Hesperides

In Greek mythology, the Hesperides (/hɛˈspɛrɪdz/; Ancient Greek: Ἑσπερίδες [hesperídes]) are the nymphs of evening and golden light of sunsets, who were the "Daughters of the Evening" or "Nymphs of the West". They were also called the Atlantides (Ἀτλαντίδων) from their reputed father, the Titan Atlas.[1]

The Hesperides
Nymphs of the West
Garden Hesperides by Edward Burne-Jones
AbodeHesperia
Personal information
ParentsNyx and Erebus, or Atlas and Hesperis or Hesperus, or Zeus and Themis, or Phorcys and Ceto
SiblingsThanatos, Hypnos, Oneiroi, Moirai, Nemesis or Gorgons, Echidna, Graeae

Etymology

The name means originating from Hesperos (evening). Hesperos, or Vesper in Latin, is the origin of the name Hesperus, the evening star (i.e. the planet Venus) as well as having a shared root with the English word "west".

Mythology

The nymphs of the evening

Ordinarily, the Hesperides number three, like the other Greek triads (the Three Graces and the Three Fates). "Since the Hesperides themselves are mere symbols of the gifts the apples embody, they cannot be actors in a human drama. Their abstract, interchangeable names are a symptom of their impersonality," classicist Evelyn Byrd Harrison has observed.[2]

They are sometimes portrayed as the evening daughters of Night (Nyx) either alone,[3] or with Darkness (Erebus),[4] in accord with the way Eos in the farthermost east, in Colchis, is the daughter of the titan Hyperion. The Hesperides are also listed as the daughters of Atlas,[5] and Hesperis[1] or of Phorcys and Ceto[6] or of Zeus and Themis.[7] In a Roman literary source, the nymphs are simply said to be the daughters of Hesperus, embodiment of the "west".[8]

The Garden of the Hesperides by Frederick, Lord Leighton, 1892.

Nevertheless, among the names given to them, though never all at once, there were either three, four, or seven Hesperides. Apollonius of Rhodes gives the number of three with their names as Aigle, Erytheis and Hespere (or Hespera).[9] Hyginus in his preface to the Fabulae names them as Aegle, Hesperie and *aerica.[10][11][12] In another source, they are named Ægle, Arethusa and Hesperethusa, the three daughters of Hesperus.[13][14] Hesiod says that these "clear-voiced Hesperides",[15] daughters of Night, guarded the golden apples beyond Ocean in the far west of the world, gives the number of the Hesperides as four, and their names as: Aigle (or Aegle, "dazzling light"), Erytheia (or Erytheis), Hesperia ("sunset glow") whose name refers to the colour of the setting sun: red, yellow, or gold and lastly Arethusa.[16] In addition, Hesperia and Arethusa, the so-called "ox-eyed Hesperethusa".[17] Pseudo-Apollodorus gives the number of the Hesperides also as four, namely: Aigle, Erytheia, Hesperia (or Hesperie) and Arethusa[18] while Fulgentius named them as Aegle, Hesperie, Medusa and Arethusa.[19][20] However, the historiographer Diodorus in his account stated that they are seven in number with no information of their names.[1] An ancient vase painting attests the following names as four: Asterope, Chrysothemis, Hygieia and Lipara; on another seven names as Aiopis, Antheia, Donakis, Kalypso, Mermesa, Nelisa and Tara.[21] A Pyxis has Hippolyte, Mapsaura, and Thetis.[22] Petrus Apianus attributed to these stars a mythical connection of their own. He believed that they were the seven Hesperides, nymph daughters of Atlas and Hesperis. Their names were: Aegle, Erythea, Arethusa, Hestia, Hespera, Hesperusa and Hespereia.[23] A certain Crete, possible eponym of the island of Crete, was also called one of the Hesperides.[24]

They are sometimes called the Western Maidens, the Daughters of Evening or Erythrai, and the "Sunset Goddesses", designations all apparently tied to their imagined location in the distant west. Hesperis is appropriately the personification of the evening (as Eos is of the dawn) and the Evening Star is Hesperus.

