Bacchus granted him the boon that everything he touched turned to gold. When that proved disastrous, his power was washed away, but he then offended Apollo and was given the ears of an ass.
myth
The bard is torn limb from limb by frenzied bacchantes, leaving his head and lyre to float down the River Hebrus and over to the shores of Lesbos.
The lover of Venus is gored in the groin by a wild boar, and dies in pools of blood to be transformed into red anemone flowers.
Told by an oracle she shouldn’t marry, she challenges any man to a running race to win her hand in marriage. When Hippomenes succeeds, things go wrong for the couple.
A dark tale of incest, transformation, and obstetrics in the arboretum, leading to the precious resin myrrh, and the birth of Adonis from a tree.
Pygmalion carves an ivory statue of the perfect woman, and prays to Venus for a bride in its likeness. When he showers the statue with his kisses, it turns into the woman he wanted.
Apollo’s discus strikes Hyacinthus in the face. As he dies from that wound, his spilt blood is turned into the hyacinth flower in his memory.
Allegories using classical deities, by Tintoretto and Rubens. Accounts of how the Sabine women brought peace to Rome, and peace treaties of Charlemagne and Barbarossa.
Stories of the origin of the Italian pine and cypress trees, and a far more dubious account of Jupiter’s abduction that’s found in an advert for beer.
Associated with the fire of the underworld, painted into life by Jupiter, attracted by Psyche, hunted on expeditions, in vanitas paintings, or just for their beauty.
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