your podcasts.
JULIA: And now, let's get back to our show.
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JULIA: Amanda, we are back from our refill, and since we have our cow goddess here, I thought the most appropriate cocktail for this episode would be a milk punch.
AMANDA: Julia, if this cocktail was not milky like the sky, get it, like the Milky Way, I would have been very disappointed.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, do you know a little bit about the history of milk punches?
AMANDA: I have no fucking idea, Julia, because milk punch seems like, why would you put booze and milk? It'll separate. Ew.
JULIA: That's a good question. Well, milk punch is actually one of the older cocktails that is available to us out there. They date back to at least the 1600s, that's the first time it was written about.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: And they seem very appropriate for Hathor. And if you want to get very fancy, and I think— I'm saying this is very fancy, but you can do this at home. You can do a clarified milk punch, which is a little bit time-consuming, but not as hard as people think it is.
AMANDA: Walk me through.
JULIA: So, basically, what you're doing for a clarified milk punch is you are intentionally curdling the milk with a bit of citrus, whether it's lime, or lemon, or what have you.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And then you strain out those milk solids using— usually, like— some people use coffee filters, some people use cheesecloth. But whatever is going to get those, like, you know—
AMANDA: The bits.
JULIA: The bits out. And then once you do that, you have this clear boozy cocktail with a really cool, I hate to use the phrase mouth feel, but like texture. Mouth texture. It comes out feeling milky but it is clear, which is incredible.
AMANDA: That's really cool. It's kind of like a consummate like, when you reduce a stock or a liquid down—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —so much and, like, filter and filter it that it actually is clear. And it's like, "Whoa. This looks like water, but it tastes like chicken."
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Like, that's the feeling I get whenever I have a clarified milk punch where I'm like, "I taste the milk, but there's no milk in it."
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: It's great.
JULIA: You know what the best milk punch I've ever had was, Amanda? And it's a wild location that I had it in.
AMANDA: Oh, my.
JULIA: It was in a hotel bar in Universal Orlando.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: And it was a, like, rum-based bar, so it was like a rum milk punch. It was clarified.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: And it would like— came in, like, a little clear milk bottle when they dropped it off to me—
AMANDA: Cute.
JULIA: —so I could just keep refilling it as— not as much as I want, but, you know—
AMANDA: Until it was over.
JULIA: 'Till it was done.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And it was so good. So the bar at Sapphire Falls, if you're ever in Orlando, Florida, order the clarified milk punch. It's very, very good.
AMANDA: Listen, I know we have ConSpiriters down there, so go on over and say hi.
JULIA: Let's get back to Hathor. I want to tell you more about some of the aspects of Hathor that I haven't mentioned yet, but I think are really fun and interesting. So I mentioned earlier, for example, that she is a celestial goddess, that she is the Lady of the Stars, and she specifically was associated with the nocturnal sky.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So this also ties to her role as the Eye of Ra where she was the— either like the embodiment of the sun first thing in the morning, like just as it's rising, or sometimes seen in the sky as the Evening Star, which we know now is the planet Venus.
AMANDA: Right on. And I love the unintentional association with the god Venus.
JULIA: I was gonna say because, again, she was associated with Aphrodite, and then the Roman version of that is Venus. Isn't that cool?
AMANDA: It is cool.
JULIA: So the Greeks would later honor her as a moon goddess, though this aspect was really only during that period of colonization. There's no real, like, Egyptian ties to her being a moon goddess, but it's worth noting that the celestial continued there. And so she was also seen as a goddess of precious metals, gemstones, and any material that shared the radiant qualities of celestial bodies, like the sun, the moon, the stars. So things like gold, and silver, and copper, and turquoise, and lapis lazuli, which I think is kind of awesome. The fact they were like, "These things remind us of the sun, so therefore Hathor is associated with them."
AMANDA: I think that's amazing. And, you know, again, in— thinking about like as a kid, what did I think moms wear? A big part of that was like a jewelry cabinet. And there's a great picture of me as a kid wearing like 100 of my grandmother's, like, costume jewelry necklaces.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And just being like, "Yeah,: which I, you know, I still feel like a little bit sometimes. And I love that Hathor has the domain of all these, like, beautiful things.
