From Homer we find that Aquarius is associated with Ganymede, the first mortal ever to become immortal. He was taken to Olympus by Zeus to be the cup-bearer of the gods. He stands with what appears to be either nectar, the drink of the gods, or water coming out of the cup.
Roman homosexuals had made it appear that Zeus, the most heterosexual of all gods with no flings with men, had taken Ganymede as an eagle to Olympus for sexual reasons. It is more likely, of course, that Eos, the Dawn, had abducted him, and that Zeus took him away from her. Eos is not very good at keeping her lovers. Needless to say, Hera was quite vexed at the insult as Ganymede had replaced her daughter Hebe. Zeus and Hera quarreled, as often they did, and finally the frustrated Zeus simply put Ganymede in the heavens.
But the story is much more mundane than that: Ganymede, who was the son of King Tros (who gives his name to Troy) was the most beautiful youth alive, and the gods wanted him as their cupbearer. In turn, King Tros was given some very fine gifts.
It is also said that Aquarius is not Ganymede at all, but Cecrops who ruled Attica before there was wine and therefore water was poured during sacrifices instead. Cecrops was originally from Egypt, and introduced good laws and perhaps some Egyptian gods to Greece. Although he has a wonderful reputation, some make him a monster, half man and half snake. No doubt that he spoke two languages and perhaps had much commerce with his old land of Egypt he must have been a monster.
Modern astrologers associate Aquarius with the Eleventh House and with it "ideals" or "aspirations" or some kind of idealization. While in part this is true, it is perhaps much more subtle than that. The glyph for Aquarius (m) is a modification of the Egyptian sign for the waters, the waters above and the waters below. Aquarius symbolizes the entire realm of the metaphysical, where the invisible and heavenly waters spill over onto this earth and we human beings. Just as the soul is poured into the inanimate materiality of the human body, so does what is above pour into the earth below. What is above is immortal and it is what is alive and brings us life to us.
That Ganymede was the first mortal to be given immortality means that he was the first man to be able to realize and to understand the waters above and to bring them to others. The modern notion of the "ideals" is nothing more than the corruption of the Greek eide whose pure and eternal unities are likened to being above us in the heavens.
Between the lines in Plato’s Philebus, we discover that the gods are nothing more than the ancient reports of the eide. But as all things are made of the eide, the genera, and the good that is beyond all being, we have the gods to lead to us an understanding of that world above that is the cause of life and all our intellectual understanding.
By Kalev Pehme
winshop.com.au/annew/MythsZodiac.html
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