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Mecon (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Mecon (in Ancient Greek , ''Mḗkо̄n'', meaning "poppy") was a beautiful young Athenian man, loved by the goddess Demeter. Mythology The handsome Mecon became the lover of the agricultural goddess Demeter. He was transformed into a poppy flower at some point for his own preservation.Servius on Virgil's ''Georgics'1.212/ref> Demeter was greatly associated with poppies, the flower seen as one of her symbols. See also * Smilax * Hyacinthus * Crocus * Clytie Notes References * Maurus Servius Honoratus Servius was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian. He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy; he authored a set of commentaries on the works of Virgil. These works, ''In tria V .... ''In Vergilii carmina comentarii''. Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii; recensuerunt Georgius Thilo et Hermannus Hagen. Georgius Thilo. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1881. * Will ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, nature of the world, the lives and activities of List of Greek mythological figures, deities, Greek hero cult, heroes, and List of Greek mythological creatures, mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult (religious practice), cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral tradition, oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan civilization, Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic period (), and the Classical period (). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. From the Hellenistic period (), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regarded as a separate historical stage, although its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed into Koine. Dia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poppy
A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, ''Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug opium which contains powerful medicinal alkaloids such as morphine and has been used since ancient times as an analgesic and narcotic medicine, medicinal and recreational drug. It also produces Poppy seed, edible seeds. Following the trench warfare in the poppy fields of Flanders, Belgium during World War I, poppies have become a symbol of Remembrance Day, remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime, especially in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth realms. Description Poppies are herbaceous plant, herbaceous Annual plant, annual, Biennial plant, biennial or short-lived Perennial plant, perennial plants. Some species are monocarpic, dying after flowering. Poppies can be over a metre tall with flowers up to 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurus Servius Honoratus
Servius was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian. He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy; he authored a set of commentaries on the works of Virgil. These works, ''In tria Virgilii Opera Expositio'', constituted the first incunable to be printed at Florence, by Bernardo Cennini, in 1471. In the ''Saturnalia'' of Macrobius, Servius appears as one of the interlocutors; allusions in that work and a letter from Symmachus to Servius indicate that he was not a convert to Christianity. Commentary on Virgil The commentary on Virgil ( la, In Vergilii Aeneidem commentarii) survives in two distinct manuscript traditions. The first is a comparatively short commentary, attributed to Servius in the superscription in the manuscripts and by other internal evidence. The second class derive from the 10th and 11th centuries, embed the same text in a much expanded commentary. The copious additions are in contrasting style t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics''), the ''Georgics'', and the epic ''Aeneid''. A number of minor poems, collected in the ''Appendix Vergiliana'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems as dubious. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Virgil has been traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His ''Aeneid'' is also considered a national epic of ancient Rome, a title held since composition. Life and works Birth and biographical tradition Virgil's biographical tradition is thought to depend on a lost biography by the Roman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eclogues
The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offering a dramatic and mythic interpretation of revolutionary change at Rome in the turbulent period between roughly 44 and 38 BC. Virgil introduced political clamor largely absent from Theocritus' poems, called idylls ("little scenes" or "vignettes"), even though erotic turbulence disturbs the "idyllic" landscapes of Theocritus. Virgil's book contains ten pieces, each called not an idyll but an eclogue ("draft" or "selection" or "reckoning"), populated by and large with herdsmen imagined conversing and performing amoebaean singing in largely rural settings, whether suffering or embracing revolutionary change or happy or unhappy love. Performed with great success on the Roman stage, they feature a mix of visionary politics and eroticism that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demeter
