Phyllis (

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 p ...

: Φυλλίς) is a character in

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of ...

, daughter of a

Thracian The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...

king (according to some, of Sithon; Servius on

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: t ...

's Eclogue 5. 10 most other accounts do not give her father's name at all, but one states he is named either Philander, Ciasus, or Thelus). She marries Demophon, King of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...

and son of

Theseus Theseus (, ; grc-gre, Θησεύς ) was the mythical king and founder-hero of Athens. The myths surrounding Theseus his journeys, exploits, and friends have provided material for fiction throughout the ages. Theseus is sometimes describ ...

, while he stops in Thrace on his journey home from the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and ha ...

Mythology

Demophon, duty bound to Greece, returns home to help his father, leaving Phyllis behind. She sends him away with a casket, telling him that it contains a sacrament of Rhea and asking him to open it only if he has given up hope of returning to her. From here, the story diverges. In one version, Phyllis realizes that he will not return and commits suicide by hanging herself from a tree. Where she is buried, an almond tree grows, which blossoms when Demophon returns to her. In another version, Demophon opens the casket and, horrified by what he sees inside, rides off in such great haste that his horse stumbles and he accidentally falls on his own sword. There is also some confusion regarding which nut tree she becomes, as

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus '' Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species '' Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts accordi ...

s were long called ''nux Phyllidos'', and are still sometimes called "filberts" today. In English, this version goes back at least to Gower, who wrote in ''

Confessio Amantis ''Confessio Amantis'' ("The Lover's Confession") is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. Accordi ...

'' (ca. 1390): This story most notably appears in the second poem of

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the ...

's ''

Heroides The ''Heroides'' (''The Heroines''), or ''Epistulae Heroidum'' (''Letters of Heroines''), is a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroin ...

'', a book of epistolary poems from mythological women to their respective men, and it also appears in the ''Aitia'' of

Callimachus Callimachus (; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works in a wide variet ...

. The Nine Ways is derived from the story of Phyllis, who is said to return nine times to the shores to wait for Demophon's return. "Phyllis" (or "Phillis") is commonly used as a female given name; variants of it are "Phillida" and "Phyllida".Macdonald, A. M., ed. (1972) ''Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary''; new ed. Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers; p. 1637 She is also mentioned in the song "I love, alas, I love thee" by Thomas Morley. In this song, she is compared to Amaryllis, who, when she dies, a flower grows from her blood that is shed on the ground. Amaryllis is deemed "more lovely" in the song because while Phyllis' death creates just a nut tree, Amaryllis blooms into an astounding flower that catches the attention of her love, the handsome, strong shepherd Alteo. Jacob van Eyck (1590-1657), a Dutch nobleman and musician, who worked as a composer, carillon player, organist, and recorder virtuoso, composed several pieces for the recorder that refer to Philis, for example: "Philis schooner Herderin (Philis, Fair Sheperdhess)" and "Philis quam Philander tegen (Philis Met Philander) that are found in recorder books. See, for example, "The Sweet Pipes Recorder, Book Two," by Gerald Burakoff, Paul Clark and William E. Hettrick, Sweet Pipes, Inc.1998.

References

Sources

* Fulkerson, Laurel. "Reading dangerously: Phyllis, Dido, Ariadne, and Medea". ''The Ovidian Heroine as Author''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

External links

{{Authority control Princesses in Greek mythology Queens in Greek mythology Mythological Thracian women Metamorphoses into trees in Greek mythology Suicides in Greek mythology

Mythology

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