Maybe it is appropriate that the Virgilian planets, Aeneas and Dido, resemble earlier fictional versions of Mars and Venus? Mars, the god of war, had a relationship with Venus, the goddess of love. Aeneas, a warrior and a son of Venus, had a relationship with Dido, Queen of Carthage. Thus, Aeneas and Dido parallel Mars and Venus. Dido's resentment at her abandonment by Aeneas caused (mythologically speaking) the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, featured in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol story, "Delenda Est," because Aeneas was an ancestor of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.
Virgil wrote the Aeneid about Aeneas. Lavinia, the outer moon of Aeneas, is named after Aeneas' last wife. Thus, the mythology is ever-present even if usually forgotten.
David Falkayn's home planet, Hermes, is named after the Greek equivalent of Mercury. Adzel's and Axor's home planet, Woden, is named after the Germanic god who became Odin. Chee Lan's home planet, Cynthia, is named after its human discoverer's mistress, thus an incarnation of Venus if we see it that way.
2 comments:
Strictly, the original (Proto-Germanic) name of the deity was *Wothenjaz. Probably from a word meaning "fury" or "possession", cognate with the original of "Hercules".
Kaor, Paul!
While not a name from mythology, there's also the planet Ivanhoe, seen twice in the Technic stories, almost certainly taken from Sir Walter Scott's novel IVANHOE.
Ad astra! Sean
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