Endymion (mythology)

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For other uses, see Endymion (disambiguation).
Endymion
Paeon, Epeius, fifty daughters with Selene

In

Mount Latmus in Caria, on the west coast of Asia Minor.[2]

There is confusion over Endymion's identity, as some sources suppose that he was, or was related to, the prince of

Heracleia claimed that he was laid to rest on Mount Latmus, while the Eleans declared that it was at Olympia.[4]

Endymion as hunter (with a dog), sitting on rocks in a landscape, holding two spears, looking at Selene who descends to him. Antique fresco from Pompeii.

However, the role of lover of Selene, the Moon, is attributed primarily to the Endymion who was either a shepherd or an astronomer, as either profession provides justification for the time he spent gazing at the Moon.[citation needed]

Mythology

Selene and Endymion, by Sebastiano Ricci (1713), Chiswick House, England.

Mount Latmus, near Miletus in Caria,[7] that she entreated Zeus that he might remain that way. In some versions, Zeus wanted to punish Endymion for daring to show romantic interest in Hera (much like Ixion). Whatever the case, Zeus granted Selene's wish and put Endymion into an eternal sleep. Every night, Selene visited him where he slept, and by him had fifty daughters[8] who are equated by some scholars (such as James George Frazer or H. J. Rose) with the fifty months of the Olympiad.[9][need quotation to verify].[10][11]

According to a passage in the Deipnosophistae, the sophist and dithyrambic poet Licymnius of Chios[12] (probably 4th century BCE) told a different tale, in which Hypnos, the god of sleep, loves Endymion and does not close the eyes of his beloved even while he is asleep, but lulls him to rest with eyes wide open so that he may without interruption enjoy the pleasure of gazing at them.[13]

The Bibliotheke claims that:

Curetian country. There he killed his hosts, Dorus and Laodocus and Polypoetes, the sons of Phthia and Apollo, and called the country Aetolia after himself.[14]

In a similar vein, a scholiast on

Apollonius Rhodius wrote that, according to Hesiod, Zeus allowed Endymion to be the keeper of his own death and to decide on his own when he would die.[15]

Diana and Endymion by Jérôme-Martin Langlois, c. 1822

According to Pausanias, Endymion deposed Clymenus, son of Cardys, at Olympia.[16] Describing the "early history" of the Eleans, Pausanias reports that:

The first to rule in this land, they say, was Aethlius, who was the son of Zeus and of
Heracleia near Miletus do not agree with the Eleans for while the Eleans show a tomb of Endymion, the folk of Heracleia say that he retired to Mount Latmus and give him honor, there being a shrine of Endymion on Latmus.[17]

Pausanias also reports seeing a statue of Endymion in the treasury of Metapontines at Olympia.[18]

Tusculanae Quaestiones (Book 1), and Theocritus discuss the Endymion myth at some length, but reiterate the above to varying degrees. The myth surrounding Endymion has been expanded and reworked during the modern period by figures like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Keats (in his 1818 narrative poem Endymion
).

The satirical author

Samosata records an otherwise unattested myth where a fair nymph named Myia becomes Selene's rival for Endymion's affections; the chatty nymph would endlessly talk to him when he slept, waking him up. This annoyed Endymion, and enraged Selene, who transformed the girl into a fly. In memory of Endymion, the fly still grudges all sleepers their rest.[19]

Comparative table of Endymion's family
Relation Names Sources
Hesiod Conon Apollodorus Pausanias Nonnus Clement Stephanus
Parents Aethlius and Calyce ✓ ✓
Aethlius ✓
Aethnos ✓
Zeus ✓
Zeus and Phoenissa ✓
Wife Naiad nymph ✓
Iphianassa ✓
Selene ✓ ✓
Asterodia ✓
Cromia ✓
Hyperippe ✓
Children Aetolus ✓ ✓ ✓
Eurypyle ✓
50 daughters ✓
Eurycyda ✓
Epeius ✓
Paeon ✓
Narcissus ✓
Naxos ✓

