The Strange Ancient Greek Habit of Turning People into Plants

I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but here in the south the ground is warming up and the flowers and trees are starting to strut their stuff. Flowers in particular can be so small and unassuming, it’s sometimes hard to remember many of them have a long past. Many cultures have come up with stories and legends to explain the evolution of things in nature. Today let’s go back to the ancient world and check out some stories from those know-it-all ancient Greeks.

Apollo’s ill-fated love affairs

Rule # 1 Never judge people (or gods) by their size

Ah, to be a young god falling in love for the first time. And, if you’re lucky enough to be a Greek god, you have it made because you are irresistible. Right? Well, unfortunately for Apollo it didn’t always work that way, like that time he got in a little spat with Eros, aka Cupid. Apollo had just won a fight with a dragon named Python down at Delphi, and he was pretty darn proud of himself. So when he saw Eros, he couldn’t resist some belittling. “You just take your cute little bow and arrows and go play at the war of love and hearts. You can leave the more manly stuff to me,” he said. 

Now Eros decided he would just show Apollo what kind of damage those cute little arrows of his could do, and he shot him right in the patootie. Once hit, the proud Apollo developed an insatiable love for a nymph named Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus. However Eros sent out two arrows, and the one that hit the lovely Daphne had the opposite effect. Instead of falling madly in love, she found Apollo absolutely revolting.

Rule #2 Never trust a god who is slobbery in love

“Darling, I want you, I need you, I can’t live without you,” Apollo said to Daphne, but the more he tried to win her the more she resisted. Apollo wouldn’t give up. Day and night he tried to woo the girl until the whole thing drove her totally bonk-willy. His incessant slobbery pleas of love drove her to her wit’s end. Seeing no escape, she begged her father’s help. What could he do to release her from this fatal attraction? How do you get away from a god? There seemed to be only one option, and so he turned her into a laurel tree.

Unfortunately, Apollo couldn’t let go of his beloved even in tree form and deemed the plant sacred. Now, remember that fight Apollo had with Python, the event that set this whole story in motion? Well, every four years the Greeks Pythian Games were played, right in that area near Delphi where Apollo killed Python. As a prize, the winners of the games received–you guessed it–a wreath of laurel.

Rule #3 Never misjudge a god’s throwing arm

Apollo seemed to have a string of ill-fated love affairs, male lovers included. Hyacinthus was a beautiful youth from Sparta. The good news is this time Apollo’s love was returned. It was the couple’s mutual love of sports that brought about this story’s tragic ending. 

“Let’s have a nice afternoon at the Park,” Apollo said one day. “We’ll have a picnic, play some Elton John records and throw the discus a time or two.” Hyacinthus grabbed a blanket and off they went. They had some ambrosia, played he loves me, he loves me not with the daisies, and then it happened. Apollo took out the discus and, probably trying to impress his young lover, sent it up to “scatter the clouds” as Ovid put it.

Now back in those days, the discus wasn’t anything like the modern-day plastic frisbee. If you get hit with a frisbee, you might get a little bruise. However, getting hit in the head with a metal discus is way more serious, especially if it’s going fast enough to part the clouds. Hyacinthus reached for the discus but missed, and the poor boy got it right in the head. Poor Apollo tried with all his godly wisdom to keep the boy alive, but alas to no avail. Unwilling to forget his lover, he kept him alive in the form of a flower. And so the blood that stained the earth grew into the first hyacinth. Most modern scholars agree that the Apollo variety of hyacinth isn’t what we think of today. Instead, it was probably most likely an iris or larkspur.

Two Doomed Sun Worshipers

Being the personification of the sun, Helios’s job was to travel back and forth every day across the sky. Of course, flying above all creation day in and day out makes looking into people’s windows really really tempting. One day Helios just couldn’t resist taking a peek into Aphrodite’s window and what did he see but her getting real cozy with Ares. The news was too juicy to keep to himself, and so he shared it with all his friends. 

