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[[File:220px-ApolloHyacCypar.jpg|300 px|thumb|left|Apollo, Hyacinthus and Cyparissus Making Music and Singing by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov]]  
[[File:220px-ApolloHyacCypar.jpg|300 px|thumb|left|Apollo, Hyacinthus and Cyparissus Making Music and Singing by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov]]  
In [[Ancient Greece|Greek mythology]], '''Cyparissus''' or '''Kyparissos''' (Greek: Κυπάρισσος, "cypress") was a boy beloved by Apollo, or in some versions by other deities.<ref>Nonnus, Dionysiaca 11. 362 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
In [[Ancient Greece|Greek mythology]], '''Cyparissus''' or '''Kyparissos''' (Greek: Κυπάρισσος, "cypress") was a boy beloved by Apollo, or in some versions by other deities.<ref>Nonnus, Dionysiaca 11. 362 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
"A young Lakonian [i.e. Hyakinthos] shook Zephyros (the West Wind); but he died, and the amorous Wind found young Kyparissos (Cyparissus) a consolation for Amyklaian Hyakinthos (Amyclaean Hyacinthus)."</ref> In the best-known version of the story, the favorite companion of Cyparissus was a tamed stag, which he accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. Cyparissus asks Apollo to let his tears fall forever. Apollo turns the sad boy into a cypress tree, whose sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyparissus Cyparissus (Wikipedia)]</ref>
"A young Lakonian [i.e. Hyakinthos] shook [[Zephyros]] (the West Wind); but he died, and the amorous Wind found young Kyparissos (Cyparissus) a consolation for Amyklaian Hyakinthos (Amyclaean Hyacinthus)."</ref> In the best-known version of the story, the favorite companion of Cyparissus was a tamed stag, which he accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. Cyparissus asks Apollo to let his tears fall forever. Apollo turns the sad boy into a cypress tree, whose sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyparissus Cyparissus (Wikipedia)]</ref>


Cyparissus was the son of Telephus, and his story is set in Chios. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii.<ref>Cedric G. Boulter and Julie L. Bentz, "Fifth-Century Attic Red Figure at Corinth," ''Hesperia'' '''49'''.4 (October 1980), pp. 295-308. The authors present a possible identification of Cyparissus on a fragment of a Corinthian pot, No. 36, p. 306. The frescoes in the Pompeiian Fourth Style are discussed by Andreas Rumpf, "Kyparissos", ''Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts'' '''63/64''' (1948–49), pp. 83–90.</ref> No Greek cult devoted to Cyparissus has been identified.
Cyparissus was the son of Telephus, and his story is set in Chios. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii.<ref>Cedric G. Boulter and Julie L. Bentz, "Fifth-Century Attic Red Figure at Corinth," ''Hesperia'' '''49'''.4 (October 1980), pp. 295-308. The authors present a possible identification of Cyparissus on a fragment of a Corinthian pot, No. 36, p. 306. The frescoes in the Pompeiian Fourth Style are discussed by Andreas Rumpf, "Kyparissos", ''Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts'' '''63/64''' (1948–49), pp. 83–90.</ref> No Greek cult devoted to Cyparissus has been identified.

Revision as of 13:17, 9 September 2014

Apollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: Ἀπόλλων, Apollōn (GEN Ἀπόλλωνος); Doric: Ἀπέλλων, Apellōn; Arcadocypriot: Ἀπείλων, Apeilōn; Aeolic: Ἄπλουν, Aploun; Latin: Apollō) is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. [1]


Male lovers

Hyacinth

File:Hyacinthus.jpg
Apollo and Hyacinthus, 16th-century Italian engraving by Jacopo Caraglio

Hyacinth or Hyacinthus was one of Apollo's male lovers. He was a Spartan prince, beautiful and athletic. The pair was practicing throwing the discus when a discus thrown by Apollo was blown off course by the jealous Zephyrus and struck Hyacinthus in the head, killing him instantly. Apollo is said to be filled with grief: out of Hyacinthus' blood, Apollo created a flower named after him as a memorial to his death, and his tears stained the flower petals with the interjection The Festival of Hyacinthus was a celebration of Sparta.


