Lotis (nymph)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The lustful Priapus approaches the sleeping Lotis (detail from the painting The Feast of the Gods by Giovanni Bellini , c. 1514)
The story of Priapus and Lotis (engraving by Giovanni Battista Palumba, c. 1510)

Lotis ( Greek  Λωτίς ) is a nymph from Greek mythology . Exactly into which plant it is transformed is unclear (see also lotus tree ).

At Ovid

It occurs twice in the Roman poet Ovid , who does not indicate its origin.

In his Metamorphoses he briefly recalls her story: pursued by Priapus , the nymph turns into lotus in order to escape the god. Dryope , the daughter of Eurytus (King of Oichalia ), wants to fetch some flowers near a lake, sees her hands covered with the blood of the lotis and is transformed into a tree herself:

“Dryope had picked flowers from the tree, gave them to his little son
to play, and to act like them thought 'I -
for I accompanied them - then I saw
drops of blood fall from the blossom and the branches moved with a trembling shower.
One of the nymphs, as the peasants
who had just recently said, Lotis, had found
her changed body with a retained name while fleeing from Priapus' desires .
The sister was not aware of this, and terrified she
wanted to go and, whom she adores, leave the nymphs
When her foot was rooted to the ground. She wants to tear herself away,
But only above does she move her body [...] "

However, his fasts provide a more complete story of the Liberalia festival, in which Silen's donkey began to scream while Priapus approached the sleeping nymph. Frightened, she ran away screaming and woke the other gods, who mocked Priapus.

Artist's impression

Scenes from the story were artistically represented in different ways.

The story of Priapus and Lotis is encountered, for example, in the painting The Feast of the Gods by Giovanni Bellini (approx. 1514) or in an engraving by Giovanni Battista Palumba (approx. 1510). The copper engraving by Kilian Ponheimer (1757–1828) “Lotos Becomes a Tree” (Vienna, 1791) shows the nymph Lotis, who is transformed into a lotus tree while fleeing from Priapus.

various

The asteroid (429) Lotis is named after the nymph.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Metamorphoses 9,347 ff.
  2. ↑ Metamorphoses 9,342 ff. (In the German translation by Reinhart Suchier, 1862, online )
  3. ↑ Fasti 1,391 ff.
  4. ↑ See the German translation by Karl Geib: Festkalender . Erlangen 1828 ( online ); see. the Latin text in the edition of Fasti by James George Frazer in the Perseus Project .
  5. ↑ Photo (antiquarian catalog) .

swell

literature

Web links