Iris has many jobs to carry out. She travels with the speed of light from one end of the world to the other and down into the depths of the sea (Poseidon's territory) and Underworld (Hades's territory). Iris links the gods to humanity. She waters the clouds with her pitcher. She also delivers to the gods the sacred water of the River Styx.
Iris is portrayed as a rainbow or a goddess with golden wings on her shoulders. She carries a winged staff or a caduceus (short herald's staff entwined by two serpents and surrounded by wings). She has been described as "swift-footed like a storm wind".
Iris is the daughter of air nymph Electra and Titan Thaumas. She is the sister of Aello, Phineus, Ocypete, Hydaspes, and the Harpies. Iris is Zephyrus's (god of west wind) wife. Zephyrus and Iris are parents of Pothos.
Iris is all around us, though we don't know it. The Spanish word for "rainbow" is "arco iris". The 7 Iris Asteroid was named after the goddess. The deity of Iris is a characte in Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", Disney movie "Fantasia", and Rick Riordan's series "Percy Jackson and the Olympians."
And I have lived alone
I live on an island
And I waken to the dawn
A long time ago
I watched him struggle with the sea
I knew that he was drowning
And I brought him into me
Now today
Come morning light
He sails away
After one last night
I let him go.
My names is Calypso
My garden overflows
Thick and wild and hidden
Is the sweetness there that grows
My hair it blows long
As I sing into the wind
I tell of nights
Where I could taste the salt on his skin
Salt of the waves
And of tears
And though he pulled away
I kept him here for years
I let him go.
My name is Calypso
I have let him go
In the dawn he sails away
To be gone forever more
And the waves will take him in again
But he'll know their ways now
I will stand upon the shore
With a clean heart
And my song in the wind
The sand will sting my feet
And the sky will burn
It's a lonely time ahead
I do not ask him to return
I let him go
I let him go.
- Suzanne Vega
