Hyacinth

The death of Jacinto, work of Antoine Étex (1833, Angers Museum of Fine Arts)

In Greek mythology, Hyacinthus or Hiacinthus (in ancient Greek Ὑάκινθος' or Hyákinthos, Latinized as Hyacinthus, and in Greek modern Yákinzos) was a young hero lover of the god Apollo. From his name comes that of the homonymous plant ( Hyacinthus ).

Parents

According to Pseudo-Apolodoro, Jacinto was the son of Clio, muse of History, and of Píero, king of Macedonia (father of the nine Pierides or Emátides, which in this case would be Jacinto's sisters). However, the same Pseudo-Apolodoro also affirms that Hyacinthus and his sister Cinortas were sons of the king of Sparta Amyclas (son of Lacedaemon) and Diomede (daughter of Lapites). Pausanias supported this version, but Ovid, although he speaks of Hyacinthus as the "Amiclida" (son of Amiclas), is also referred to as "Ebalida" (son of Ebalus, another king of Sparta). The Spanish-Latin writer Higinio, in his Fables, also makes him the son of Ébalo.

Myth

The death of JacintoOil on canvas by Jean Broc (1801, Sainte-Croix Museum, Poitiers)

Jacinto was a beautiful Spartan prince who awakened the love passion of the aedo Thamyris, the first man to court another man. The god Apollo, who also loved Hyacinthus, heard Thamyris boast that he could outsing the Muses themselves. Apollo informed them of this, so the Muses, as punishment for such audacity, deprived Thamyris of the voice, sight and memory to play the lyre.

However, Zephyrus, god of the west wind or, in another tradition, Boreas, the god of the north wind, was also in love with Hyacinthus, and one day when Apollo was teaching the boy to throw the disc, the wind Blinded by jealousy, he seized the disc and threw it against the prince's skull, but before he died, Apollo prevented Hades from claiming the soul of his beloved, and from the spilled blood he made a flower sprout, the hyacinth. According to Ovid's version, Apollo's tears fell on the flower's petals, leaving an imprint that was interpreted as the primitive Greek letters AI ("Ouch!", symbolizing the god Apollo's lament).

According to the work of the geographer Pausanias, in a local Spartan version of the myth, Hyacinthus and his sister Polyboea were taken to heaven by Aphrodite, Athena, and Artemis. Despite the mythological account, however, the Hyacinthus flower has been identified with other plants besides the true hyacinth, such as the iris.

Worship

The cult of Hyacinthus was exercised in the city Amiclas, where his tomb was located, at the foot of an ancient statue of the god Apollo dating back to the Mycenaean period. He was also worshiped in the city of Taranto, which in ancient times was a Greek colony on the Italian peninsula.

Jacinto was also the tutelary divinity of one of the main Spartan festivals, the Jacintias, which was celebrated every summer in his honor. The festival used to last for three days, one day to mourn the death of the divine hero and the other two to celebrate his rebirth. Ateneo de Náucratis tells that during the Jacintias the children played the zither and sang hymns in honor of Jacinto.

Interpretation of the myth

Jacinto, by François Joseph Bosio, 1817; Louvre Museum.

The name Jacinto is of pre-Hellenic origin, containing the particle "-nth" in its original nomenclature. According to the interpretations of the classical myth, Apollo is a god of Doric origin and this myth would be a metaphor for the death and renewal of nature, similar to the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis. Some authors suggest that Hyacinthus could have been a pre-Hellenic divinity that would have been replaced by Apollo, with whom he would remain associated.

Hyacinthus. According to the most widespread legend, Jacinto became, when he died, the flower that bears his name.

Bernard Sergent, a disciple of Georges Dumézil, believes that the myth is more of an initiation legend, based on the Spartan pederastic institution: Apollo teaches Hyacinthus to become a man. In fact, according to Philostratus, Hyacinth not only learns from Apollo to throw the disc, but also all the exercises of the arena: handling the bow, the art of divination and playing the lyre. Pausanias states that Hyacinthus is represented sometimes as a beardless youth and other times with a beard, mentioning in particular the ritual shrine statue of him at Amyclae. The poet Nono de Panópolis mentions that Apollo resurrected Jacinto. For Bernard Sergent the death and resurrection of Jacinto represents the transition to adulthood.

Impact on culture

Apollo, Jacinto and Ciparisoby Aleksandr Andréyevich Ivánov (1834).

In the late 1730s the composer Johann Sebastian Bach composed a secular cantata (or drama per musica) entitled Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan ( The dispute between Phoebus and Pan, BWV 201), with a libretto by Christian Friedrich Henrici, in which he reports on a challenge between Phoebus Apollo, inventor of the zither, and Pan, inventor of the flute. One of the most moving arias of the cantata is the one in which Apollo recounts the death of the young woman he loved, Jacinto. The text in German is as follows:

Mit Verlangen

Drück ich deine zarten Wangen,
Holder, schöner Hyazinth.
Und dein' Augen küss' ich gerne,
Weil sie meine Morgen-Sterne

Und der Seele Sonne sind.

For its translation into Spanish:

With anxiety

I tighten your tender cheeks,
Lovely, beautiful Jacinto.
And kiss your eyes gladly,
because they are my lights

and my soul, the sun.

In 1767, at the age of eleven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed an intermission in Latin about the myth of Apollo and Hyacinthus, with some modifications, entitled Apollo et Hyacinthus seu Hyacinthi metamorphosis, KV 38 (Apollo and Jacinto or The Metamorphosis of Jacinto).

Although Hyacinth was a young male, currently in its English version Hyacinth is used as a female name, usually in reference to the flower and not to the mythological figure. In the Spanish language he has a masculine (Jacinto) and feminine (Jacinta) version; in Italian he is Giacinto and in Polish he is Jacek.

Iconography

Céfiro y JacintoIn an attic glass. Boston Art Museum.

No known ancient depiction shows Apollo and Hyacinthus together, except perhaps for a painting by Akestorides, which shows a young man bent over a swan. However, he is often depicted on ancient Greek pottery in the company of Zephyr, being lifted up by this wind god or engaging in intercrural (between the thighs) intercourse.

Like Apollo, Hyacinthus is sometimes depicted as riding a swan or in a swan-drawn chariot, either to reunite with his lover or to flee from Zephyrus. In Greek mythology, swans were believed to come from Hyperborea, a mystical land of immortality and eternal spring, where Apollo traveled every winter in a chariot drawn by swans. This association of Hyacinthus and swans connects him with Apollo of Hyperborea and spring. It has been suggested that Hyacinth spent the winter in the underworld or Hyperborea and returned to earth in spring with the flowering of plants.

Historical sources

The sources of classical antiquity that refer to the myth of Jacinto are the following:

• Pseudo-Apolodoro: Mythological Library.
• Pauses: Description of Greece.
• Luciano de Samosata: Dialogues of the gods.
• Ovid: Metamorphosis.
• Cayo Julio Higino: Fables.