Fable V
As Apollo is playing at quoits with the youth Hyacinthus, one of them, thrown by the Divinity, rebounds from the earth, and striking Hyacinthus on the head, kills him. From his blood springs up the flower which still bears his name.
“Phœbus would have placed thee too, descendant of Amycla,26 in the heavens, if the stern Fates had given him time to place thee there. Still, so far as is possible, thou art immortal; and as oft as the spring drives away the winter, and the Ram succeeds the watery Fish, so often dost thou spring up and blossom upon the green turf. Thee, beyond all others, did my father love, and Delphi, situate in the x. 168-192. middle27 of the earth, was without its guardian Deity, while the God was frequenting the Eurotas, and the unfortified Sparta;28 and neither his lyre nor his arrows were held in esteem by him.
“Unmindful of his own dignity, he did not refuse to carry the nets, or to hold the dogs, or to go, as his companion, over the ridges of the rugged mountains; and by lengthened intimacy he augmented his flame. And now Titan was almost in his mid course between the approaching and the past night, and was at an equal distance from them both; when they stripped their bodies of their garments, and shone with the juice of the oily olive, and engaged in the game of the broad quoit.29 First, Phœbus tossed it, well poised, into the airy breeze, and clove the opposite clouds with its weight. After a long pause, the heavy mass fell on the hard ground, and showed skill united with strength. Immediately the Tænarian youth,30 in his thoughtlessness, and urged on by eagerness for the sport, hastened to take up the circlet; but the hard ground sent it back into the air with a rebound against thy face, Hyacinthus.
“Equally as pale as the youth does the Divinity himself turn; and he bears up thy sinking limbs; and at one moment he cherishes thee, at another, he stanches thy sad wound; and now he stops the fleeting life by the application of herbs. His skill is of no avail. The wound is incurable. As if, in a well-watered garden, any one should break down violets, or poppies, and lilies, as they adhere to their yellow stalks; drooping, they x. 192-217. would suddenly hang down their languid heads, and could not support themselves; and would look towards the ground with their tops. So sink his dying features; and, forsaken by its vigour, the neck is a burden to itself, and reclines upon the shoulder. ‘Son of Œbalus,’ says Phœbus, ‘thou fallest, deprived of thy early youth; and I look on thy wound as my own condemnation. Thou art the object of my grief, and the cause of my crime. With thy death is my right hand to be charged; I am the author of thy destruction. Yet what is my fault? unless to engage in sport can be termed a fault; unless it can be called a fault, too, to have loved thee. And oh! that I could give my life for thee, or together with thee; but since I am restrained by the decrees of destiny, thou shalt ever be with me, and shalt dwell on my mindful lips. The lyre struck with my hand, my songs, too, shall celebrate thee; and, becoming a new flower, by the inscription on thee, thou shalt imitate31 my lamentations. The time, too, shall come, at which a most valiant hero32 shall add his name to this flower, and it shall be read upon the same leaves.’
“While such things are being uttered by the prophetic lips of Apollo, behold! the blood which, poured on the ground, has stained the grass, ceases to be blood, and a flower springs up, more bright than the Tyrian purple, and it assumes the appearance which lilies have, were there not in this a purple hue, and in them that of silver. This was not enough for Phœbus, for ’twas he that was the author of this honour. He himself inscribed his own lamentations on the leaves, and the flower has ‘ai, ai,’ inscribed thereon; and the mournful characters33 there are traced. Nor is Sparta ashamed to have given birth x. 217-219. to Hyacinthus; and his honours continue to the present time; the Hyacinthian festival34 returns, too, each year, to be celebrated with the prescribed ceremonials, after the manner of former celebrations.”
Explanation
Hyacinthus, as Pausanias relates, was a youth of Laconia. His father educated him with so much care, that he was looked upon as the favourite of Apollo, and of the Muses. As he was one day playing with his companions, he unfortunately received a blow on the head from a quoit, from the effects of which he died soon after. Some funeral verses were probably composed on the occasion; in which it was said, with the view of comforting his relations, that Boreas, jealous of the affection which Apollo had evinced for the youth, had turned aside the quoit with which they played; and thus, by degrees, in length of time the name of Apollo became inseparably connected with the story.
The Lacedæmonians each year celebrated a solemn festival near his tomb, where they offered sacrifices to him; and we are told by Athenæus, that they instituted games in his honour, which were called after his name. Pausanias makes mention of his tomb, upon which he says was engraved the figure of Apollo. His alleged change into the flower of the same name is probably solely owing to the similarity of their names. It is not very clear what flower it is that was known to the ancients under the name of Hyacinthus. Dioscorides believes it to be that called ‘vaccinium’ by the Romans, which is x. 220-240. of a purple colour, and on which can be traced, though imperfectly, the letters αἰ (alas!) mentioned by Ovid. The lamentations of Apollo, on the death of Hyacinthus, formed the subject of bitter, and, indeed, deserved raillery, for several of the satirical writers among the ancients.