Background

Another Roman Endymion sarcophagus, mid-2nd century AD. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)[20]
Gallo-Roman "Endymion" sarcophagus, early 3rd century (Louvre
)
Roman "Endymion" statue, reign of Hadrian - early 2nd century (Gustav III's Antikmuseum, Stockholm)
Artemis and Endymion in Palais Garnier, Paris

No explicit narrative has survived. In the Argonautica (iv.57ff) the "daughter of Titan," the Moon, was witness to Medea's fearful night-time flight to Jason, and "rejoiced with malicious pleasure as she reflected to herself: 'I'm not the only one then to skulk off to the Latmian cave, nor is it only I that burn with desire for fair Endymion'" she muses. "But now you yourself it would seem, are a victim of a madness like mine."[21] Lemprière's Classical Dictionary reinforces Pliny's account of Endymion's attachment to astronomy and cites it as the source of why Endymion was said to have a relationship with the moon as she passed by.

The

Late Antiquity, when after-death existence began to be a heightened concern. The Louvre example, discovered at Saint-Médard-d'Eyrans
, France (illustration above), is one of this class.

Some[who?] believe that he was the personification of sleep, or the sunset (most likely the last one as his name, if it were Greek rather than Carian can be construed from "to dive in" [Greek en (ἐν) in, and duein (δύειν) dive], which would imply a representation of that sort. Latin writers explained the name from somnum ei inductum, the "sleep put upon him".[23])

The myth of Endymion was never easily transferred to ever-chaste Artemis, the Olympian associated with the Moon.[24] In the Renaissance, the revived moon goddess Diana had the Endymion myth attached to her.

Notes

  1. ^ Michael Drayton's spelling in Endimion and Phœbe (1597) did not catch on.
  2. ^ Her Roman equivalent is Luna.

Citations

  1. ^ Classical sources linking Endymion with Elis include Pausanias, 5.1.3 & Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, 1.7.5-6
  2. Tusculan Disputations
    i.38.92.
  3. Naturalis Historia
    Book II.IV.43.
  4. ^ John Lemprière's Classical Dictionary
  5. ^ Argonautica 4.57ff.
  6. ^ Compare Plato, Phaedo 72c.
  7. ^ Sappho localises the myth at Mount Latmus.
  8. ^ Pausanias 5.1.4
  9. ISBN 978-1-44433417-3, pp. 204–5
    .
  10. ^ Frazer, James George (1911). "The Mortality of the Gods". The Golden Bough. Volume 4, Part 3 of The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (3 ed.). London: Macmillan and Company, Limited. p. 90. Retrieved 19 January 2023. [...] as scholars have already perceived, Endymion is the sunken sun overtaken by the moon below the horizon, and his fifty daughters by her are the fifty lunar months of an Olympiad, or, more strictly speaking, of every alternate Olympiad.
  11. ^
    ISBN 9789004091559
    . Retrieved 19 January 2023. Endymion is sometimes called the founder of the Olympic games, which links up with the legend that the moon goddess bore him fifty daughters, Pausanius 5.1.4. H. J. Rose (Oxf. Class. Dict. s.v.) sees this as a reference to the fifty months of an Olympiad. pizza
  12. ^ Licymnius is known only through a few quoted lines and second-hand through references (William Smith, ed. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities 1870 Archived 2007-04-05 at the Wayback Machine)
  13. ^ Licymnius, Fragment 771 (from Athenaeus, Scholars at Dinner) (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric V)
  14. ^ Apollodorus, 1.7.5-6
  15. ^ Hesiod, Catalogue of Women frag 8
  16. ^ Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 5.8.1
  17. ^ Pausanias, 5.3–5.
  18. ^ Pausanias, 6.19.11.
  19. ^ Lucian, Praising a Fly 10
  20. ^ Accession Number 24.97.13.
  21. ^ Richard Hunter, Apollonius of Rhodes: Jason and the Golden Fleece (Oxford University Press) 1993:100.
  22. ^ Described in Sir James George Frazer, ed., Apollodorus, Library and Epitome [1].
  23. ^ Graves, 1960, 64 note 2.
  24. ^ Hyginus (Fabula 271) identifies Endymion as he "whom Luna loved", keeping the necessary moon connection but avoiding Diana.

References

Ancient

Modern

External links

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