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.
Ovid
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.
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.
Newly wed Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus rescues her from the Underworld, but on their way back he looks back to check on her. All in magnificent paintings.
The first transformed into a Lotus Tree for picking lotus flowers; the second dissolved in her own tears to become a spring; the third changing gender in time for their wedding.
Juno won’t let the labour of Hercules’ mother progress, so one of maids tricks Lucina into allowing the infant’s delivery, for which the maid is turned into a weasel.
When the centaur Nessus tried to abduct Hercules’ wife, he was impaled by an arrow. He set up the later death of the hero, who was destroyed by poison in his own arrow.
How Hercules and Achelous came to fight one another over the hand of Deianira, resulting in one of the river god’s horns being wrenched off to become the Horn of Plenty.
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