InGreek mythology,Hymen (Ancient Greek:Ὑμήν,romanized: Humḗn),Hymenaios orHymenaeus (Ὑμέναιος), is a god ofmarriage ceremonies who inspires feasts and song. Related to the god's name, ahymenaios is a genre ofGreek lyric poetry that was sung during the procession of the bride to the groom's house in which the god is addressed, in contrast to theEpithalamium, which is sung at the nuptial threshold.
Hymen's name is derived from theProto-Indo-European root *syuh₁-men-, "to sew together," hence, "joiner;" it is also recorded inDoric Greek as Ῡ̔μᾱ́ν (Hyman). The termhymen was also used for a thin skin or membrane such asthat which covers the vaginal opening and was traditionally supposed to be broken bysexual intercourse after a woman's (first) marriage. The membrane's name was, therefore, not directly connected to that of the god, but they shared the same root and infolk etymology were sometimes supposed to be related.[1][2][3][4]
Hymen is supposed to attend every wedding. If he did not, the marriage would supposedly prove disastrous and so the Greeks would run about calling his name aloud. He presided over many of the weddings inGreek mythology, for all the deities and their children.
Hymen is celebrated in the ancient marriage song of unknown origin (called a Hymenaios)Hymen o Hymenae, Hymen delivered byCatullus.
Hymen was mentioned inEuripides'sThe Trojan Women in whichCassandra says:
Bring the light, uplift and show its flame! I am doing the god's service, see! I making his shrine to glow with tapers bright. O Hymen, king of marriage! blest is the bridegroom; blest am I also, the maiden soon to wed a princely lord in Argos. Hail Hymen, king of marriage!
Hymen is also mentioned inVirgil'sAeneid and in seven plays byWilliam Shakespeare:Hamlet,[5]The Tempest,Much Ado about Nothing,[6]Titus Andronicus,Pericles, Prince of Tyre,Timon of Athens andAs You Like It, where he joins the couples at the end —
Tis Hymen peoples every town;
High wedlock then be honoured.
Honour, high honour, and renown,
To Hymen, god of every town!
Hymen also appears in the work of the 7th- to 6th-century BCE Greek poetSappho (translation:M. L. West,Greek Lyric Poetry, Oxford University Press):
High must be the chamber –
Hymenaeum!
Make it high, you builders!
A bridegroom's coming –
Hymenaeum!
Like the War-god himself, the tallest of the tall!
Hymen is most commonly the son ofApollo and one of theMuses,Clio orCalliope orUrania orTerpsichore.[7][8][9][10][11] InSeneca's playMedea, he is stated to be the son ofDionysus.[12]Servius calls him the son of Dionysus byAphrodite.[13]
Other stories give Hymen a legendary origin. In one of the surviving fragments of theMegalai Ehoiai attributed toHesiod, it's told thatMagnes "had a son of remarkable beauty, Hymenaeus. And when Apollo saw the boy, he was seized with love for him, and wouldn't leave the house of Magnes".[14]
Aristophanes'Peace ends with Trygaeus and the Chorus singing the wedding song, with the repeated phrase "Oh Hymen! Oh Hymenaeus!",[15] a typical refrain for a wedding song.[16]
According toAthenaeus,Likymnios of Chios, in hisDithyrambics, says that Hymenaeus was theerastes ofArgynnus, a boy fromBoeotia.[17]
Maurus Servius Honoratus, in his commentaries onVirgil'sEclogues, mentions thatHesperus, the Evening Star, inhabitedMount Oeta inThessaly and that there he had loved the young Hymenaeus, son ofApollo with a similar singing voice, which he was said to have lost at the wedding ofDionysus andAriadne.[18]
According to a later romance, Hymen was an Athenian youth of great beauty but low birth who fell in love with the daughter of one of the city's wealthiest women. Since he could not speak to her or court her because of his social standing, he instead followed her wherever she went.[19]
Hymendisguised himself as a woman in order to join one of those processions, areligious rite at Eleusis in which only women went. The assemblage was captured by pirates, Hymen included. He encouraged the women and plotted strategy with them, and together, they killed their captors. He then agreed with the women to go back toAthens and win their freedom if he were allowed to marry one of them. He thus succeeded in both the mission and the marriage, and his marriage was so happy that Athenians instituted festivals in his honour, and he came to be associated with marriage.[19]
According toApollodorus, "the Orphics report" that Hymenaeus was among those resurrected byAsclepius.[20]
At least since theItalian Renaissance, Hymen was generally represented in art as a young man wearing a garland of flowers and holding a burning torch in one hand.
Hymen appears as a character in the final scene ofWilliam Shakespeare's pastoralcomedyAs You Like It in which he presides over the rites for four weddings. These include a dance of harmony for the eight characters entering their unions, including the play's protagonist and heroineRosalind with her belovedOrlando.
Hymen (1921) is an early book of poetry by the American modernist poetH.D. The eponymous long poem of the collection imagines an ancient Greek women's ritual for a bride.
Media related toHymen (god) at Wikimedia Commons