JULIA: Yes. it reminds me of the board game that really wasn't a board game, but the board game Pretty, Pretty Princess, Amanda.
AMANDA: Hmm. Oh, snaps for Pretty, Pretty Princess.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: So nice. One time we found a set at a garage sale, and so we had doubles of some of the jewelry.
JULIA: Smart. Good call.
AMANDA: And I was like, "Oh, baby. Like, you know, I'm gonna wear that green ring."
JULIA: Very good call. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I just remember I used to make my cousin James, who was a year older than me, play with that all the time. And sorry. Sorry, James.
AMANDA: James, you are a pretty, pretty princess. I don't have to tell you.
JULIA: Yes. You were at the time. I'm just saying. Good for you. And then finally, Amanda, speaking of these beautiful things, and the fact that she was the goddess of beauty, she's also the patron goddess of cosmetics.
AMANDA: Ooh, good. Well, now, that we make reels, Julia, people can enjoy— we both gone ahead and styled our hair today.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: We both have some, like, winged liners, some highlighters, some dark creases. I have a little bit of, like, cheek highlighter.
JULIA: I love that.
AMANDA: Bring some warmth in.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: You're welcome.
JULIA: So Amanda, by doing that, by wearing our makeup, we are actually worshiping Hathor.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And we have found in many temples to Hathor offerings of mirrors or cosmetic palettes, which I think is extremely adorable because makeup is for Hathor.
AMANDA: I love that idea. Also, you know, when you get to, like, the bottom of, like, an eyeshadow palette or something?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And either there's like a color that you don't wear enough, and so you're like, "Oh, what am I gonna do? Like, wear the highlighter as I go, whatever?"
JULIA: Okay. I guess I gotta wear the green now, yeah.
AMANDA: I was gonna say, the green, like I'm not—
JULIA: It's always the green.
AMANDA: I'm not gonna wear the green very much.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: I love the idea that you'd be like, "All right. Well—"
JULIA: That's for Hathor. That's for Hathor.
AMANDA: "—she'll use the colors I don't use."
JULIA: Any color looks good on Hathor.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Because she's the goddess of that.
AMANDA: She's so pretty.
JULIA: She can make anything work, just like a TikTok star. I love that for her.
AMANDA: You're like, "Wow, you really did sponcon about this turquoise eyeshadow, huh?"
JULIA: I did, I did.
AMANDA: Like, wow.
JULIA: Good for her.
AMANDA: Good for you.
JULIA: Yeah. Good for her. Make that money, Hathor.
AMANDA: Love it. Love the spawn for you.
JULIA: All right. So as the celestial cow who lifted the sun god into the heavens, Hathor was worshiped as the mother of all of the child gods, whose birth was a celebration of the ability of the cosmos to renew itself.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: This kind of beautiful like, "Oh, yes, the waters are constantly giving." And you know, even if these gods are emerging out of it with no, like, lineage, they'll always have Hathor to be their mother.
AMANDA: Right on. I love that.
JULIA: Which is really cool. She was the protector of women, especially during birth. And in art, she is often shown in her cow form, maternally protecting the young Horus, inside a papyrus thicket on the shores of the Nile.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: In some— in these stories where she is shown nursing Horus, the ability and the power to rule enters Horus through the milk of Hathor.
AMANDA: Oh, shit.
JULIA: So again, she's not only important because she's nurturing the future king of the gods, but she is also the one who is giving him this ability and power to rule.
AMANDA: Yeah. And in the sort of, like— I forget the exact word for it, but like the divine right to rule.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Like a society where, you know, the ruling is because of the gods.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: That's like an extremely important bit of statecraft as well.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. So again, her role as either mother or daughter does kind of shift and get a little confusing. But in her role as the Eye of Ra, which we've talked about, she was said to be the, quote, "daughter of Ra who protects her father."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So in this role, she also has the epithet of the foremost one in the bark of the millions, which I mentioned earlier. So she would be the one that stands at the front of the solar bark, leading the defense of Ra as the ship travels across the sky.