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter (; Attic: ''Dēmḗtēr'' ; Doric: ''Dāmā́tēr'') is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although she is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Greek Underworld, Underworld. She is also called Deo (). In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea (mythology), Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Like her other siblings but Zeus, she was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus. Through her brother Zeus, she became the mother of Persephone, a fertility goddess. One of the most notable Homeric Hymns, the ''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'', tells the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades and Demeter's search for her. When Hades, the King of the Underworld, wished to make Persephone his wife ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgics
The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word , ''geōrgika'', i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The ''Georgics'' is considered Virgil's second major work, following his ''Eclogues'' and preceding the ''Aeneid''. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. Description and summary The work consists of 2,188 hexametric verses divided into four books. The yearly timings by the rising and setting of particular stars were valid for the precession epoch of Virgil's time, and so are not always valid now. Book One Virgil begins his poem with a summary of the four books, followed by a prayer to various agricultural deities as well as Augustus himself. It takes as its model the work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smilax (mythology)
In Greek mythology Smilax (; ; grc-gre, Σμῖλαξ, Smílax, bindweed) was the name of a nymph who was in love with Crocus (mythology), Crocus and was turned into the Smilax aspera, plant bearing her name (the bindweed). Ancient sources with information about her and her tale are few and far in between. Mythology Details of her story are vague and sparse. Pliny the Elder, Pliny writes that Smilax was turned into bindweed shrub for loving the young Crocus (mythology), Crocus. Ovid writes that the smilax and saffron, crocus both tell a love story, and Nonnus also mentions Crocus' love for Smilax, the "airgarlanded girl".Nonnus, ''Dionysiaca'12.86/ref> See also * Clytie (Oceanid), Clytia, another nymph turned into plant out of unfulfilled love. Notes References * Ovid, Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorphoses'' translated by Brookes More (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.* Ovid, Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyacinth (mythology)
Hyacinth or Hyacinthus (Ancient Greek: , , ) is a gentle and clever divine hero and a lover of Apollo from Greek mythology. His cult at Amyclae southwest of Sparta dates from the Mycenaean era. A temenos or sanctuary grew up around what was alleged to be his burial mound, which was located in the Classical period at the feet of Apollo's statue. The literary myths serve to link him to local cults, and to identify him with Apollo. Family Hyacinth was given various parentage, providing local links, as the son of Clio and Pierus,Apollodorus1.3.3/ref> or King Oebalus of Sparta,Lucian, ''Dialogues of the Gods'Hermes and Apollo I/ref> or of king Amyclus of Sparta, progenitor of the people of Amyclae, dwellers about Sparta. As the youngest and most beautiful son of Amyclas and Diomede, daughter of Lapithes, Hyacinth was the brother of Cynortus, Argalus,Pausanias3.1.3/ref> Polyboea, Laodamia (or Leanira), Harpalus, Hegesandra, and in other versions, of Daphne. If he was the son o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crocus (mythology)
In Classical mythology, Crocus (Ancient Greek: Κρόκος, ''Krókos'') was a mortal youth who was changed by the gods into a saffron flower. Mythology Crocus was unhappy with his love affair with the nymph Smilax, and he was turned by the gods into a plant bearing his name, the crocus (saffron). Smilax is believed to have been given a similar fate and transformed into bindweed. In another variation of the myth, Crocus was said to be a companion of Hermes and was accidentally killed by the god in a game of discus when he unexpectedly stood up. As the unfortunate youth's blood dripped on the soil, the saffron flower came to be. The myth is similar to that of Apollo and Hyacinthus, and may indeed be a variation or modelled after it thereof. In his translation of Nonnos' ''Dionysiaca'', W.H.D. Rouse describes the tale of Crocus as being from the late Classical period and little-known.In: Nonnos, ''Dionysiaca''. With an English translation by W. H. D. Rouse. Volume I, books I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clytie (Oceanid)
Clytie (; grc, Κλυτίη, Klutíē), or Clytia (; grc, Κλυτία, Klutía) is a water nymph, daughter of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys in Greek mythology. She is thus one of the 3,000 Oceanid nymphs, and sister to the 3,000 Potamoi (the river-gods). According to the myth, Clytie loved the god of the sun Helios in vain, but he left her for another woman, the princess Leucothoe, under the influence of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In anger and bitterness, she revealed their affair to the girl's father, indirectly causing her doom as the king buried her alive. This failed to win Helios back to her, and she was left lovingly staring at him from the ground; eventually she turned into a heliotrope, a violet flower that gazes at the Sun in its diurnal journey. Clytie's story is mostly known from and fully preserved in Ovid's narrative poem ''Metamorphoses'', though other brief accounts and references to her from other authors survive as well. Etymology Her name, spell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
