Hesperides

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Recording from Poppaea ascribed Roman villa in Oplontis , the modern Torre Annunziata near Naples in Campania in Italy . The motif in the middle represents Heracles in the garden of the Hesperides.
The Hesperides in their garden, Frederic Leighton (1830–1886)

The Hesperides ( ancient Greek Ἑσπερίδες , Hesperídes ) are nymphs (the clairvoyant daughters) of Greek mythology . Their number varies between three and seven, depending on the source.

myth

Aigle , Arethusa , Erytheia , Hespere , Hesperusa (also: Hesperthusa ) and Hespereia are named as Hesperides . They are sometimes called the "African sisters". There are different statements about who her father is: Sometimes Erebos is referred to as this, sometimes Atlas , sometimes Hesperos (the evening star ).

The statement of her mother is just as different. Hesiod names Nyx (goddess of the night) as such , other sources Hesperis , the female embodiment of the evening star d. H. the Roman Venus . It is unclear whether Hesperis can also be associated with the Greek form of Venus, Aphrodite. However, all of these family trees indicate the location of the Hesperides in the furthest west as seen from Greece.

However, this shifted over the centuries with increasing geographical knowledge of the Greeks to the Ocean, which flows around the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. The same happened with the stories revolving around the Hesperides and their most prominent sister Erytheia with the cattle of the giant Geryon , the apple-guarding dragon Ladon and the goblet of the sun god received from Heracles for his trip to Erytheia .

Accordingly, depending on the author and his period of life, different places of residence are always named on the edge of the earth known to the Greeks - first in Greek Arcadia , then in the Great Syrte near today's Benghazi (formerly known as Euhesperides ), in Campania , then in Morocco near the Atlas and finally on one of the islands in the Atlantic . Which of these islands are the Hesperides has not yet been fully clarified (perhaps the Canaries or Cape Verde ).

The Hesperides kept a miracle tree with golden apples in a beautiful garden, which Gaia the Hera grew for her wedding to Zeus . The apples gave the gods eternal youth. The tree was guarded by the hundred-headed dragon Ladon . Only Heracles was able to steal the apples. By a trick he persuaded Atlas , the father of the Hesperides, to pick the apples for him, since he needed them for the fulfillment of his twelve jobs and, for a short time, took over the task of carrying the vault of heaven. Eurystheus, however, to whom Heracles gave the apples, passed them on to Athena , who put them back in their place. In Irish mythology , the Hesperides apples are mentioned in the story Aided Chlainne Tuirenn ("The Death of the Children of Tuirenn").

reception

The hesperid material was musically edited several times. In 1721 Pietro Metastasio wrote the libretto for the Serenata Gli orti esperidi , for which Nicola Antonio Porpora composed the music. In 1764 an opera with the title Alcide negli Orte esperidi ( Herakles in the Hesperian Gardens ) was performed in Vienna ; The libretto is by Marco Coltellini , composed the music Gian Francesco de Majo .

When Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the term used to describe the citrus. Linnaeus was based on Giovanni Baptista Ferrarius (1584–1655, Italian botanist), who wrote about the genus Citrus as early as 1646 in his work Hesperides sive de malorum aureorum cultura et usu libri quator and speaks of the golden fruits of the Hesperides. So both scholars probably remembered the mythological sources when they saw the golden peel of various citrus fruits and assigned the name Hesperides to the citrus fruits. However, there is no evidence of knowledge of citrus fruits in classical Greece. Even the tree with the golden apples was believed to be exactly where the world ended and the Titan Atlas carried the vault of heaven.

The perfumery took up this name creation, and so citrus scents are not only referred to as citrus , but often also as hesperidia . The citrus bioflavonoids , which also have their raw material origin in their name (hesperidin complex) , are of medical interest .

Constellation

In early Greek antiquity, the constellation Little Dipper represented the Hesperides. Their apples were represented by the Big Dipper. In between is the constellation Dragon , which represents Ladon. According to some perspectives, the hesperides sit on his wings.

various

An Austrian vinegar specialty is called Hesperiden vinegar .

Web links

Commons : Apples of the Hesperides  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Hesperides  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Mariassunta Cuozzo, Ancient Campania. In: Guy Bradley, Elena Isayev, Corinna Riva (eds.): Ancient Italy: regions without boundaries. University of Exeter Press, Exeter 2007, p. 240.
  2. The tree with the golden fruits is the symbol of eternal youth or love and fertility. Little Pauly. Lexicon of Antiquity, II, "Hesperides". Stuttgart 1967.