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 ...

, Byblis or Bublis (Ancient Greek: Βυβλίς) was a daughter of

Miletus Miletus (Ancient Greek: Μίλητος, Mílētos) was an influential ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in present day Turkey. Renowned in antiquity for its wealth, maritime power, and ex ...

. Her mother was either Tragasia, daughter of Celaenus; Parthenius
11
from Aristocritus' ''History of Miletus'' and the ''Foundation of Caunus'' by Apollonius of Rhodes Cyanee, daughter of the river-god

Meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

; or Eidothea, daughter of King Eurytus of

Caria Caria (; from Greek language, Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; ) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Carians were described by Herodotus as being Anatolian main ...

. She fell in love with Caunus, her twin brother.

Mythology

Ovid

The most elaborate interpretation of her story is that of

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

, and runs as follows.

, ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'' 9.446-665 Byblis acknowledged her love for Caunus, and despite her initial efforts to convince herself that her feelings were natural, she realized the inappropriateness of them. Unable to keep her love for Caunus a secret from him any longer, she sent him a long love letter through a servant giving examples of other incestuous relationships between the gods. Disgusted, he ran away. Believing that she could yet make him love her, she was determined to try to woo him once more. When she found out that he had fled, she tore her clothes and stripped naked in sorrow and was driven into madness. She followed him through much of Greece and

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

until she finally died, worn out by her grief and the long journey. As she had been constantly crying, she was changed into a spring.

Parthenius

Parthenius of Nicaea Parthenius of Nicaea () or Myrlea () in Bithynia was a Greeks, Greek Philologist, grammarian and poet. According to the ''Suda'', he was the son of Heraclides and Eudora, or according to Hermippus of Berytus, his mother's name was Tetha. He was take ...

cites two versions of Byblis' story, one of which is generally the same as that recounted by Ovid, but ends with Byblis hanging herself with her girdle. In the other version, it is Caunus who instigates the incest, but Byblis still seems to return his affection; Caunus then leaves home before he can lose control over his desires, and Byblis, after a long search for him, makes a noose of her garment and hangs herself. The same version is followed by Conon.

Antoninus

Antoninus Liberalis Antoninus Liberalis () was an Ancient Greek grammarian who probably flourished between the second and third centuries AD. He is known as the author of ''The Metamorphoses'', a collection of tales that offers new variants of already familiar myths ...

again portrays Byblis as overcome with unanswered love for her brother; after Caunus leaves, she rejects the proposals of numerous suitors and attempts to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff, but is saved by hamadryads, who cause her to fall asleep and transform her into a fellow nymph.

30
/ref>

Nonnus

Nonnus depicts Byblis, Caunos and Miletus as the children of Asterius, son of

Minos Main injector neutrino oscillation search (MINOS) was a particle physics experiment designed to study the phenomena of neutrino oscillations, first discovered by a Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) experiment in 1998. Neutrinos produced by the NuMI ...

and Androgeneia. In this account, Caunus romantically pursues Byblis with a love song referencing the incestuous relationships between the gods. All the authors make mention of a spring which was believed to have appeared from Byblis' incessant tears. The city

Byblos Byblos ( ; ), also known as Jebeil, Jbeil or Jubayl (, Lebanese Arabic, locally ), is an ancient city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The area is believed to have been first settled between 8800 and 7000BC and continuously inhabited ...

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

was believed to have taken its name from Byblis.

''Caunus and Byblis'' in art

Between 1706 and 1715, the sculptor Pierre Le Gros the Younger, working in

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, ...

, was faced with the restoration of a fragmented antique group of '' Amor and Psyche'' for the Portuguese

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

. Thriving on invention, he turned the love story on its head and depicted the theme of '' Caunus and Byblis'' in which Caunus vehemently defends himself against the sexual advances of his sister. While Le Gros' invention ended up in Germany and was purified back to ''Amor and Psyche'' before being destroyed in a fire in 1931, it triggered a rafter of drawings, reproductions and copies by for example

Pompeo Batoni Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (25 January 1708 – 4 February 1787) was an Italian painter who displayed a solid technical knowledge in his portrait work and in his numerous Allegory, allegorical and mythological pictures. The high number of foreign vis ...

, Francesco Carradori, Martin Gottlieb Klauer and, best known of all, two marble versions by

Laurent Delvaux Laurent Delvaux (1696, in Ghent – 24 February 1778, in Nivelles) was a Flemish sculptor. After a successful international career that brought him to London and Rome, he returned to the Austrian Netherlands where he was a sculptor to the cou ...

. The most faithful impression of what Le Gros' invention looked like is a

plaster cast A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – ...

in Tiefurt House near

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

.Gerhard Bissell, ''Haud dubiè Amoris & Psyches imagines fuerunt statuæ istæ'', in: Max Kunze, Axel Rügler (ed.), ''Wiedererstandene Antike. Ergänzungen antiker Kunstwerke seit der Renaissance'' (Cyriacus. Studien zur Rezeption der Antike, Band 1), München 2003, pp. 73-80.

References

Bibliography

* Conon'', Fifty Narrations, surviving as one-paragraph summaries in the Bibliotheca (Library) of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople'' translated from the Greek by Brady Kiesling
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* Parthenius, ''Love Romances'' translated by Sir Stephen Gaselee (1882–1943), S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 69. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1916.
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* Parthenius, ''Erotici Scriptores Graeci, Vol. 1''. Rudolf Hercher. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1858
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorphoses'' translated by Brookes More (1859–1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
* Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorphoses.'' Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892
Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

, ''Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt,'' edited by August Meineike (1790–1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling
Online version at the Topos Text Project.

External links

* Images of Byblis in th
Warburg Institute Iconographic Database

{{Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology Metamorphoses characters Metamorphoses into bodies of water in Greek mythology Suicides in Greek mythology Women in Greek mythology Mythological people involved in incest