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 ...

, Tithonus ( or ; ) was the lover of

Eos In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Eos (; Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek ''Ēṓs'', Attic Greek, Attic ''Héōs'', "dawn", or ; Aeolic Greek, Aeolic ''Aúōs'', Doric Greek, Doric ''Āṓs'') is the go ...

, Goddess of the Dawn. He was a prince of

Troy Troy (/; ; ) or Ilion (; ) was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. It is best known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destina ...

, the son of King

Laomedon In Greek mythology, Laomedon (; , ''Lāomédōn'', "ruler of the people") was a Troy, Trojan king, son of Ilus (son of Tros), Ilus and thus nephew of Ganymede (mythology), Ganymede and Assaracus. Laomedon was variously identified with differe ...

by the

Naiad In Greek mythology, the naiads (; ), sometimes also hydriads, are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water. They are distinct from river gods, who embodied ...

Strymo (). The mythology reflected by the fifth-century vase-painters of Athens envisaged Tithonus as a '' rhapsode'', as attested by the lyre in his hand, on an oinochoe (wine jug) of the Achilles Painter, ''circa'' 470–460 BC. An asteroid (6998) has been named after Tithonus.

Etymology

Tithonus has been taken by the allegorist to mean ‘a grant of a stretching-out’ (from ''teinō'' and ''ōnė''), a reference to the stretching-out of his life, at Eos’s plea; but it is likely, rather, to have been a masculine form of Eos’s own name, Titonë – from ''titō'', ‘day and onë, ‘queen’ – and to have meant ‘partner of the Queen of Day’.

Mythology

Eos is said to have taken Tithonus, from the royal house of Troy, to be her lover.''Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite'', 218 ''ff''. The myth of Eos and Tithonus' love was known to

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

, who wrote that in the morning Eos rose from the bed she shared with Tithonus in order to give her light to mankind. The

mytheme In structuralism-influenced studies of mythology, a mytheme is a fundamental generic unit of narrative structure (typically involving a relationship between a character, an event, and a theme) from which myths are thought to be constructed—a m ...

of the goddess' mortal lover is an archaic one; when a role for Zeus was inserted, a bitter twist appeared: according to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, when Eos asked Zeus to make Tithonus immortal, she forgot to ask that he be granted eternal youth. 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.

In later tellings, he eventually became a

cicada The cicadas () are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two ...

(''tettix''),Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004,
p. 47
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 In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Selene (; , meaning "Moon")''A Greek–English Lexicon's.v. σελήνη is the goddess and personification of the Moon. Also known as Mene (), she is traditionally the daughter ...

had done, but must ask it of Zeus, as a boon. In the account of Hieronymus of Rhodes from the third century BC, the blame is shifted from Eos onto Tithonus, who asked for immortality but not agelessness from his lover, who was then unable to help him otherwise and turned him into a cicada.

Propertius Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium (now Assisi) and died shortly after 15 BC. Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of '' Elegies'' ('). He was a friend of the ...

wrote that Eos did not forsake Tithonus, old and aged as he was, and would still embrace him and hold him in her arms rather than leaving him deserted in his cold chamber, while cursing the gods for his cruel fate. This myth might have been used to explain why cicadas were particularly noisy during the early hours of the morning, when the dawn appears in the sky. Sir

James George Frazer Sir James George Frazer (; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folkloristJosephson-Storm (2017), Chapter 5. influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. ...

notes that among ancient Greeks and several other peoples there was a widespread belief that creatures that can shed their skin renew their youth and live forever. It might also be a reference to the fact that the high-pitched talk of old men was compared to the cicadas' singing, as seen in a passage from the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

''. In fact the ancient Greeks would use a cicada sitting on a harp as an emblem of music. Eos bore Tithonus two sons, Memnon and Emathion. According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Memnon was raised by the

Hesperides In Greek mythology, the Hesperides (; , ) are the nymphs of evening and golden light of sunsets, who were the "Daughters of the Evening" or "Nymphs of the West". They were also called the Atlantides () from their reputed father, Atlas (mytholog ...

on the coast of Oceanus. According to the historian

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...

, Tithonus, who had travelled east from Troy into

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

and founded

Susa Susa ( ) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh River, Karkheh and Dez River, Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital o ...

, was bribed with a golden grapevine to send his son Memnon to fight at Troy against the Greeks. The Tithonus poem is one of the few nearly complete works of the Greek lyric poet

Sappho Sappho (; ''Sapphṓ'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; ) was an Ancient Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sapph ...

, having been pieced together from fragments discovered over a period of more than a hundred years. Eos (as Thesan) and Tithonus (as Tinthu or Tinthun) provided a pictorial motif inscribed or cast in low relief on the backs of Etruscan bronze hand-mirrors.

In modern culture

* Tithonus as an aged immortal is mentioned in Book I, Canto II, Stanza VII of Edmund Spenser's ''

The Faerie Queene ''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...

''. * " Tithonus" by Alfred Tennyson was originally written as "Tithon" in 1833 and completed in 1859. The poem is a dramatic monologue in

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metre (poetry), metrical but rhyme, unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th cen ...

from the point of view of Tithonus. Unlike the original myth, it is Tithonus who asks for immortality, and it is

Aurora An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

, 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. * German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder's book "Tithonus und Aurora" was published in 1792. * "Tithon" is mentioned in the poem "On Imagination" by Phillis Wheatley. *

's "Old Age Poem", sometimes known as the " Tithonus poem", discusses beauty and ageing.

Footnotes

References

External links

Tennyson's poem
* {{Authority control Trojans Princes in Greek mythology Metamorphoses into arthropods in Greek mythology Mythological insects Mythological rape victims Immortality Consorts of Eos