Tithonus has been taken by the allegorist to mean ‘a grant of a stretching-out’ (fromteinō andōnė), a reference to the stretching-out of his life, at Eos’s plea; but it is likely, rather, to have been a masculine form of Eos’s own name, Titonë – fromtitō, ‘day[2] and onë, ‘queen’ – and to have meant ‘partner of the Queen of Day’.[3]
Eos is said to have taken Tithonus, from the royal house of Troy, to be her lover.[iii][4] The myth of Eos and Tithonus' love was known toHomer, who wrote that in the morning Eos rose from the bed she shared with Tithonus in order to give her light to mankind.[5]
Themytheme of the goddess' mortal lover is an archaic one; when a role for Zeus was inserted, a bitter twist appeared: according to theHomeric Hymn to Aphrodite, when Eos asked Zeus to make Tithonusimmortal, she forgot to ask that he be grantedeternal youth.[iv][v][6] Tithonus indeed lived forever,
but when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs.[4]
In later tellings, he eventually became acicada (tettix),[7][8] eternally living, but begging for death to overcome him.[vi] In theOlympian system, the "queenly" and "golden-throned" Eos can no longer grant immortality to her lover asSelene had done, but must ask it of Zeus, as a boon. In the account ofHieronymus of Rhodes from the third century BC, the blame is shifted from Eos onto Tithonus, who asked for immortality but not agelessness from his lover, who was then unable to help him otherwise and turned him into a cicada.[9]Propertius wrote that Eos did not forsake Tithonus, old and aged as he was, and would still embrace him and hold him in her arms rather than leaving him deserted in his cold chamber, while cursing the gods for his cruel fate.[10]
Eos bore Tithonus two sons,Memnon andEmathion. According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Memnon was raised by theHesperides on the coast of Oceanus.[11] According to the historianDiodorus Siculus, Tithonus, who had travelled east from Troy intoAssyria and foundedSusa, was bribed with a golden grapevine to send his son Memnon to fight at Troy against the Greeks.[12]
TheTithonus poem is one of the few nearly complete works of the Greek lyric poetSappho, having been pieced together from fragments discovered over a period of more than a hundred years.[vii]
This myth might have been used to explain why cicadas were particularly noisy during the early hours of the morning, when the dawn appears in the sky.[13] SirJames George Frazer notes that among ancient Greeks and several other peoples there was a widespread belief that creatures that can shed their skin renew their youth and live forever.[14] It might also be a reference to the fact that the high-pitched talk of old men was compared to the cicadas' singing, as seen in a passage from theIliad.[7] In fact the ancient Greeks would use a cicada sitting on a harp as an emblem of music.[15]
Eos (asThesan) and Tithonus (as Tinthu or Tinthun) provided a pictorial motif inscribed or cast in low relief on the backs ofEtruscan bronze hand-mirrors.[viii][16]
Tithonus as an aged immortal is mentioned in Book I, Canto II, Stanza VII of Edmund Spenser'sThe Faerie Queene.
"Tithonus" byAlfred Tennyson was originally written as "Tithon" in 1833 and completed in 1859.[17] The poem is a dramatic monologue inblank verse from the point of view of Tithonus. Unlike the original myth, it is Tithonus who asks for immortality, and it isAurora, not Zeus, who grants this imperfect gift. As narrator, Tithonus laments his unnatural longevity, which separates him from the mortal world as well as from the immortal but beautiful Aurora.
^Daughter of theTitansHyperion andTheia, Eos (Aurora inLatin) was the sister ofHelios andSelene. As one of the major offspring of the Titans, she is sometimes referred to as one of theTitanides (a Titaness; the English plural "Titanesses" is rarely used), but like theOlympians, is usually described by the more general term "goddess".
^In an alternative version of the myth, mentioned byPseudo-Apollodorus, Tithonus was the son ofCephalus, another lover of Eos, and father ofPhaethon.[1]
^Compare the mytheme in its original, blissful form, in the pairing ofSelene andEndymion, a myth that also associated with Asia Minor. Peter Walcot considers Tithonus a "corrective" example to the myth of Ganymede: "the example of Ganymedes promises too much, and might beguile Anchises into expecting too much, even an ageless immortality". ("The Homeric 'Hymn' to Aphrodite: A Literary Appraisal" inGreece & Rome 2nd Series, vol. 38, part 2 (October 1991), pp. 137–155, at 149.)
^In one version, Zeus decided he wanted the beautiful youth Ganymede for himself; to repay Eos, he promised to fulfill one wish.
^In some variants, Eos deliberately turns Tithonus into a cricket or a cicada.
^The first modern printing of the complete poem was published in two sections by Michael Gronewald and Robert W. Daniel inZeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik vol. 147, pp. 1–8, and vol. 149, pp. 1–4 (2004); an English translation byMartin West is printed in theTimes Literary Supplement, 21 or 24 June 2005. The right half of this poem was previously found in fragment 58 L-P. The fully restored version can be found in M. L. West, "The New Sappho", inZeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 151, pp. 1–9 (2005).
^As on one in theVatican Museums, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, acc. no. 12241
^abHard, Robin,The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004,ISBN9780415186360,p. 47.
^Marilyn Y. Goldberg, "The 'Eos and Kephalos' from Caere: Its Subject and Date", inAmerican Journal of Archaeology vol. 91, part 4, pp. 605–614, fig. 2 (October, 1987).
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