Amethyste or Amethystos () is supposedly a nymph in

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

who was turned into a precious stone by the goddess

Diana Diana most commonly refers to: * Diana (name), given name (including a list of people with the name) * Diana (mythology), ancient Roman goddess of the hunt and wild animals; later associated with the Moon * Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997), ...

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

in order to avoid a worse fate at the hands of the god

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

, thus explaining the origin of the semi-precious stone

amethyst Amethyst is a Violet (color), violet variety of quartz. The name comes from the Koine Greek from - , "not" and (Ancient Greek) / (Modern Greek), "intoxicate", a reference to the belief that the stone protected its owner from Alcohol into ...

. Although this tale has circulated in various sites and books, no ancient source attests to it, and its origin is much later than either

ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

The claim

The supposed story usually goes that the god of wine and viticulture

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Gre ...

fell in love with a beautiful nymph named Amethyste or Amethystos, but she spurned his affections. He then chased her down, and she ran, praying to the gods to protect her virginity.

then, the goddess of chastity, pitied the girl and transformed her into a pure white stone. Bacchus relented, and seeing the stone, regretted his behaviour. So he poured some wine on the white stone, which stained it purple for all time. An alternative story states that Bacchus, offended at the neglect he was receiving from the mortals, declared that the first person he would meet would be devoured by his tigers. Fate had it that the first person he chanced upon was Amethyste, a beautiful maiden on her way to pay her respects at the shrine of Diana. Seeing the beasts, she prayed for protection from her patron, and Diana turned her into a white stone. Like in the first version, Bacchus regretted his actions and poured wine, turning the white stone deep purple.

Origin of the tale

The myth of Amethyste has no basis in the actual texts written by ancient Greek and Roman authors. Instead it was French poet Rémy Belleau (1528–1577) who invented a myth in which Bacchus fell in love and chased Amethyste in his poem ''L'Amethyste, ou les Amours de Bacchus et d'Amethyste'' ("The Amethyst, or the loves of Bacchus and Amethyst"). The version with the tigers is likewise French in origin. Although no nymph that turns into the precious stone features in any myth, the late antiquity author

Nonnus Nonnus of Panopolis (, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century AD) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid and probably lived in the 5th century AD. He i ...

states that Dionysus was gifted an amethyst stone from his grandmother Rhea which can be used to preserve the wine-drinker's sanity. Similarly, the tale actually draws from real, common themes of Greek myths, in particular the concept of a maiden attracting the unwanted attention of a god, fleeing from him, and being transformed into something else at the hands of a merciful deity, as seen in the tales of

Daphne Daphne (; ; , , ), a figure in Greek mythology, is a naiad, a variety of female nymph associated with fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of freshwater. There are several versions of the myth in which she appears, but t ...

, Arethusa, Corone,

Taygete In Classical Greek mythology, Taygete , , ) was a nymph, one of the Pleiades according to the '' Bibliotheca'' (3.10.1) and a companion of Artemis, in her archaic role as '' potnia theron'', "Mistress of the animals", with its likely roots in pr ...

, the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...

, and numerous others. In antiquity, amethyst was considered to be a magical charm or antidote that protected the drinker against drunkenness, which is also why goblets for wine-drinking would often be carved from it. This belief is evident from the word's etymology, as it derives from ''-'', expressing negation, and ', "to get drunk", meaning thus "non-drunk" or "non-intoxicating."

References

Bibliography

* * * *
Online version at Perseus.tufts project.
*

, ''

Dionysiaca The ''Dionysiaca'' (, ''Dionysiaká'') is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from Greco-Roman antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hex ...

''; translated by Rouse, W H D, I Books I-XV.

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

No. 344, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1940
Internet Archive
{{Authority control Fakelore Literature based on myths and legends Nymphs Works based on classical mythology

The claim

Origin of the tale

See also

References

Bibliography