Galatea (mythology) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For the wife of Lamprus, who prayed to Leto
Leto
In Greek mythology, Leto is a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe. The island of Kos is claimed as her birthplace. In the Olympian scheme, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, the Letoides, which Leto conceived after her hidden beauty accidentally caught the eyes of Zeus...

that her daughter be turned into a son, see Leucippus (mythology)
Leucippus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Leucippus, son of Gorgophone and Perieres, was the father of Phoebe and Hilaeira, and also of Arsinoe, mother of Asclepius, by his wife Philodice, daughter of Inachus....

Galatea (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

: Γαλάτεια; "she who is milk-white") is a name popularly applied to the statue carved of ivory by Pygmalion

Pygmalion (mythology)

Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, he is most familiar from Ovid's Metamorphoses, X, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.-In Ovid:In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a...

of Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

. An allusion

Allusion

An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...

to Galatea in modern English has become a metaphor for a statue that has come to life. Galatea is also the name of Polyphemus

Polyphemus

Polyphemus is the gigantic one-eyed son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes. His name means "much spoken of" or "famous". Polyphemus plays a pivotal role in Homer's Odyssey.-In Homer's Odyssey:...

's object of desire in Theocritus

Theocritus

Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...

's Idylls VI and XI and is linked with Polyphemus again in the myth of Acis and Galatea

Acis and Galatea

Acis and Galatea is a musical work by George Frideric Handel with an English text by John Gay. The work has been variously described as a serenata, a masque, a pastoral or pastoral opera, a "little opera" , an entertainment and in the New Grove Dictionary of Music an oratorio...

in Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

's Metamorphoses.

Name "Galatea"

Though the name "Galatea" has become so firmly associated with Pygmalion's statue as to seem antique, its use in connection with Pygmalion originated with a post-classical writer. No extant ancient text mentions the statue's name. As late as 1763, a sculpture of the subject shown by Falconet

Étienne Maurice Falconet

Étienne Maurice Falconet is counted among the first rank of French Rococo sculptors, whose patron was Mme de Pompadour.-Life:Falconet was born to a poor family in Paris...

at the Paris Salon

Paris Salon

The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...

(illustration) carried the title Pygmalion aux pieds de sa statue qui s'anime, "Pygmalion at the feet of his statue that comes to life".. That sculpture, currently at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, now bears the expected modern title Pygmalion and Galatea.

According to Meyer Reinhold

Reinhold

Reinhold is a German surname and male given name, and may refer to:As a surname:*Erasmus Reinhold, 16th-century German astronomer; The lunar crater Reinhold is named after him.*Hugo Reinhold , Austrian composer and pianist...

, the name "Galatea" was first given wide circulation in Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

's scène lyrique of 1762, Pygmalion. The name had become a commonplace of pastoral

Pastoral

The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...

fictions, because of the well known myth of Acis and Galatea

Acis and Galatea (mythology)

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Acis was the spirit of the Acis River in Sicily, beloved of the nereid, or sea-nymph, Galatea . Galatea returned the love of Acis, but a jealous suitor, the Sicilian Cyclops Polyphemus, killed him with a boulder. Distraught, Galatea then turned his blood into the river...

; one of Honoré d'Urfé

Honoré d'Urfé

Honoré d'Urfé, marquis de Valromey, comte de Châteauneuf was a French novelist and miscellaneous writer.- Life :...

's characters in L'Astrée
L'Astrée
L’Astrée is a pastoral novel by Honoré d'Urfé, published between 1607 and 1627.Possibly the single most influential work of 17th century French literature, Astrée has been called the "novel of novels", partly for its immense length but also for the success it had throughout Europe: it was...

was a Galatea, though not this sculptural creation.

Myth

The story of Pygmalion appeared earliest in a Hellenistic work, Philostephanus'

Philostephanus

Philostephanus of Cyrene was a Hellenistic writer from North Africa, who was a pupil of the poet Callimachus in Alexandria and doubtless worked there during the 3rd century BC....

history of Cyprus, "De Cypro". It is retold in Ovid's

Ovid

Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)
Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...

, where the king Pygmalion is made into a sculptor who fell in love with an ivory statue he had crafted with his own hands. In answer to his prayers, the goddess Venus, (Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....

) brought it to life and united the couple in marriage. This novella remained the classical telling until the end of the seventeenth century. The trope

Trope (literature)

A literary trope is the usage of figurative language in literature, or a figure of speech in which words are used in a sense different from their literal meaning...

of the animated statue gained a vogue during the eighteenth century.

