Cyknos (son of Poseidon)

Kyknos (right) after his transformation

Cyknos ( Greek  Κύκνος , swan , Latin Cygnus) is the son of Poseidon and the kalyke in Greek mythology .

This article or section needs to be revised: see discussion contributions on etymology! There are also opinions that Kyknos can be derived from the Anatolian or Luwian name Kukunni; but this can only be meaningfully supplemented when the (ancient) Greek explanations are completed and relativized.
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It was called Kyknos by fishermen because they found the abandoned child surrounded by swans on the beach. Cyknos became king of Kolonai at the Troad . Misled by the calumnies of his second wife Philonome and a flute player, he had his two children thrown into the sea in a box with his first wife Prokleia , Tenes and Hemithea ; they landed on Tenedos , where Tenes became king. When the lie was exposed, Kyknos had the flute player stoned and his wife buried alive. Cyknos later found his son again and fought the Trojan War with him to support the Trojans against the Greeks. He tried with his troops to prevent the Greeks from landing on the coast of the Troas. Cyknos proved to be a brave fighter and when it came to a duel with Achilles , he was unable to kill Cyknos because of his invulnerability by weapons. Finally Cyknos stumbled and was strangled by Achilles with the helmet strap and immediately turned into a swan. According to Quintus of Smyrna , Cyknos' weapons were later a competitive prize at the funeral games for Achilles.

swell

• Library of Apollodor Epitome 4, 3, 23-25 ​​and 31
• Hyginus , Fabulae 157
• Ovid , Metamorphoses 12.70ff.
• Pausanias 10.14.1
• Quintus of Smyrna 4,153. 468
• Strabo 13: 1, 19

literature

• Richard Engelmann : Kyknos 2 & 3 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.1, Leipzig 1894, Col. 1695-1697 ( digitized version ).
• Ada Adler : Kyknos 3. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XI, 2, Stuttgart 1922, Sp. 2438-2441 ( digitized version 1 , 2 ).
• Robert Louis Fowler: Early Greek Mythography. Volume 2: Commentary. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, pp. 534 f. - ISBN 9780198147411