Cyparissus

File:220px-ApolloHyacCypar.jpg
Apollo, Hyacinthus and Cyparissus Making Music and Singing by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov

In Greek mythology, Cyparissus or Kyparissos (Greek: Κυπάρισσος, "cypress") was a boy beloved by Apollo, or in some versions by other deities.[2] In the best-known version of the story, the favorite companion of Cyparissus was a tamed stag, which he accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. Cyparissus asks Apollo to let his tears fall forever. Apollo turns the sad boy into a cypress tree, whose sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance.[3]

Cyparissus was the son of Telephus, and his story is set in Chios. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii.[4] No Greek cult devoted to Cyparissus has been identified.

_ _ _ _ _


Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 106 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "In all the throng the cone-shaped cypress stood; a tree now, it was changed from a dear youth loved by the god who strings the lyre and bow [i.e. Apollon]. For there was at one time, a mighty stag held sacred by those nymphs who haunt the fields Carthaean [i.e. on the island of Keos]. His great antlers spread so wide, they gave an ample shade to his own head. Those antlers shone with gold: from his smooth throat a necklace, studded with a wealth of gems, hung down to his strong shoulders--beautiful. A silver boss, fastened with little thongs, played on his forehead, worn there from his birth; and pendants from both ears, of gleaming pearls, adorned his hollow temples. Free of fear, and now no longer shy, frequenting homes of men he knew, he offered his soft neck even to strangers for their petting hands. But more than by all others, he was loved by you, O Cyparissus, fairest youth of all the lads of Cea. It was you who led the pet stag to fresh pasturage, and to the waters of the clearest spring. Sometimes you wove bright garlands for his horns, and sometimes, like a horseman on his back, now here now there, you guided his soft mouth with purple reins.

It was upon a summer day, at high noon when the [summertime constellation] Crab, of spreading claws, loving the sea-shore, almost burnt beneath the sun's hot burning rays; and the pet stag was then reclining on the grassy earth and, wearied of all action, found relief under the cool shade of the forest trees; that as he lay there Cyparissus pierced him with a javelin: and although it was quite accidental, when the shocked youth saw his loved stag dying from the cruel wound he could not bear it, and resolved on death. What did not Phoebus say to comfort him? He cautioned him to hold his grief in check, consistent with the cause. But still the lad lamented, and with groans implored the Gods that he might mourn forever. His life force exhausted by long weeping, now his limbs began to take a green tint, and his hair, which overhung his snow-white brow, turned up into a bristling crest; and he became a stiff tree with a slender top and pointed up to the starry heavens. And the God, groaning with sorrow, said; ‘You shall be mourned sincerely by me, surely as you mourn for others, and forever you shall stand in grief, where others grieve.’” [5]

Other young male lovers of Apollo

  • Atymnius,[6] otherwise known as a beloved of Sarpedon
  • Branchus (alternately, a son of Apollo)
  • Carnus
  • Clarus[7]
  • Hippolytus of Sicyon (not the same as Hippolytus)[8]
  • Hymenaios[9]
  • Iapis
  • Phorbas (probably the son of Triopas)[10]
  • Potnieus[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Apollo (Wikipedia)
  2. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 11. 362 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) : "A young Lakonian [i.e. Hyakinthos] shook Zephyros (the West Wind); but he died, and the amorous Wind found young Kyparissos (Cyparissus) a consolation for Amyklaian Hyakinthos (Amyclaean Hyacinthus)."
  3. ↑ Cyparissus (Wikipedia)
  4. ↑ Cedric G. Boulter and Julie L. Bentz, "Fifth-Century Attic Red Figure at Corinth," Hesperia 49.4 (October 1980), pp. 295-308. The authors present a possible identification of Cyparissus on a fragment of a Corinthian pot, No. 36, p. 306. The frescoes in the Pompeiian Fourth Style are discussed by Andreas Rumpf, "Kyparissos", Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 63/64 (1948–49), pp. 83–90.
  5. ↑ KYPARISSOS
  6. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 11. 258; 19. 181.
  7. ↑ Philostratus, Letters, 5. 3.
  8. ↑ Plutarch, Life of Numa, 4. 5.
  9. ↑ Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 23.
  10. ↑ Plutarch, Life of Numa, 4. 5, cf. also Hyginus, Poetical Astronomy, 2. 14.
  11. ↑ Clement of Rome, Homilia, 5. 15.

External links

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