Maia, the daughter of Atlas, went up into the holy bed of Zeus and bore him glorious Hermes, herald of the deathless gods.1
Hesiod names her among the loves of Zeus: Maia, the daughter of Atlas, went up into the god's holy bed and bore to him glorious Hermes, the herald of the deathless gods.2
From her name her son is known across the Homeric epics. When Eumaeus the swineherd divides the feast, he sets one portion aside with a prayer for the nymphs and for Hermes, son of Maia.3
Apollodorus places her among the seven daughters whom Atlas had by Pleione, daughter of Ocean, called the Pleiades and born at Cyllene in Arcadia: Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygete, and Maia. Zeus consorted with the daughters of Atlas, and Maia, the eldest, as the fruit of her union with him gave birth to Hermes in a cave of Cyllene.4
The nymph of the Cyllenian cave was also a nurse. When Callisto perished — the more general account being that Artemis shot her down — Zeus snatched up the babe, named it Arcas, and gave it to Maia to bring up in Arcadia, so that the infant ancestor of the Arcadians was reared at the same mountain where her own son was born. Callisto herself, by this telling, Zeus turned into a star and called the Bear.5
Her place among the Pleiades left its mark on her son's first invention. Hyginus relates that when Mercury first made the lyre on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, he fitted it with seven strings to match the number of the Atlantides, since Maia, his mother, was of their company.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
