In
Greek mythologyGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
,
Tithonus or
Tithonos was the lover of
EosEos is, in Greek mythology, the Titanic goddess of the dawn, who rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the Ocean that surrounds the world, to herald her brother Helios, the sun....
,
TitanIn Greek mythology, the Titans , were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary Golden Age...
of the dawn. He was a
TrojanTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
by birth, the son of King
LaomedonIn Greek mythology, Laomedon was a Trojan king, son of Ilus, brother of Ganymedes and father of Priam, Astyoche, Lampus, Hicetaon, Clytius, Cilla, Proclia, Aethilla, Clytodora, and Hesione. Tithonus is also described by most sources as Laomedon's eldest legitimate son; and most sources omit...
of Troy by a
water nymphIn Greek mythology, the Naiads or Naiades were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks....
named Strymo (Στρυμώ). In the mythology known to the fifth-century vase-painters of Athens, Tithonus was envisaged as a
rhapsodeA rhapsode or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC . Rhapsodes notably performed the epics of Homer but also the wisdom and catalogue poetry of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus and others...
, as the lyre in his hand, on an
oinochoe of the
Achilles PainterThe Achilles Painter, working from the 460s to the 420s BC, is the pseudonym of an ancient Attic Greek vase-painter of outstanding quality , whose refined figure of Achilles on a red-figure amphora of ca...
, ca. 470 BC–460 BCE (
illustration) attests. Competitive singing, as in the
Contest of Homer and HesiodThe Contest of Homer and Hesiod is a Greek narrative that expands a remark made in Hesiod's Works and Days to recount an imagined poetical agon between Homer and Hesiod, in which Hesiod bears away the prize, a bronze tripod, which he dedicates to the Muses of Mount Helicon...
, is also depicted vividly in the
Homeric Hymn to ApolloThe thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter— dactylic hexameter— as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect...
and mentioned in the two
Hymns to Aphrodite.
Eos kidnapped
GanymedeIn Greek mythology, Ganymede, or Ganymedes is a divine hero whose homeland was Troy. He was a Trojan prince, son of the eponymous Tros of Dardania, and of Callirrhoe, and brother of Ilus and Assaracus...
and Tithonus, both from the royal house of Troy, to be her lovers.
In
Greek mythologyGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
,
Tithonus or
Tithonos was the lover of
EosEos is, in Greek mythology, the Titanic goddess of the dawn, who rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the Ocean that surrounds the world, to herald her brother Helios, the sun....
,
TitanIn Greek mythology, the Titans , were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary Golden Age...
of the dawn. He was a
TrojanTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
by birth, the son of King
LaomedonIn Greek mythology, Laomedon was a Trojan king, son of Ilus, brother of Ganymedes and father of Priam, Astyoche, Lampus, Hicetaon, Clytius, Cilla, Proclia, Aethilla, Clytodora, and Hesione. Tithonus is also described by most sources as Laomedon's eldest legitimate son; and most sources omit...
of Troy by a
water nymphIn Greek mythology, the Naiads or Naiades were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks....
named Strymo (Στρυμώ). In the mythology known to the fifth-century vase-painters of Athens, Tithonus was envisaged as a
rhapsodeA rhapsode or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC . Rhapsodes notably performed the epics of Homer but also the wisdom and catalogue poetry of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus and others...
, as the lyre in his hand, on an
oinochoe of the
Achilles PainterThe Achilles Painter, working from the 460s to the 420s BC, is the pseudonym of an ancient Attic Greek vase-painter of outstanding quality , whose refined figure of Achilles on a red-figure amphora of ca...
, ca. 470 BC–460 BCE (
illustration) attests. Competitive singing, as in the
Contest of Homer and HesiodThe Contest of Homer and Hesiod is a Greek narrative that expands a remark made in Hesiod's Works and Days to recount an imagined poetical agon between Homer and Hesiod, in which Hesiod bears away the prize, a bronze tripod, which he dedicates to the Muses of Mount Helicon...
, is also depicted vividly in the
Homeric Hymn to ApolloThe thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter— dactylic hexameter— as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect...
and mentioned in the two
Hymns to Aphrodite.
Eos kidnapped
GanymedeIn Greek mythology, Ganymede, or Ganymedes is a divine hero whose homeland was Troy. He was a Trojan prince, son of the eponymous Tros of Dardania, and of Callirrhoe, and brother of Ilus and Assaracus...
and Tithonus, both from the royal house of Troy, to be her lovers. The
mythemeIn the study of mythology, a mytheme is the essential kernel of a myth—an irreducible, unchanging element, one that is always found shared with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various ways—"bundled" was Claude Lévi-Strauss's image—or linked in more complicated...
of the goddess's immortal lover is an archaic one; when a role for Zeus was inserted, a bitter new twist appeared: According to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, when Eos asked Zeus for Tithonus to be
immortalImmortality is the concept of living in a physical or spiritual form for an infinite or inconceivably vast length of time....
, she forgot to ask for
eternal youthEternal youth is the concept of human physical immortality free of aging. The youth referred to is usually meant to be in contrast the depredations of aging, rather than a specific age of the human lifespan....
(218-38). Tithonus indeed lived forever
- "but when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs." (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite)
In later tellings he eventually turned into a
cicadaA cicada is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha, in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many remain unclassified...
