*H₂éwsōs

H₂éwsōs or H_aéusōs is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European name of the dawn goddess in the Proto-Indo-European mythology.
H₂éwsōs is believed to have been one of the most important deities worshipped by Proto-Indo-European speakers due to the consistency of her characterization in subsequent traditions as well as the importance of the goddess Uṣas in the Rigveda.
Her attributes have not only been mixed with those of solar goddesses in some later traditions, most notably the Baltic sun-deity Saulė, but have subsequently expanded and influenced female deities in other mythologies.

Name

Etymology

The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European name of the dawn, h₂éwsōs, derives from the verbal root h₂wes- extended by the suffix -ós-. The same root also underlies the word for 'gold', h₂ews-om, inherited in Latin aurum, Old Prussian, and Lithuanian áuksas.
The word for the dawn as a meteorological event has also been preserved in Balto-Slavic *auṣro, in Sanskrit , or in Ancient Greek αὔριον.
A derivative adverb, h₂ews-teros, meaning "east", is reflected in Latvian àustrums, Avestan ušatara, Italic aus-tero-, Old Church Slavonic ustrŭ, and Germanic austeraz. The same root seems to be preserved in the Baltic names for the northeast wind: Lith. auštrinis and Latvian austrenis, austrinis, austrinš. Also related are the Old Norse Austri, described in the as one of four dwarves that guard the four cardinal points, and , attested in medieval Germanic literature.

Epithets

A common epithet associated with the Dawn is Diwós Dʰuǵh₂tḗr, the Daughter of Dyeus, the sky god. Cognates stemming from the formulaic expression appear in the following traditions: 'Daughter of Heaven' in the Rigveda, 'Daughter of Zeus', 'Daughter of Dievas'. Also in northern Albanian folk beliefs Prende, a dawn goddess, is regarded as the daughter of the sky god Zojz.

Depiction

Eternal rebirth

The Dawn-goddess is sometimes portrayed as un-ageing and her coming as an eternal rebirth. She is ἠριγένεια as an epithet of Eos in the Ancient Greek Iliad, and the Ancient Indian Rigveda describes Ushas, the daughter of Dyáuṣ, as being born from the harnessing of the Aśvins, the divine horse twins driving the chariot of the sun.

Colours

A widespread characteristic given to the Dawn is her 'brilliance'; she is generally described as a "bringer of light". Various cognates associated with the dawn-goddess indeed derive from the Proto-Indo-European root bʰeh₂-, meaning 'to glow', 'shine'. The Vedic Ushas is described as , the Avestan as and the Greek Eos as φαινόλις, , or , attested in the Orphic Hymn to the Dawn.
H₂éwsōs is usually associated with the natural colours of the dawn: gold, saffron, red, or crimson. The Dawn is 'gold-coloured' in the Rigveda, 'the golden-yellow one' in Ovid's Amores, and 'gold-throned' in a Homeric formula. In Latvian folk songs, Saulė and her daughter are dressed of shawls woven with gold thread, and Saulė wears shoes of gold, which parallels Sappho describing Eos as 'golden-sandalled'.
Eos is also 'saffron-robed' in Homeric poems, while Ushas wears crimson garments and a "gleaming gold" veil. The Hindu goddess is also described as a red dawn shining from afar; "red, like a mare", she shoots "ruddy beams of light", "yokes red steeds to her car" or "harnesses the red cows" in the Samaveda. Saffron, red and purple are colours also associated with the dawn by the Latin poet Ovid.

Movements

H₂éwsōs is frequently described as dancing: Uṣas throws on embroidered garments 'like a dancer', Eos has 'dancing-places' around her house in the east, Saulė is portrayed as dancing in her gilded shoes on a silver hill, and her fellow Baltic goddess Aušrinė is said to dance on a stone for the people on the first day of summer. According to a Bulgarian tradition, on St. John's Day, the sun dances and "whirls swords about", whereas in Lithuania the Sun rides a car towards her husband, the Moon, "dancing and emitting fiery sparks" on the way.
The spread hand as the image of the sun's rays in the morning may also be of Proto-Indo-European origin. The Homeric expressions 'rose-armed' and 'rosy-fingered Dawn', as well as Bacchylides' formula 'gold-armed', can be semantically compared with the Vedic formulas 'golden-handed' and 'broad-handed'. They are also similar with Latvian poetic songs where the Sun-god's fingers are said to be 'covered with golden rings'. According to Martin L. West, "the 'rose' part is probably a Greek refinement."
Another trait ascribed to the Dawn is that she is "wide-shining" or "far-shining" - an attribute possibly attested in Greek theonym Euryphaessa and Sanskrit poetic expression .

