Hyacinth is a divine hero from Greek mythology. His cult at Amyclae, southwest of Sparta, where his tumulus was located, in classical times at the feet of Apollo's statue in the sanctuary that had been built round the burial mound, dates from the Mycenaean era.[1] The literary myths serve to link him to local cults, and to identify him with Apollo, as the god's eromenos, explaining the cult of Apollo Hyakinthos.[2]
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Mythology
In Greek mythology, Hyacinth or Hyacinthus (in Greek, Ὑάκινθος — Hyakinthos) was given various parentage, providing local links, as the son of Clio and Pierus, King of Macedon, or of king Oebalus of Sparta, or of king Amyclas,[3] progenitor of the people of Amyclae, dwellers about Sparta. His cult at Amyclae, where his tomb was located, at the feet of Apollo's statue, dates from the Mycenaean era.
In the myth, Hyacinth was a beautiful youth loved equally by the god Apollo and the West Wind, Zephyr. Apollo and Hyacinth took turns throwing the discus. Hyacinth ran to catch it to impress Apollo, was struck by the discus as it fell to the ground, and died.[4] A twist in the tale makes the wind god Zephyrus responsible for the death of Hyacinth.[5] The youth's beauty caused a feud between Zephyrus and Apollo. Jealous that Hyacinth preferred the radiant archery god Apollo, Zephyrus blew Apollo's discus off course, so as to injure and kill Hyacinth. When he died, Apollo didn't allow Hades to claim the young man; rather, he made a flower, the hyacinth, from his spilled blood. According to Ovid's account, the tears of Apollo stained the newly formed flower's petals with ai, ai, the sign of his grief. The flower of the mythological Hyacinth has been identified with a number of plants other than the true hyacinth, such as the iris.
Hyacinth is the tutelary deity of one of the principal Spartan festivals, the Hyacinthia, held every summer. The festival lasted three days, one day of mourning for the death of the divine hero and the last two celebrating his rebirth.
Interpretation
The name of Hyacinthus is of pre-Hellenic origin, as indicated by the suffix « -nth ». According to classical interpretations, his myth, where Apollo is a Dorian god, is a classical metaphor of the death and rebirth of nature, much as in the myth of Adonis. It has likewise been suggested that Hyacinthus was a pre-Hellenic divinity supplanted by Apollo, to whom he remains associated in the epithet of Apollon Hyakinthios[6].
Bernard Sergent,[7] student of Georges Dumézil, considers that it is rather an initiatory legend, foundation myth of the Spartan institutional pederasty: Apollo teaches Hyacinthus to become an accomplished adult. Indeed, according to Philostratus, Hyacinthus learns not only to throw the discus, but all the other exercises of the Palaestra as well, to shoot with a bow, music, the art of divination, and also to play the lyre. Furthermore, Pausanias reports that statues of Hyacinthus represent him sometimes as bearded, and sometimes beardless; he also mentions his apotheosis, represented on the pedestal of the ritual statue of the young man at Amyclae, his place of worship. The poet Nonnus of Panopolis mentions the resurrection of the young man by Apollo. Sergent finds that the death and resurrection, as well as the apotheosis, represent the transition to adult life.
Iconography
No ancient representation shows Hyacinthus and Apollo together — with the possible exception of a cup by the painter of Akestorides, showing a young boy riding upon a swan. In contrast, he is often shown on Attic ceramics together with Zephyr, either being taken up by the winged god,[8] or engaging in intercrural intercourse lying down.
Spoken-word myths - audio files
| The Hyacinth myth as told by story tellers |
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| 1. Apollo and Hyacinth, read by Timothy Carter |
| Bibliography of reconstruction: Homer, Illiad ii.595 - 600 (c. 700 BCE); Various 5th century BCE vase paintings; Palaephatus, On Unbelievable Tales 46. Hyacinthus (330 BCE); Apollodorus, Library 1.3.3 (140 BCE); Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 162-219 (1CE - 8 CE); Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.1.3, 3.19.4 (160 - 176 CE); Philostratus the Elder, Images i.24 Hyacinthus (170 - 245 CE); Philostratus the Younger, Images 14. Hyacinthus (170 - 245 CE); Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods 14 (170 CE); First Vatican Mythographer, 197. Thamyris et Musae |
Notes
- ^ There have been finds of sub-Mycenaean votive figures and of votive figures from the Geometric Period, but with a gap in continuity between them at this site: "it is clear that a radical reinterpretation has taken place" Walter Burkert has observed, instancing many examples of this break in cult during the "Greek Dark Ages", including Amyklai (Burkert, Greek Religion, 1985, p 49).
- ^ "Apollo Hyacinthus was honoured at a peak sanctuary at Pyrgos near Tylissos, and special coins were minted bearing his name during the Hyacinthia festival in town", notes B. C. Dietrich, in "Evidence of Minoan Religious Traditions and Their Survival in the Mycenaean and Greek World", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 31.1 (1st Quarter 1982:1-12) p. 1; on the mainland, the cult at Amyclae, "quite probably was as old as the Late Bronze Age" (p. 2); see also Dietrich, "The Dorian Hyacinth: A survival from the Bronze Age", Kadmos 14 (1975:133-42).
- ^ pseudo-Apollod. iii. 10.3; Pausanias iii. 1.3, 19.4)
- ^ pseudo-Apollodorus, i. 3.3.
- ^ Lucian,Dialogues of the Gods; Servius, commentary on Virgil Eclogue iii. 63; Philostratus, Imagines i.24; Ovid Metamorphoses x. 184.
- ^ Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, Klincksieck, 1999, article « ὑάκινθος », p. 1149 b.
- ^ Sergent 1986.
- ^ His wings differentiate Zephyrus from Apollo.
See also
- The Mozart opera Apollo et Hyacinthus
- Spartan pederasty
Sources
Modern sources
- Gantz, Timothy (1993). Early Greek Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Kerenyi, Karl (1959). The Heroes of the Greeks. New York/London: Thames and Hudson.
- Calimach, Andrew (2002). Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths. New Rochelle: Haiduk Press.
- Sergent, Bernard (1986). Homosexuality in Greek Myth. Boston: Beacon Press.
External links
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