, eternally living, but begging for death to overcome him. In the Olympian system, the "queenly" and "golden-throned" Eos can no longer grant immortality to her lover as Selene had done, but must ask it of Zeus, as a
boonPlaces:* Boon Township, Warrick County, Indiana* Boon Township, Michigan* Boon Lake Township, Minnesota* Boon Lay, Singapore* Boon Tat Street* Boon Keng MRT StationPeople:*Clint Boon, musician and member of indie rock group the Inspiral Carpets...
.
Eos bore Tithonus two sons,
MemnonMemnon may refer to:* Saint Memnon the Wonderworker — early Christian saint from Egypt, hermit and hegumen of one of Egyptian monasteries* Memnon and those erroneously named after him in the Graeco-Roman era:...
and
Emathion- Ethiopian king :Emathion was king of Ethiopia, the son of Tithonus and Eos, and brother of Memnon. Heracles killed him.- Samothracian :Emathion was king of Samothrace, was the son of Zeus and Electra , brother to Dardanus, Iasion, Eetion, and Harmonia...
. In the Epic Cycle that revolved around the
Trojan WarIn Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
, Tithonus, who has travelled east from Troy into Assyria and is the founder of
SusaSusa ; Syriac: ; was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran, located about 250 km east of the Tigris River....
, is bribed to send his son Memnon to fight at Troy with a golden grapevine. Memnon was called "King of the East" by
HesiodHesiod was a Greek oral poet. His date is uncertain but leading scholars , agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the eighth century BCE. Since at least Herodotus's time , Hesiod and Homer have generally been considered the earliest Greek poets whose work has survived, and they are often...
, but he was killed on the plain of Troy by
AchillesIn Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Achilles also has the attributes of being the most handsome of the heroes assembled against Troy....
.
AeschylusAeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright. He is often recognized as the father of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive, the others being Sophocles and Euripides...
says in passing that Tithonus also had a mortal wife, named Cissia (otherwise unknown).
A newly-found poem on Tithonus is the fourth extant complete poem by ancient Greek lyrical poetess
SapphoSappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
. The poem was published for the first time by
Martin WestMartin Litchfield West is an internationally recognised scholar in classics, classical antiquity and philology...
in the
Times Literary Supplement, 21 or 24 June 2005.
Eos and Tithonus (inscribed
Tinthu or
Tinthun) provided a pictorial motif that was inscribed on
EtruscanEtruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy and Corsica, residing between the Apennines and the River Tiber, whom the ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci...
bronze hand-mirrorbacks, or cast in low relief.
Poems
- "Tithonus
"Tithonus" is a poem by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson , originally written in 1833 as "Tithon" and completed in 1859. It first appeared in the February edition of the Cornhill Magazine in 1860. Faced with old age, Tithonus, weary of his immortality, yearns for death...
" by Alfred Tennyson was originally written as "Tithon" in 1833 and completed in 1859.
The poem is a dramatic monologue in
blank verseBlank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter ....
from the point-of-view of Tithonus. Unlike the original myth, it is Tithonus who asks for immortality, and it is
AuroraAurora is the Latin word for dawn
, the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry. Aurora is comparable to the Greek goddess Eos, though Aurora did not bring with her any resonance of a greater archaic goddess.-Roman mythology:...
, not Zeus, who grants this imperfect gift. As narrator, Tithonus laments his unnatural longevity, which separates him from the mortal world as well as from the immortal but beautiful Aurora.
- "Tithonus" by Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet from County Armagh, Northern Ireland as well as an educator and academic at Princeton University.-Life and work:...
was originally published in The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications...
and included in the book Horse Latitudes (2006).
- Herder: Tithonus und Aurora
- In the newly restored poem of Sappho, the myth of Tithonus is mentioned. The right half of this poem was previously found in fr. 58 L-P. The fully restored version of the poem can be found in M.L. West, “The New Sappho,” ZPE 151 (2005), 1-9.
Cultural references
Aldous HuxleyAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963...
's novel, "
After Many a Summer Dies the Swan" was titled after a verse from the Lord Tennyson poem "Tithonus."
An episode of the
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
show
The X-FilesThe X-Files is an American cult science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. It first aired in September 1993 and ended in May 2002...
is titled "Tithonus." It concerns a man who cheated
DeathDeath is the termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby. The true nature of the latter has for millennia been a central concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical...
, but eventually came to see his immortality as a curse rather than a gift. The man is able to "sense" death coming for people and attempts to catch the face of Death in photographs, believing that if he sees his face, he will finally die.
In the
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
show
Doctor WhoDoctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien time-traveller known as "the Doctor" who travels in his space and time-ship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box...
and the spin-off show
TorchwoodTorchwood is a British science fiction television programme, created by Russell T Davies. It deals with the machinations and activities of the Cardiff branch of the fictional Torchwood Institute, who deal mainly with incidents involving extraterrestrials...
, the character
Jack HarknessCaptain Jack Harkness is a fictional character played by John Barrowman in Doctor Who and its spin-off series, Torchwood. He first appears in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child" and reappears in the remaining episodes of the 2005 series as a companion of the ninth incarnation of the...
faces the same fate as Tithonus in that when brought back from the dead, he discovers he is both now immortal and still aging.
External links