AMANDA: Incredible. Like the ultimate sort of like person, like masthead, right? Like the person at the top of the ship?
JULIA: Exactly.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I also really like it. I don't watch a lot of Below Decks, but the idea of her being like the cool captain on Below Decks is kind of sexy to me.
AMANDA: Yeah, she's Captain Sandy. She's Captain Sandy.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah, she is. I love that for her.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So additionally, especially in the Underworld books, Hathor was known as the goddess of the West. She welcomed the setting sun into her outstretched arms—
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: —every single day.
AMANDA: And again, as like the foreperson of that boat, she is the one who, like, first kind of touches the shores of night, if you will.
JULIA: And then she's like, "Come daddy, come."
AMANDA: Right. Come on in.
JULIA: So she represented this transition from death to new life. She's the one that opened the gates of the Underworld to those traveling there. And in her form of the sycamore tree, she revived the newly dead with shade, air, water, and food.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: And it was said that the dead would drink from the milk of Hathor, which is what would give them eternal life.
AMANDA: Oh, wow. What a beautiful thing to sort of, like, partake in the, you know, milk of rule and life—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —as your sort of, like, sustenance into the afterlife.
JULIA: Yes. And again, it's this kind of, like, this sort of beautiful idea that not just kings get to go to the afterlife.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: You know, not just the Lords, not just the priests, not just the scholars. Everyone can drink from the milk of Hathor, just like the baby Horus did.
AMANDA: Well put.
JULIA: Isn't that amazing?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It's so beautiful. It's like— it's not egalitarian, because there is still, like, ruling classes and the—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —balance of Ma'at and everything like that.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But it is also Ma'at that everyone gets to have this thing.
AMANDA: Yeah. It's not withheld from you, and it is something that waits for you after your life, you know, in the Mortal Realm.
JULIA: While that is her role with the dead, Amanda, life was also very much an important part of her aspect. And we've talked a lot about the worship of gods and goddesses in ancient Egypt, but we haven't talked a lot about private worship. We've talked about public worship, but not private worship.
AMANDA: Hmm. Very true. Talk a lot about, like, temples and offerings, like, what you do at the temple of, you know, Ra or whatever.
JULIA: Yes. So home worship was something that was very intimate for Egyptians, and Hathor was one of the goddesses that was not only worshiped at her temple, and she had a lot of them, but she was also worshiped in the home. So she was called upon for fertility—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —and also importantly, safe childbirth.
AMANDA: Of course.
JULIA: And that worship took primarily place in household shrines.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: So a fun fact about ancient Egyptian birth practices for you.
AMANDA: All right.
JULIA: So Egyptian women often squatted on bricks while giving birth, and these bricks that were known as birthing bricks were decorated with gods and goddesses that would bring blessings to the birth.
AMANDA: Okay. I presume you've spent a bunch of time there, so I'm glad you got to look at something.
JULIA: Exactly. Now, we only have one complete surviving birth brick from ancient Egypt. There's a couple of, like, incomplete ones, or, like, you know, fragments and stuff like that.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But the one that we have that is complete depicts a woman holding her child while flanked by images of Hathor.
AMANDA: Oh, nice.
JULIA: So it's really beautiful, and like, the fact that she was so important that she is there for the birth of that child is—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —incredible. And this association also ties her to the worship of the Nile, this fertility worship.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Because she was also said to be responsible for the yearly flooding of the Nile, which mimics a pregnant woman's water breaking before birth.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. I mean, fair.
JULIA: Yeah, the flood of water.
AMANDA: An unexpected flood.
JULIA: There we go.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah. Comes at any moment. You never know.
AMANDA: You know, pregnant people, God bless you.
JULIA: I've seen enough TV shows where pregnant people, all of a sudden, they're, like, walking around and all of a sudden, "Pssh."
AMANDA: Aaah.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Pretty sure it doesn't work like that, but you know?
