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InGreco-Roman mythology,Leuce, also spelledLeuke (Ancient Greek:Λεύκη, "white", specifically "white poplar"), was anymph, anOceanid; a daughter of theTitanOceanus and his wife,Tethys.[citation needed]
Hades fell in love with her and abducted her tothe underworld. She lived out the span of her life in his realm, and when she died, the god turned her into a white poplar which he placed in theElysian Fields. To celebrate hisreturn from the underworld, the heroHeracles crowned himself with a branch of this tree.[1]
Maurus Servius Honoratus identifies the tree as thewhite poplar, the leaf of which is distinctively two-sided, one white and one dark. The double color, Servius says, made a wreath that represented the duality of the hero'slabors in both the upper and the underworld.[2] The association of white poplar leaves with Herakles is also attested by archaeological remains, such as the poplar-leaf motif carved on a statue base found in a small sanctuary to Herakles (RomanHercules) along theTiber river.[3] It has been suggested[4] that behind the vague outlines of this tale lurks an older myth having to do with Herakles' encounter with the river deityAchelous, who hadchthonic associations and whose name was the subject of speculative theological etymology among the Greeks, in this case involvingacherōïs, another Greek word for "poplar." In afounding myth of the 1st century BC, Herakles is supposed to have established theArvernianoppidum ofAlesia,[5] the name of which likely derives from theGaulish word for poplar.[6]
Celebrants of theBacchic rites wore a wreath of poplar leaves to honor the chthonic aspect ofDionysus.[7]
AtElis, white poplar was the only wood used in sacrifices toZeus, according toPausanias, because Herakles imported the tree and used it to burn the thigh bones of sacrificial victims atOlympia. The oak is the customary sacred tree of Zeus, and the substitution among the Eleans may simply reflect the more widespread growth habit of the poplar there.[8] The hero was supposed to have discovered the tree growing on the banks of the upperworld Acheron inThesprotia.Pausanias says this isthe reason for theHomeric epithetAcherōïda for the white poplar,[9] which was also calledleukē in Greek.[10]
The white poplar might be worn as a crown at athletic contests in honor of Herakles, a patron of theOlympic games. Its infernal origin made it appropriate forfuneral games,[11] which played an important role in the development of Greek athletics.[12]
The white poplar was also sacred toPersephone, for whom Leuce seems to be a doublet orepithet, as a goddess of regeneration.[citation needed]Robert Graves used the myth of Leuce in developing his poetic theories of mythology. Graves, for instance, holds that the back of the poplar leaf was turned white by the sweat of Herakles.[13] InThe White Goddess, he names the white poplar as one of the "three trees of resurrection", along with alder and cypress.[14]
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