Kalamos (mythology)

Kalamos ( ancient Greek Κάλαμος Kálamos , German 'reed' , Latin Calamus ) was the son of the river god Maiandros in Greek mythology .

He loved the beautiful young man Karpos , the son of Zephyros with one of the Horen . But when the two lovers were swimming one day in the river Meander , Karpos drowned. Kalamos now asked Zeus to be allowed to die too in order to share the fate of his beloved. It was then turned into a reed and it was said that the sound of rustling reeds was Kalamos' lament over the death of his lover. Karpos became a crop. This myth tells Eros the Dionysos to this over the loss of her beloved Ampelos hinwegzutrösten. The myth also explains the origin of the nameKalamos for a writing instrument made of reed. According to another version of the myth, his lover was named Kissus.

The episode title "Calamus" in Walt Whitman's collection of poems, blades of grass, is probably based on this myth.

swell

• Nonnos , Dionysiaka 11, 370-481
• Servius , commentarius in Vergilii eclogas 5, 48

literature

• Heinrich Wilhelm Stoll : Kalamos . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.1, Leipzig 1894, Col. 920 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hans von Geisau : Kalamaos 1. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 3, Stuttgart 1969, column 53.