JULIA: I don't know how much water happens when the water breaks, but—
AMANDA: It is not unlike the annual flooding of the Nile that brought fertility and agriculture to the Fertile Crescent.
JULIA: There you go. So now that we have sort of the full shape of the shifting form of Hathor, let's get to her role in the stories of ancient Egyptian mythology. And we're going to start with a kind of silly, kind of sexy story about Hathor.
AMANDA: Okay, okay.
JULIA: It's not as bad as the salad one.
AMANDA: Yep. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: Oh, Julia, I did just want to show you a photo real quick.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: We don't always record in person, but when we do, I did just want to— I thought of you when I saw this the other day.
JULIA: Oh, no. It's a squeeze bottle that says salad cream.
AMANDA: Hey, that's Egyptian mythology, baby.
JULIA: I saw someone do the meme of— you remember a while back, it was the porno where the roommate is like, "In front of my salad?"
AMANDA: No. I'm sorry, I don't.
JULIA: It's just a woman, like, eating a big salad, and then she's like, "My roommate and his fuck buddy are fucking right in front of me."
AMANDA: Okay, sure.
JULIA: And she's like, "Right in front of my salad?"
AMANDA: They did the threesome?
JULIA: No, I don't know. I didn't watch enough of the porn to know. I just saw the screenshot.
AMANDA: Okay, okay, okay.
JULIA: But that's—
AMANDA: Anyway—
JULIA: Someone was made that meme where they had set— you know, jerking off and then they were like, "In front of my salad?"
AMANDA: I love that that crossed your dashes specifically.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. It was on— it got tagged in the Spirits account so many times that—
AMANDA: Thank you.
JULIA: —it would be impossible for me not to see it.
AMANDA: Yeah. If y'all don't follow Spirits on Tumblr, you're missing out. Incredible stuff.
JULIA: You're— I'm just saying, just saying. Okay. Silly, sexy story. Pretty quick this one.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: This is the Story of Ra. Ra has become angry because he was insulted by the baboon god, Babi.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Kind of like a petulant child, he decides that he's so mad that he's gonna lie down his back and refuse to administer Ma'at.
AMANDA: Oh, Julia. Oh, no. He's like rag dolling like a toddler.
JULIA: Yeah. He's like, "No, I don't want to go outside. I want to stay here and watch Bluey."
AMANDA: He's blanketing.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. Obviously, this is bad for numerous reasons. Obviously, Ma'at needs to be maintained.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But also, the sun is refusing to do its job. And—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —if the sun sinks back into the waters of chaos from which it emerged, that means the end of the world.
AMANDA: Yeah. Nope, you can't— Ra can't have any days off.
JULIA: No. No, no, no. Ra cannot have days off, so Hathor has to step in. In this part, Hathor goes to where Ra is laying on the ground, stands over him, and does what any person would do in this situation, which is show him her genitals.
AMANDA: Okay, sure. Sure.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. It wouldn't be my first choice personally to do in this situation, but it works.
AMANDA: I mean, this is kind of, like, flashing someone your butt, like, "Hey."
JULIA: Yeah. Or just, like, titties.
AMANDA: Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
JULIA: Yeah. Ra immediately laughs, again, not the reaction I would had, but sure, which brings him out of his petulant mood.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: And he gets back up, and he goes about his usual activities.
AMANDA: He get the job done. There you go.
JULIA: The way that the scholar who translated the story, the way that they phrased it was she quote, "Has aroused the sun god and driven away his evil mood."
AMANDA: All right.
JULIA: Extremely silly, extremely funny.
AMANDA: That's very good.
JULIA: Just hilarious, honestly.
AMANDA: Good thinking.
JULIA: Yeah. Now, the next one that we're gonna do is probably one of the most well-known stories about Hathor, which is also actually the story of the god of Sekhmet, who is an aspect of Hathor.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: So the story goes, and this is going to sound familiar, because we kind of touched it about it in the Ra episode, but Ra heard that the mortals were plotting against him. They're planning a rebellion.
AMANDA: Always.