Angry at being caught, Aphrodite made a plan for revenge. Helios had a thing going with a water nymph named Clytie, so Aphrodite decided to take her revenge. She whipped up some magic and made him fall madly in love with Leucothoe, the daughter of a Persian king. Helios became so obsessed he started screwing everything up. He might rise too soon or prolong the day just to get a glimpse of his beloved. Soon he came up with a plan to be alone with Leucothoe.

You are my sunshine

In a way only a god can, Helios disguised himself as the girl’s mother and entered her bedroom. He dismissed the servants and presto he was back in his true form.  Helios took Leucothoe in his arms and kissed her wildly.

“Is this proper? Should I be kissing you on the first date? I mean, we haven’t even gone out to dinner yet,” the girl declared.

Of course, Helios knew how to put a girl at ease. After all the windows he’d peaked in over the years, he had learned what works with a girl and what doesn’t. It didn’t take long for Leucothoe to submit to Helios’s wooing. Unfortunately, what goes around comes around, as the old saying goes, and someone blabbed the juicy details of the affair. Of course, Clytie was far from pleased. She wanted Helios for herself. Leucothoe needed to go, so Clytie leaked the news to the girl’s dad.

Never underestimate the power of a pissed-off father

Now, when the king found out his daughter could no longer be classified under the pure as a white lily category, anger overtook him. What good was a daughter that was stained and sullied by a god? Evidently, none at all because he had her buried alive. Helios tried to save her, but it was too late. So he did the next best thing. He turned her into a Frankincense tree.

This could be the end of the story, but it’s not. Clytie foolishly thought that, with his lover out of the way, Helios would be hers once more. However, Helios was a little bitter and he just couldn’t get back that warm fuzzy he once had for Clytie.  Devastated by his rejection, the girl stripped herself naked, refused all food and drink, and did nothing but sit on a rock pining for her lost lover for nine days. Finally, she turned into that sun-worshiping flower, the heliotrope. 

Romeo and Juliet, Greek-style

Pyramus and Thisbe lived next door to each other and as they grew, they fell in love and wanted to marry. Their parents, however, were against the idea. Well, you know how it is when you tell a child not to do something; they want to do it all the more. So Pyramus and Thisbe did what they could to keep their relationship going behind their parent’s back. Finally, one day they had enough and decided to just be done with it all and run away together. They made a plan to leave the city together that very night.

“Meet me at the tomb of Ninus, by the mulberry tree,” Pyramus told his lover. The day seemed to last forever, but finally, darkness fell. The veiled Thisbe was the first to arrive at their meeting place, but as she waited for her lover, what should come along but a lioness.

When running away with your lover, make sure to securely pin your vale

Now, Thisbe wasn’t real comfortable with the idea of waiting around with a lion. Especially one whose fur had blood stains from a previous meal. Not wanting to be next on the lionesses menu, she ran away. Unfortunately, in her haste, she dropped her veil. When Pyramus arrived, he saw the tracks in the dirt, the bloody lioness, and horror of horrors, the veil of his beloved sticking out from the mouth of the beast. Without his lover, life wasn’t worth living. He called out to the lioness, “Come and eat me too, you foul monster, so that I may share the fate of my precious Thisbe.” Well, evidently the lioness no longer had an appetite and refused his request. Pyramus was undaunted. If the lion would not eat him, he would take his own life, and so he took out his sword and stabbed himself in the heart.

Shortly after this, Thisbe came back to see if Pyramus had arrived. As she looked around, she noticed something odd about the mulberries. “Strange,” she said to herself. “When I got here, these berries were white. Now suddenly they have turned red.” Then from the corner of her eye, she saw something that made her gasp; the body of Pyramus in a heap on the ground. Realizing her beloved was dead, she cried out in anguish. “What was denied to me in life shall be mine forever in death,” she vowed. “Remember our deaths, oh tree, and the color of our mingling blood.” Then taking the sword, she too stabbed herself in the heart. The gods heard her cries, and to this day the mulberries turn red as they ripen.