In addition to their tending of the garden, they have taken great pleasure in singing.[25] Euripides calls them "minstrel maids" as they possess the power of sweet song.[26] The Hesperides could be hamadryad nymphs or epimeliads as suggested by a passage in which they change into trees: "..Hespere became a poplar and Eretheis an elm, and Aegle a willow's sacred trunk.." and in the same account, they are described figuratively or literally to have white arms and golden heads.[27]

Erytheia ("the red one") is one of the Hesperides. The name was applied to an island close to the coast of southern Hispania, which was the site of the original Punic colony of Gades (modern Cadiz). Pliny's Natural History (VI.36) records of the island of Gades: "On the side which looks towards Spain, at about 100 paces distance, is another long island, three miles wide, on which the original city of Gades stood. By Ephorus and Philistides it is called Erythia, by Timæus and Silenus Aphrodisias, and by the natives the Isle of Juno." The island was the seat of Geryon, who was overcome by Heracles.

Comparative table of Hesperides' parentage, number and names
Variables Item Sources
Hesiod Euripides Apollonius Cic. Apollod. Hyg. Serv. Fulg. Apianus Vase Paintings
Theo. Sch. Hipp. Argo Sch. Fab. Aen.
Parents Nyx
Nyx and Erebus
Zeus and Themis
Phorcys and Ceto
Atlas and Hesperis
Hesperus
Number 3
4
7
Names Aegle
Erythea or
Erytheis / Eretheis or
Erythia
Hesperia or
Hespere /

Hespera or

Hesperusa
Arethusa
Medusa
Hestia
Medusa
† aerica
Hippolyte
Mapsaura
Thetis
Asterope
Chrysothemis
Hygieia
Lipara
Aiopis
Antheia
Donakis
Calypso
Mermesa
Nelisa
Tara

Land of Hesperides

This circular Pyxis or box depicts two scenes. The one shown presents the Olympian gods feasting around a tripod table holding the golden Apple of the Hesperides.[28] The Walters Art Museum.

The Hesperides tend a blissful garden in a far western corner of the world, located near the Atlas mountains in North Africa at the edge of the encircling Oceanus, the world-ocean.[29]

According to the Sicilian Greek poet Stesichorus, in his poem the "Song of Geryon", and the Greek geographer Strabo, in his book Geographika (volume III), the garden of the Hesperides is located in Tartessos, a location placed in the south of the Iberian peninsula.

Euesperides (in modern-day Benghazi) which was probably founded by people from Cyrene or Barca, from both of which it lies to the west, might have mythological associations with the garden of Hesperides.[30]

By Ancient Roman times, the garden of the Hesperides had lost its archaic place in religion and had dwindled to a poetic convention, in which form it was revived in Renaissance poetry, to refer both to the garden and to the nymphs that dwelt there.

The Garden of the Hesperides

Detail of a third century AD Roman mosaic of the Labours of Hercules from Llíria, Spain showing Heracles stealing the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides

The Garden of the Hesperides is Hera's orchard in the west, where either a single apple tree or a grove grows, producing golden apples. According to the legend, when the marriage of Zeus and Hera took place, the different deities came with nuptial presents for the latter, and among them the goddess of Gaia, with branches having golden apples growing on them as a wedding gift.[31] Hera, greatly admiring these, begged of Gaia to plant them in her gardens, which extended as far as Mount Atlas.

The Hesperides were given the task of tending to the grove, but occasionally picked apples from it themselves. Not trusting them, Hera also placed in the garden an immortal, never-sleeping, hundred-headed dragon named Ladon as an additional safeguard.[5] In the myth of the Judgement of Paris, it was from the Garden that Eris, Goddess of Discord, obtained the Apple of Discord, which led to the Trojan War.[32]

In later years it was thought that the "golden apples" might have actually been oranges, a fruit unknown to Europe and the Mediterranean before the Middle Ages.[33] Under this assumption, the Greek botanical name chosen for all citrus species was Hesperidoeidē (Ἑσπεριδοειδῆ, "hesperidoids") and even today the Greek word for the orange fruit is πορτοκάλι (Portokáli)--after the country of Portugal in Iberia near where the Garden of the Hesperides grew.