JULIA: He immediately reacts harshly and decides to send down the Eye of Ra, Hathor, to punish the humans plotting against him.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Hathor, the radiant goddess that she is, then transforms into the lioness Sekhmet, and massacres all these rebellious humans.
AMANDA: Hmm. Oh, and then it gets bloody and she makes wine or beer?
JULIA: Yeah. Okay, so—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —in her blood lust, she is said to then abandon Ra, refusing to return back to him. And this is when she becomes known as the distant goddess—
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: —because her feline form is roaming the deserts beyond Egypt, and like returning every now and again and just slaughtering a bunch more humans, and then going back.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Back and forth and back and forth.
AMANDA: She had the taste of blood, and she could not say no.
JULIA: Exactly. And Ra is like, "This might lead to the destruction of all of humanity."
AMANDA: Yep. Well, shit.
JULIA: "I fucked up a little bit. I sent her on a mission, and she doesn't know when to stop." So he has to intervene. So he orders that a bunch of beer be dyed red and poured over the land.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: Now, the Eye of Ra, Sekhmet, Hathor transformed. She begins to drink the beer, thinking that it is the blood of humans, like you do. Sure. Why not?
AMANDA: And gets drunk, falls asleep.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. So when she is fully intoxicated, she becomes calm, reverting back into the benign and beautiful cow goddess Hathor.
AMANDA: Incredible story. Most of the time getting drunk to the point of, you know, intoxicate— like true intoxication, does not make you calm, but for some people, it does. And so—
JULIA: Sometimes you just get sleepy.
AMANDA: —I love that this worked for her.
JULIA: Yeah. I always like the videos online of people being like, "When the drinks start tasting like—" and then insert a thing you do when you're drunk. Like, "When the drinks start tasting like running away from your friends." You're like, "Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm."
AMANDA: Yeah. Like naps.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah. And when the drinks start tasting like, "I gotta go to sleep."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Stuff like that.
AMANDA: Fair enough.
JULIA: So as such, because of the story, Hathor has become associated with music, dancing, feasting and drunkenness, because these are the things that are supposed to pacify her when she goes into Sekhmet mode.
AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, listen, if I'm real mad, music, dancing, feasting, and drunkenness is probably not gonna hurt.
JULIA: Yeah, exactly. And because of this, this is sort of the mythological reasoning as to why musical and festive elements are important to Hathor's worship.
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: Yeah. So it was considered proper for the whole of creation to rejoice when Hathor appeared again in her radiant beauty cow form and then joined forces with Ra once again.
AMANDA: Ma's got to cut loose sometimes.
JULIA: Mom's got to cut loose sometimes. Mom's gonna go, like, slaughter some humans and then drink a bunch of beer sometimes. It just— it happens.
AMANDA: Parents, sound off. Is that relatable?
JULIA: Uh-hmm. And then this is also very relevant to our final story, which is called the Tale of the Herdsmen. Now, this is a incomplete story from the Middle Kingdom, and it features Hathor in two different forms. Because it is incomplete, we kind of, like, know the shape of the story, but not the specifics.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: So we make a lot of assumptions about it, but I'm gonna tell it the way that most scholars assume it's supposed to go down. So there is this herdsman, he is out there with his cattle, and he comes across this hairy animal-like goddess while on the marsh, and he is terrified by her appearance. He's like, "Oh, scary. I gotta get away."
AMANDA: "Naked, hairy. Oh, no."
JULIA: "Naked and hairy. Oh, no, the worst possible things a woman could be."
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: So he runs away, only to be like, "I wonder if that goddess is still there the next day." And so He returns to the same spot the next day—
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: —only to find the same goddess, this time, nude and alluring, wringing out her beautiful hair as she bathes in the Nile.
AMANDA: Ah. Hair only in the place hair is supposed to be, the head.
JULIA: Yes. So because the story is not complete, again, we don't have a ton of information, but most Egyptologists believe that this is Hathor in the story.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And the herdsmen encountered her like dangerous, wild aspect the first day.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: And then the belief is that the herdsman was not the only one on the marsh that day. You know, this idea that when he ran away, worshipers came to celebrate the goddess through a party.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Had some drunken revelry, music, and dancing, and everything like that, which appeased her, and then she reverted back into her benign and erotic form, which is what the herdsman encounters the next day.
