Salmacis

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Salmacis

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Salmacis was an atypical naiad

Naiad

In Greek mythology, the Naiads or Naiades were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks.They are distinct from river gods, who embodied rivers, and the very ancient spirits that inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes, such as pre-Mycenaean Lerna in the Argolid....
who rejected the ways of the virginal Greek

Culture of Greece

The Culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, beginning in Mycenaean Greece, continuing most notably into Classical Greece, through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek Eastern successor the Byzantine Empire....
goddess

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. Often deities are part of a polytheism system that includes several deities in a pantheon .Common associations of goddesses are the Earth goddess, the Mother Goddess, Love goddess, and the hearth goddess, reflecting historical gender roles....
Artemis

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
in favor of vanity

Vanity

In conventional parlance, vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. In many religions vanity is considered a form of self-idolatry, in which one rejects God for the sake of one's own , and thereby becomes divorced from the Divine graces of God....
and idleness.

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Naiad

Culture of Greece

Goddess

Artemis

Vanity

Hermaphroditus

In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus or Hermaphroditos was the child of Aphrodite and Hermes. Born a remarkably handsome boy, he was transformed into an androgynous being by united with the nymph Salmacis....
places her as the only nymph rapist in the Greek mythological canon.

"There dwelt a Nymph, not up for hunting or archery:
unfit for footraces. She the only Naiad
Naiad

In Greek mythology, the Naiads or Naiades were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks.They are distinct from river gods, who embodied rivers, and the very ancient spirits that inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes, such as pre-Mycenaean Lerna in the Argolid....
not in Diana’s band.
Often her sisters would say: “Pick up a javelin, or
bristling quiver, and interrupt your leisure for the chase!”
But she would not pick up a javelin or arrows,
nor trade leisure for the chase.
Instead she would bathe her beautiful limbs and tend to her hair, with her
waters as a mirror."

Ovid
Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
, Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)

The Metamorphoses by the Ancient Rome poet Ovid is a Narrative poetry in fifteen books that describes the Creation myth and history of the world....
. Book IV, 306-312.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, she becomes one with Hermaphroditus, and Hermaphroditus curses the fountain

Salmacis (fountain)

Salmacis was a fountain, located near the mausoleum at Halicarnassus. In classical times, it had:"the slanderous repute, for what reason I do not know, of making effeminate all who drink from it....
to have the same effect on others. However, it's very likely that Ovid fabricated the entire tale himself - his use of "praetereo, dulcique animos nouitate tenebo" could be read in several ways, as "nouitate" could be translated as either something strange or something new, which would imply that it was a new tale. Salmacis could also have been intended simply as a contrast to the previous tales in Ovid's Metamorphoses, as others involve a dominant male pursuing an elusive female.