The Eleventh Labour of Heracles

Heracles in the Hesperides garden. Side A from an Attic red-figure pelike, 380–370 BC. From Cyrenaica.
Hercules Killing the Dragon in the Garden of the Hesperides by Lorenzo Vaiani
Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini

After Heracles completed his first ten Labours, Eurystheus gave him two more claiming that neither the Hydra counted (because Iolaus helped Heracles) nor the Augean stables (either because he received payment for the job or because the rivers did the work). The first of these two additional Labours was to steal the apples from the garden of the Hesperides. Heracles first caught the Old Man of the Sea,[34] the shape-shifting sea god, to learn where the Garden of the Hesperides was located. In some versions of the tale, Heracles went to the Caucasus, where Prometheus was confined. The Titan directed him concerning his course through the land of the peoples in the farthest north and the perils to be encountered on his homeward march after slaying Geryon in the farthest west.

Follow this straight road; and, first of all, thou shalt come to the Boreades, where do thou beware the roaring hurricane, lest unawares it twist thee up and snatch thee away in wintry whirlwind.

As payment, Heracles freed Prometheus from his daily torture.[35] This tale is more usually found in the position of the Erymanthian Boar, since it is associated with Chiron choosing to forgo immortality and taking Prometheus' place.

Other story recounts, Heracles, either at the start or at the end of his task, meets Antaeus, who was immortal as long as he touched his mother, Gaia, the earth. Heracles killed Antaeus by holding him aloft and crushing him in a bearhug.[36] Herodotus claims that Heracles stopped in Egypt, where King Busiris decided to make him the yearly sacrifice, but Heracles burst out of his chains.

Finally making his way to the Garden of the Hesperides, Heracles tricked Atlas into retrieving some of the golden apples for him, by offering to hold up the heavens for a little while (Atlas was able to take them as, in this version, he was the father or otherwise related to the Hesperides). This would have made this task – like the Hydra and Augean stables – void because he had received help. Upon his return, Atlas decided that he did not want to take the heavens back, and instead offered to deliver the apples himself, but Heracles tricked him again by agreeing to take his place on condition that Atlas relieve him temporarily so that Heracles could make his cloak more comfortable. Atlas agreed, but Heracles reneged and walked away, carrying the apples. According to an alternative version, Heracles slew Ladon instead and stole the apples.

There is another variation to the story where Heracles was the only person to steal the apples, other than Perseus, although Athena later returned the apples to their rightful place in the garden. They are considered by some to be the same "apples of joy" that tempted Atalanta, as opposed to the "apple of discord" used by Eris to start a beauty contest on Olympus (which caused "The Siege of Troy").

On Attic pottery, especially from the late fifth century, Heracles is depicted sitting in bliss in the Gardens of the Hesperides, attended by the maidens.

Argonauts' encounter

After the hero Heracles killed Ladon and stole the golden apples, the Argonauts during their journey, came to the Hesperian plain the next day. The band of heroes asked for the mercy of the Hesperides to guide them to a source of water in order to replenish their thirst. The goddesses pitying the young men, directed them to a spring created by Heracles who likewise longing for a draught while wandering the land, smote a rock near Lake Triton after which the water gushed out. The following passage recounts this meeting of the Argonauts and the nymphs:[37]

Then, like raging hounds, they [i.e. Argonauts] rushed to search for a spring; for besides their suffering and anguish, a parching thirst lay upon them, and not in vain did they wander; but they came to the sacred plain where Ladon, the serpent of the land, till yesterday kept watch over the golden apples in the garden of Atlas; and all around the nymphs, the Hesperides, were busied, chanting their lovely song. But at that time, stricken by Heracles, he lay fallen by the trunk of the apple-tree; only the tip of his tail was still writhing; but from his head down his dark spine he lay lifeless; and where the arrows had left in his blood the bitter gall of the Lernaean hydra, flies withered and died over the festering wounds. And close at hand the Hesperides, their white arms flung over their golden heads, lamented shrilly; and the heroes drew near suddenly; but the maidens, at their quick approach, at once became dust and earth where they stood. Orpheus marked the divine portent, and for his comrades addressed them in prayer: "O divine ones, fair and kind, be gracious, O queens, whether ye be numbered among the heavenly goddesses, or those beneath the earth, or be called the Solitary nymphs; come, O nymphs, sacred race of Oceanus, appear manifest to our longing eyes and show us some spring of water from the rock or some sacred flow gushing from the earth, goddesses, wherewith we may quench the thirst that burns us unceasingly. And if ever again we return in our voyaging to the Achaean land, then to you among the first of goddesses with willing hearts will we bring countless gifts, libations and banquets.