AMANDA: I wish that I woke up after a night of drunken revelry refreshed—
JULIA: Looking hotter.
AMANDA: —beautiful. I woke up like this.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: But it's my hottest.
JULIA: I'm realizing it's really the opposite for a lot of us.
AMANDA: Yes, I would say so.
JULIA: It really is, huh?
AMANDA: Yeah, it really is.
JULIA: My hair looks crazy a day after partying, I wake up and I'm like, "I never showered in my life, apparently."
AMANDA: Yeah. I've— I'm— I've never been puffier is how I feel.
JULIA: Never been puffier, so many smudges and my makeup, all over the place.
AMANDA: But, Julia, maybe that's the metaphor. Maybe we're supposed to take from this story that, you know, Hathor with the, you know, important and, like, soul-fulfilling experience of being celebrated and indulging and celebrating, remembering why it's good to be alive, that when you wake up the next day, that is your hottest, yo.
JULIA: I think Hathor just wants us to let loose. That's what it is.
AMANDA: Hathor wants us to let loose and probably also hydrate, so we wake up feeling great.
JULIA: Well, a lot of her stuff is about milk and also the waters of the Nile, so yeah, she does want us to hydrate.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: She's also not lactose intolerant.
AMANDA: I know.
JULIA: Must be nice, Hathor. Must be nice.
AMANDA: Must be nice.
JULIA: All right. So I'm gonna finish out, Amanda, with a poetry corner.
AMANDA: Hooray.
JULIA: There are several great surviving hymns to Hathor found in her temples that are still around to this day. And I've picked one that is from the central kiosk at the entrance of her temple at Medamud. And I think it really sums her up greatly, and will also wrap us up nicely. This is only the beginning of it, but this really— this does it for me, you know?
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: All right. "Come, oh, Golden One who eats of praise because the food of her desire is dancing, who shines on the festival at the time of lighting the lamps, who is content with the dancing at night. Come! The procession is in the place of inebriation, that hall of traveling through the marshes. Its performance is set, its order is in effect, without anything lacking in it."
AMANDA: Oh, that's so beautiful. It's like those moments when, like, you're ready for the party, then you hear the doorbell ring.
JULIA: And you're like, "Let's go. Let's go. It's happening. It's ready."
AMANDA: That's the feeling I get.
JULIA: I also— I think this is, like, that mood where everyone has arrived to the party.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And then, like, the vibe is going— like the energy is high, not at its peak yet. And, like, also, not everyone is, like, getting super sleepy.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: This is, like, the moment before everyone starts wandering into the kitchen.
AMANDA: Yes. Like, you go into the kitchen to grab something, you come out and you're like, "Oh, it's a party now."
JULIA: "Oh, it's a party now."
AMANDA: Oh, what a good feeling.
JULIA: I love that. Isn't that nice? I think Hathor should kind of give us that feeling all the time when we think about her.
AMANDA: Well, thank you for bringing her story. I can't wait to see her interact with future episodes, and I'm so glad to know about her now.
AMANDA: Yeah. You know, she is mother, she is daughter, she is wife, she is a complicated woman, which we love on this podcast, certainly.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: And she is a great introduction to several other goddesses that I am very excited for us to talk about, with even more episodes coming our way. We're not ending, Amanda, when the new year begins. We are coming at it, hot and fresh until we run out of gods and goddesses.
AMANDA: I am so glad that denial isn't just a river in Egypt. It's what we've been doing by keeping an Egyptian mythology series from you on Spirits Podcast by Spirits Podcast, is going into year two, baby.
JULIA: Year two. Woop, woop, woop.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: Not just 12 goddesses, we gotta get all of them in.
AMANDA: Well, Julia, next time you look up at the sky and go, "Doesn't that remind you of a cosmic teat?" Remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: —stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyrs.
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