Dwelling

Another common trait of the Dawn goddess is her dwelling, generally situated on an island in the Ocean, or sometimes in an Eastern house.
In Greek mythology, Eos is described as living 'beyond the streams of Okeanos at the ends of the earth'. A more precise location is given in the Odyssey, by poet Homer: in his narration, Odysseus tells his audience that the Aeaean isle is "where is the dwelling of early Dawn and her dancing-lawns, and the risings of the sun".
In Slavic folklore, the home of the Zoryas was sometimes said to be on Bouyan, an oceanic island paradise where the Sun dwelt along with his attendants, the North, West and East winds.
The Avesta refers to a mythical eastern mountain called . The Yasnas also mention a mountain named, possibly meaning "crack of dawn" or "having reddish cracks".
In a myth from Lithuania, a man named Joseph becomes fascinated with Aušrinė appearing in the sky and goes on a quest to find the 'second sun', who is actually a maiden that lives on an island in the sea and has the same hair as the Sun. In the Baltic folklore, Saulė is said to live in a silver-gated castle at the end of the sea, located somewhere in the east, or to go to an island in the middle of the sea for her nocturnal rest. In folksongs, Saule sinks into the bottom of a lake to sleep at night, in a silver cradle "in the white seafoam".

Vehicle

Carrier

The Dawn is often described as driving some sort of vehicle, probably originally a wagon or a similar carrier, certainly not a chariot as the technology appeared later within the Sintashta culture, generally associated with the Indo-Iranian peoples. In the Odyssey, Eos appears once as a charioteer, and the Vedic Ushas yokes red oxen or cows, probably pictorial metaphors for the red clouds or rays seen at morning light. The vehicle is portrayed as a biga or a rosy-red quadriga in Virgil's Aeneid and in classical references from Greek epic poetry and vase painting, or as a shining chariot drawn by golden-red horses. According to Albanian folk beliefs the dawn goddess Prende is pulled across the sky in her chariot by swallows, called Pulat e Zojës 'the Lady's Birds', which are connected to the chariot by the rainbow that the people also call Brezi or Shoka e Zojës 'the Lady's Belt'.
Saulė, a sun-goddess syncrethized with the Dawn, also drives a carriage with copper-wheels, a "gleaming copper chariot" or a golden chariot pulled by untiring horses, or a 'pretty little sleigh' made of fish-bones. Saulė is also described as driving her shining car on the way to her husband, the Moon. In other accounts, she is said to sail the seas on a silver or a golden boat, which, according to legend, is what her chariot transforms into for her night travels. In a Latvian folksong, Saule hangs her sparkling crown on a tree in the evening and enters a golden boat to sail away.
In old Slavic fairy tales, the Dawn-Maiden "sails the sea in the early morning in her boat of gold with a silver paddle" and sails back to Buyan, the mysterious island where she dwells.

Horses

The Dawn's horses are also mentioned in several Indo-European poetical traditions. Homer's Odyssey describes the horses of Eos as a pair of swift steeds named Lampos and Phaethon, and Bacchylides calls her 'white-horsed Dawn'. The vehicle is sometimes portrayed as being drawn by golden-red horses. The colours of Dawn's horses are said to be "pale red, ruddy, yellowish, reddish-yellow" in the Vedic tradition.
Baltic sun-goddess Saulė's horses are said to be of a white color; in other accounts they amount to three steeds of golden, silver and diamond colors. In Latvian dainas, her horses are described as yellow, of a golden or a fiery color. The sun's steeds are also portrayed as having hooves and bridles of gold in the dainas, and as golden beings themselves or of a bay colour, "reflect the hues of the bright or the twilight sky". When she begins her nocturnal journey through the World Sea, her chariot changes into a boat and "the Sun swims her horses", which signifies that "she stops to wash her horses in the sea". Scholarship points that the expressions geltoni žirgeliai or zelteni kumeliņi, which appear in Latvian dainas, seem to be a recurrent poetic motif.
Although Zorya of Slavic mythology does not appear to feature in stories with a chariot or wagon pulled by horses, she is still described in a tale as preparing the "fiery horses" of her brother, the Sun, at the beginning and at the end of the day.

Role

Opener of the doors of heaven

H₂éwsōs is often depicted as the opener of the doors or gates of her father the heaven : the Baltic verse, which Saulė is urged to open to the horses of the son of God, is lexically comparable with the Vedic expression , which Ushas opens with her light. Another parallel could be made with the 'shining doors' of the home of Eos, behind which she locks up her lover Tithonus as he grows old and withers in Homer's Hymn to Aphrodite.
A similar poetic imagery is present among Classical poets, although some earlier Greek source may lie behind these. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Aurora opens the red doors to fill her rosy halls, and in Nonnus' Dionysiaca the Dawn-goddess shakes off her sleep and leaves Kephalos's repose in order to 'open the gates of sunrise' (ἀντολίης ὤιξε θύρας πολεμητόκος Ἠώςsfn|Dixon-Kennedy|1998|pp=321–322transliteration|non|fyr Dellings durum