Hyakinthos
Hyakinthos ( Greek Ὑάκινθος ) is in Greek mythology a son of Amyklas , the king of the Spartans , and Diomede or Pieros and the muse Klio . Some call Oibalos or Oebalus as a father. He is a lover of the god Apollo .
myth
The striking beauty of Hyakinthos caught the attention of Apollo. A fateful accident while throwing a disc - Apollo accidentally hit Hyakinthos with the disc and thus killed him - the love ended early. From the blood that was shed, the grieving Apollo created a flower , the petals of which formed the cry of lament ("AI AI").
In another version of this myth , Zephyros was jealous of Hyakinthos' love for Apollon and therefore deflected the disc in the air, so that Hyakinthos met and killed.
“Furiously I pursued Zephyrn up to the mountain, and shot all my arrows at him in vain: but I set up a high burial mound for the boy at Amycla , at the place where the unfortunate discus struck him down; and from its blood, Mercury , the earth had to drive out the most beautiful and loveliest of all flowers for me, and I marked them with the letters of the lamentation for death. "
Ovid says:
"... quotiensque repellit
ver hiemem Piscique Aries succedit aquoso,
tu totiens oreris viridique in caespite flores."
"Whenever spring chases the winter away
and the rain-bringing fish in the zodiac aries follows,
so often you emerge anew and bloom on a green lawn."
Adoration
Hyakinthos was especially venerated in Amyklai near Sparta. Here he was portrayed as a bearded man, but in other places he was usually portrayed as a boy.
Settings
- Johann Sebastian Bach : Aria of Phoebus-Apollo "With desire I squeeze your tender cheeks" from the cantata Geschwinde, you whirling winds (1729)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : Apollo et Hyacinthus , composed in 1767 as an intermediary to a Latin school comedy.
hyacinth
The lily plant hyacinth is associated with this myth. In today's teaching, however, the majority is of the opinion that irises or delphiniums are more likely to come into question.
Besides Hyakinthos there are other people who have become flowers: Adonis , Klytia , Krokos and Narkissos .
literature
- Wilhelm Greve: Hyakinthos . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,2, Leipzig 1890, Col. 2759-2766 ( digitized version ).
- Michael Pettersson: Cults of Apollo at Sparta. The Hyakinthia, the Gymnopaidiai and the Karneia . Åström, Stockholm 1992, ISBN 91-7916-027-1 .