The daemon
Daemon (mythology)
The words dæmon and daimôn are Latinized spellings of the Greek "δαίμων", a reference to the daemons of Ancient Greek religion and mythology, as well as later Hellenistic religion and philosophy...

of Pygmalion's goddess, animating her cult image

Cult image

In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...

, bore him a son Paphus

Paphos

Paphos , sometimes referred to as Pafos, is a coastal city in the southwest of Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos and New Paphos. The currently inhabited city is New Paphos. It lies on the Mediterranean coast, about west of the...

—the eponym

Eponym

An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

of the city of Paphos

Paphos

—and Metharme. Of "this ecstatic relationship," Meyer Reinhold has remarked, "there may be lurking a survival of the ancient cult of the Great Goddess

Great Goddess

Great Goddess refers to the concept of an almighty goddess, or to the concept of a mother goddess, including:*Great Goddess, anglicized form of the Latin Magna Dea*Great Goddess, anglicized form of the Sanskrit Mahadevi, the Shakti sum of all goddesses...

and her consort."

Cinyras

Cinyras

In Greek mythology, Cinyras was a king of Cyprus. Accounts vary significantly as to his genealogy and provide a variety of stories concerning him; in many sources, however, he is associated with the cult of Aphrodite on Cyprus, and Adonis, a consort of Aphrodite, is mentioned as his son.In the...

, perhaps the son of Paphus, , or perhaps the successful suitor of Metharme, founded the city of Paphos on Cyprus, under the patronage of Aphrodite, and built the great temple to the goddess there.

Bibliotheke, the Hellenistic compendium of myth long attributed to Apollodorus, mentions a daughter of Pygmalion named Metharme. She was the wife of Cinyras, and the mother of Adonis

Adonis

Adonis , in Greek mythology, the god of beauty and desire, is a figure with Northwest Semitic antecedents, where he is a central figure in various mystery religions. The Greek , Adōnis is a variation of the Semitic word Adonai, "lord", which is also one of the names used to refer to God in the Old...

, beloved of Aphrodite, although Myrrha

Myrrha

Myrrha , also known as Smyrna , is the mother of Adonis in Greek mythology. She was transformed into a myrrh tree after having had intercourse with her father and gave birth to Adonis as a tree...

, daughter of Cinyras, is more commonly named as the mother of Adonis.

It was commonly rumored in Roman times that Praxiteles

Praxiteles

Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue...

' Aphrodite

Aphrodite of Knidos

The Aphrodite of Cnidus was one of the most famous works of the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles of Athens . It and its copies are often referred to as the Venus Pudica type, on account of her covering her naked vulva with her right hand...

of Knidos

Knidos

Knidos or Cnidus is an ancient settlement located in Turkey. It was an ancient Greek city of Caria, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus, now known as Gulf of Gökova. By the fourth century BC, Knidos was located...

, the cult image in her temple

Greek temple

Greek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in Greek paganism. The temples themselves did usually not directly serve a cult purpose, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them...

was so beautiful that at least one admirer arranged to be shut in with it overnight.

Interpretation

The myth incontrovertibly indicates that a cult image of Aphrodite

Aphrodite

was instrumental in some way in the founding myth

Founding myth

A national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past. Such myths often serve as an important national symbol and affirm a set of national values. A national myth may sometimes take the form of a national epic...

of Paphos. It also seems axiomatic, apart from miraculous intervention, that the living representative of a cult image could be none but the chief priestess. Robert Graves

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...

gives a socio-political interpretation of the story, as a mythologized overthrow of a matrilineal cult. In his view Pygmalion, the consort of the goddess's priestess at Paphos, kept the cult image

Cult image

In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...

of Aphrodite as a means of retaining power during his term, after which, Graves speculates, he refused to give up the goddess's image "and that he prolonged this by marriage with another of Aphrodite's priestesses—technically his daughter, since she was heiress to the throne—who is called Metharme ("change"), to mark the innovation."

Pygmalion is the Greek

Greek language

version of the Phoenicia

Phoenicia

Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...

n royal name Pumayyaton: see Pygmalion

Pygmalion of Tyre

Pygmalion was king of Tyre from 831 to 785 BC and a son of King Mattan I .During Pygmalion's reign, Tyre seems to have shifted the heart of its trading empire from the Middle East to the Mediterranean, as can be judged from the building of new colonies including Kition on Cyprus, Sardinia , and,...

of Tyre.

External links

Galatea depicted with Polyphemus on a golden harpsichord by Michele Todini, Rome, 1675 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Name "Galatea"

Myth

Interpretation

See also

External links