Uranus, << YUR uh nuhs >>, was the first god of the sky in Greek mythology. According to the ancient Greek poet Hesiod, Uranus was the child of Gaea, or Ge, who was the earth. Uranus had no father.
Uranus and his mother mated and produced 3 hundred-handed monsters called Hecatoncheires; 3 one-eyed giants called Cyclopes; and the 12 Titans, the first race of gods. Uranus feared his children, hated their violence, and tried to imprison them deep within their mother. Wracked with pain, Gaea angrily sought help from her Titan children. Only Cronus, the youngest and craftiest son, responded. Using a sickle that his mother gave him, Cronus cut off his father’s sex organs. He then became king of the gods.
The goddess Aphrodite sprang full-grown from the foam that arose as Uranus’s severed organs fell into the sea. From the drops of blood that fell on the earth emerged the Erinyes (Furies in Roman mythology), goddesses of vengeance; the Giants, a race of huge beings; and the Meliae, a race of nymphs.