So he spake, beseeching them with plaintive voice; and they from their station near pitied their pain; and lo! First of all they caused grass to spring from the earth; and above the grass rose up tall shoots, and then flourishing saplings grew standing upright far above the earth. Hespere became a poplar and Eretheis an elm, and Aegle a willow's sacred trunk. And forth from these trees their forms looked out, as clear as they were before, a marvel exceeding great, and Aegle spake with gentle words answering their longing looks: "Surely there has come hither a mighty succour to your toils, that most accursed man, who robbed our guardian serpent of life and plucked the golden apples of the goddesses and is gone; and has left bitter grief for us. For yesterday came a man most fell in wanton violence, most grim in form; and his eyes flashed beneath his scowling brow; a ruthless wretch; and he was clad in the skin of a monstrous lion of raw hide, untanned; and he bare a sturdy bow of olive, and a bow, wherewith he shot and killed this monster here. So he too came, as one traversing the land on foot, parched with thirst; and he rushed wildly through this spot, searching for water, but nowhere was he like to see it. Now here stood a rock near the Tritonian lake; and of his own device, or by the prompting of some god, he smote it below with his foot; and the water gushed out in full flow. And he, leaning both his hands and chest upon the ground, drank a huge draught from the rifted rock, until, stooping like a beast of the field, he had satisfied his mighty maw.

Thus she spake; and they gladly with joyful steps ran to the spot where Aegle had pointed out to them the spring, until they reached it. And as when earth-burrowing ants gather in swarms round a narrow cleft, or when flies lighting upon a tiny drop of sweet honey cluster round with insatiate eagerness; so at that time, huddled together, the Minyae thronged about the spring from the rock. And thus with wet lips one cried to another in his delight: "Strange! In very truth Heracles, though far away, has saved his comrades, fordone with thirst. Would that we might find him on his way as we pass through the mainland!

Variation of the myth

According to Diodorus' account, the Hesperides did not have the golden apples. Instead they possessed flocks of sheep which excelled in beauty and were therefore called for their beauty, as the poets might do, "golden apples",[38] just as Aphroditê is called "golden" because of her loveliness. Others also say that it was because the sheep had a peculiar colour like gold that they got this designation. This version further states that Dracon ("dragon") was the name of the shepherd of the sheep, a man who excelled in strength of body and courage, who guarded the sheep and slew any who might dare to carry them off.[39]

In the Renaissance

With the revival of classical allusions in the Renaissance, the Hesperides returned to their prominent position, and the garden itself took on the name of its nymphs: Robert Greene wrote of "The fearful Dragon... that watched the garden called Hesperides".[40] Shakespeare inserted the comically insistent rhyme "is not Love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides" in Love's Labours Lost (iv.iii) and John Milton mentioned the "ladies of the Hesperides" in Paradise Regained (ii.357). Hesperides (published 1647) was the title of a collection of pastoral and religious verse by the Royalist poet Robert Herrick.

Classic literature sources

Hesperides

Chronological listing of classical literature sources for the Hesperides:

