Cyparissus
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In Greek mythology, Cyparissus or Kyparissos (Template:Langx) was a boy beloved by Apollo, or, in some versions, by other deities. In the best-known version of the story, the favorite companion of Cyparissus was a tamed stag, which he accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. The boy's grief was such that it transformed him into a cypress tree, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii.<ref>Cedric G. Boulter and Julie L. Bentz, "Fifth-Century Attic Red Figure at Corinth," Hesperia 49.4 (October 1980), pp. 295-308. The authors present a possible identification of Cyparissus on a fragment of a Corinthian pot, No. 36, p. 306. The frescoes in the Pompeiian Fourth Style are discussed by Andreas Rumpf, "Kyparissos", Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 63/64 (1948–49), pp. 83–90.</ref> No Greek hero cult devoted to Cyparissus has been identified.
FamilyEdit
According to the grammarian Servius (4th and 5th centuries AD), Cyparissus was the son of Telephus, and thus the grandson of Heracles.<ref>Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Cyparissus; Servius, Commentary on the Aeneid of Virgil 3.680.</ref>
MythologyEdit
As initiation mythEdit
The myth of Cyparissus, like that of Hyacinthus, has often been interpreted as reflecting the social custom of pederasty in ancient Greece, with the boy the beloved (eromenos) of Apollo. Pederastic myth represents the process of initiation into adult male life,<ref>Bernard Sergent, Homosexualité dans la mythologie grecque, 1984 (Chapter 2), with an introduction by Georges Dumézil, whose lead Sergent follows.</ref> with a "death" and transfiguration for the eromenos. "In all these tales", notes Karl Kerényi, "the beautiful boys are doubles of [Apollo] himself."<ref>Karl Kerényi, The Gods of the Greeks (Thames and Hudson, 1951), p. 140.</ref>
The stag as a gift from Apollo reflects the custom in Archaic Greek society of the older male (erastēs) giving his beloved an animal, an act often alluded to in vase painting.<ref>Gifts of animals from the erastes are discussed as they appear in Attic vase-painting by Gundel Koch-Harnack, Knabenliebe und Tiergeschenke: Ihre Bedeutung im päderastischen Erziehungssystem Athens (Berlin 1983).Template:Page needed</ref> In the initiatory context, the hunt is a supervised preparation for the manly arts of war and a testing ground for behavior, with the stag embodying the gift of the hunter's prey.<ref>Koch-Harnack, Knabenliebe und Tiergeschenke.Template:Page needed</ref>
Similarly, the myth was used to explain the connection of the cypress tree to mourning and sorrow. Forbes-Irving has argued that the cypress as tree of mourning was mostly a Roman tradition, with little evidence of it playing such a role in Greek society.<ref name=":forbs" /> It is possible however that the earlier Greek source of Cyparissus's myth diverged significantly from the surviving later ones, and was originally used to explain the connection of the cypress to Apollo specifically.<ref name=":forbs">Template:Cite book</ref>
Ovid's versionEdit
The tameness of the deer may be the invention of the Augustan poet Ovid,<ref>Ovid tells the tale in the Metamorphoses X 106ff.</ref> and a late literary reversal of the boy's traditional role.Template:Citation needed Ovid's Cyparissus is so grief-stricken at accidentally killing his pet that he asks Apollo to let his tears fall forever. The god then turns the boy into a cypress tree (Latin: cupressus), whose sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk.
Ovid frames the tale within the story of Orpheus, whose failure to retrieve his bride Eurydice from the underworld causes him to forsake the love of women in favor of that of boys. When Orpheus plays his lyre, even the trees are moved by the music; in the famous cavalcade of trees that ensues, the position of the cypress at the end prompts a transition to the metamorphosis of Cyparissus.<ref>Elaine Fantham, Ovid's Metamorphoses (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 162.</ref>
The commentaries of Servius and the Vatican MythographerEdit
According to one of the Vatican Mythographers, another Roman tradition makes the lover out to be the woodland god Silvanus.<ref>Ronald E. Pepin, The Vatican Mythographers, 2008:17</ref> An invocation by Virgil of "Silvanus who bears the slender cypress uprooted"<ref>Virgil, Georgics 1.20: et teneram ab radice ferens, Silvane, cupressum.</ref> was explained in the commentary of Servius<ref>Servius, note to Georgics 1.20 (Latin).</ref> as alluding to a love affair. In his brief account, Servius differs from Ovid mainly in substituting Silvanus for Apollo, but also changes the gender of the deer and makes the god responsible for its death:
Silvanus loved a boy (puer) named Cyparissus who had a tame deer. When Silvanus unintentionally killed her, the boy was consumed by sorrow. The lover-god turned him into the tree that has his name, which he is said to carry as a consolation.<ref>Hic amavit puerum Cyparissum nomine, qui habebat mansuetissimam cervam. hanc cum Silvanus nescius occidisset, puer est extinctus dolore: quem amator deus in cupressum arborem nominis eius vertit, quam pro solacio portare dicitur.</ref>
It is unclear whether Servius is inventing an aition, a story to explain why Silvanus was depicted holding an evergreen bough, or recording an otherwise unknown version.<ref>Peter F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Brill, 1992), pp. 15–16. Servius also mentions this version in his note to Eclogue 10.26.</ref> Elsewhere, Servius mentions a version in which the lover of Cyparissus was Zephyrus, the West Wind.<ref>Servius, note to Aeneid 3.680.</ref> The cypress, he notes, was associated with the underworld, either because they don't grow back when pruned too severely, or because in Attica households in mourning are garlanded with cypress.<ref>Ergo cupressi quasi infernae, vel quia succisae non renascuntur, vel quia apud Atticos funestae domus huius fronde velantur.</ref>
Cyparissus in PhocisEdit
According to a different tradition, a Cyparissus, possibly not the same figure, was the son of Minyas, and the mythical founder of Cyparissus (Kyparissos) in Phocis, which later was called Anticyra.<ref>Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. «Aπολλωνία» and «Κυπάρισσος». Real Enzyclopädie VIII, col. 51, s.v. «Kyparissos» [Hirschfeld].</ref>
In botanyEdit
The word Cupressus was used to describe a genus of cypress trees; this genus was first described in the 18th century by the Swedish biologist Linnaeus. In modern times there is a taxonomic debate regarding which species should be retained in the genus Cupressus.<ref>C. Michael Hogan and Michael P. Frankis. 2009Template:Full citation needed</ref>
See alsoEdit
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
- Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 3, Cat-Cyp, editors: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, Brill, 2003. Template:ISBN. Online version at Brill.
- Servius, Servii grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii, Volume I, edited by Georgius Thilo and Hermannus Hagen, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig, Teubner, 1881. Internet Archive. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.