Byblis (mythology)
Byblis ( ancient Greek Βυβλίς Byblís ) is a figure of Greek mythology , daughter of Miletos with (depending on tradition) either Eidothea , Tragasia or Kyaneia .
Although there was no shortage of suitors in the surrounding area, she turned them all away, as she had fallen in love with her own brother Kaunos and was passionately longing for him. She was aware of the iniquity of such a relationship, kept her feelings a secret from the world, but ultimately could not resist them. She flirted with her brother and was jealous of his women acquaintances.
According to Antoninus Liberalis , tormented immeasurably by her unfulfilled love, she decided to go to the mountains and throw herself off a rock to her death. However, nymphs took pity on her, held her back, and accepted her into their ranks by making her a hamadryad . The trickle that sprang from the rock was called by the locals "Tear of the Byblis".
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After Ovid, however, she finally decided to confess her love to her brother. But he harshly rejected her and condemned her outrageous desire. This led to the fact that her longing lost all measure and she made further attempts to get close to her brother. He finally left the country. She chased him through many areas for a long time, until she collapsed exhausted and wet the grass with a sea of tears. The nymphs tried unsuccessfully to straighten her up and eventually created an inexhaustible water vein from beneath her. In this water, Byblis melted in her own tears and became a spring that still bears the name Byblis today.
Others say Byblis blamed herself for her brother's escape and took it to heart so much that she hanged herself on an oak tree with her hairband. From her tears a spring finally began to flow at her feet, which was named after her Byblis.
Byblis is also the namesake for the carnivorous plant genus Byblis .
literature
- Adolf Schirmer: Byblis . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1.1, Leipzig 1886, Col. 839 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Ulrich Hoefer : Byblis 4 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 1, Stuttgart 1897, Col. 1098 f.
- Gereon Becht-Jördens, Peter M. Wehmeier: The incest dream of the Byblis in Ovids Metamorphoses. About a neglected forerunner of Freud on a central theme of his dream interpretation . In: Eckhart Rüther et al. (Hrsg.): Träume (series of publications by the German-speaking society for art and psychopathology of expression e. V. 20). VIP-Verlag Integrative Psychiatrie, Innsbruck 2001 ISBN 3-85184-022-4
Web links
- Photos of depictions of the Byblis in art, in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
Individual evidence
- ↑ Umberto Quattrocchi: CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names: Common Names, Scientific Names, Eponyms, Synonyms, and Etymology . CRC Press, Boca Raton (FL) 1999, ISBN 0849326737 , p. 381.