Aurora (mythology)

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Aurora is the Roman goddess of dawn. Her Greek counterpart was Eos. Aurora is the Latin word for dawn. Hesiod described her as the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. She was the sister of Helios, the sun, and Selene, the moon. By the Titan Astraeus, she became the mother of the winds and of the evening star. In Greek mythology she was also represented as the lover of the hunters Cephalus and Orion.

In legend, Aurora renews herself every morning at dawn and flies across the sky, announcing the morning's arrival. She also has many husbands and four sons, one for each cardinal direction: North, East, South, and West. One of her lovers was Tithonus. Aurora asked Zeus to grant immortality to Tithonus. However, she failed to ask him for eternal youth. As a result, Tithonus ended up aging eternally.

In classical literature, Aurora appears in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and in the poem 'Tithonus' by Lord Alfred Tennyson.

The asteroid 94 Aurora was named after her.