  • Hesiod, Theogony 215 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic poetry C8th to C7th BC)
  • Hesiod, Theogony 270 ff
  • Hesiod, Theogony 517 ff
  • Hesiod, Doubtful Fragment 5 (trans. Evelyn-White)
  • Mimnermus, Fragment 10 Diehl, (The Presocratic Philosophers by Kirk and Raven 1957 p. 14) (Greek lyric poetry C7th BC)
  • Scholiast on Sophocles Trachiniae 1098 (Sophocles The Plays and Fragments Part 5 The Trachiniae trans. Jebb 1892 p. 159)
  • Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 1390 ff (trans. Coleridge) (Greek epic poetry C3rd BC)
  • Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 1390 ff (The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius trans. Coleridge 1889  p. 195)
  • Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3. 44 ff (trans. Mayor and Swainson) (Roman philosophy C1st BC)
  • Cicero, De Natura Deorum 42. 108
  • Scholiast on Cicero, De Natura Deorum 42. 108 (Ciceronis De Natura Deoeum trans. Mayor Swainson 1883 Vol 2 p. 225)
  • Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 26. 2 ff (trans. Oldfather) (Greek history C1st BC)
  • Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 26. 3 ff
  • Scholiast on Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 18. 20. 3 (Diodorus of Sicily trans. Oldfather 1957 Vol 9 pp. 70-71)
  • Virgil, Eclogue 6. 61 ff (trans. Fairclough) (Roman poetry C1st BC)
  • Virgil, The Aeneid 4. 480 ff (trans. Hamilton Bryce) (Roman epic poetry C1st BC)
  • Scholiast on Virgil, The Aeneid 4. 484 (The Works of Virgil trans. Hamilton Bryce 1894 p. 251)
  • Virgil, Catalepton 9. 23 ff (trans. Fairclough) (Roman poetry C1st BC)
  • Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 5 Proem 1-54 (trans. Leonard) (Roman philosophy C1st BC)
  • Propertius, Elegies 3. 22. 7 ff (trans. Butler) (Latin poetry C1st BC)
  • Strabo, Geography 2. 5. 20 (trans. Jones) (Greek geography C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Scholiast on Strabo, Geography 2. 5. 20 (The Geography of Strabo trans. Jones 1960 1917 Vol 1 p. 528 s.v. Hesperides)
  • Strabo, Geography 3. 2. 13
  • Strabo, Geography 7. 3. 6
  • Strabo, Geography 10. 2. 18
  • Strabo, Geography 17. 3. 20
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses 11. 113 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman poetry C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Fragment, Homerica, The Epic Cycle The War of the Titans, Fragment 8 (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek commentary C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Fragment, Stesichorus, Geryoneis S8 (from Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2617) (trans. Campbell) (Greek commentary C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Fragment, Greek Lyric V Anonymous 1023 (from Berlin Papyrus) (trans. Campbell) (Greek commentary C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Catasterismi, Cap. 3 Draco  (Greek mythography C1st AD)
  • Scholiast on Pseudo-Eratosthenes,  Catasterismi, Cap. 3 Draco (Eratosthsmis Catasterismi trans. Schaubach Heyne 1795 p. 75-76)
  • Statius, Thebaid 2. 281 (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic poetry C1st AD)
  • Scholiast on Thebaid 2. 281 (Statius trans. Mozley 1928 Vol 1 p. 414)
  • Statius, Silvae 3. 1. 158 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman poetry C1st AD)
  • Silius, Punica 1. 430 ff (trans. Duff) (Roman epic poetry C1st AD)
  • Silius, Punica 2. 77 ff
  • Silius, Punica 3. 282 ff
  • Scholiast on Silius, Punica 3. 282 ff (Silius Italicus Punica trans. Duff 1961 1927 Vol 1 p. 134)
  • Silius, Punica 4. 635 ff
  • Scholiast on Silius, Punica 4. 365 ff (Silius Italicus Punica trans. Duff 1961 1927 Vol 1 p. 216)
  • Pliny, Natural History 5. 1 (1) ff (trans. Bostock Riley)
  • Pliny, Natural History 5. 5 ff
  • Scholiast on Pliny, Natural History 5. 5 ff (The Natural History of Pliny trans. Bostock Riley 1855 Vol 1 p. 396)
  • Pliny, Natural History 5. 8 ff (trans. Bostock Riley)
  • Pliny, Natural History 6. 36 ff
  • Pliny, Natural History 19. 15 ff
  • Pliny, Natural History 19. 19 ff
  • Pliny, Natural History 37. 11 ff
  • Lucan, The Pharsalia of Lucan 9. 358 ff (trans. Riley) (Roman poetry C1st AD)
  • Scholiast on Lucan, The Pharsalia of Lucan 9. 358 (The Pharsalia of Lucan trans. Riley 1853 p. 358)
  • Scholiast on Lucan, The Pharsalia of Lucan 9. 626 (The Pharsalia of Lucan trans. Riley 1853 p. 364)
  • Juvenal, Satire 5 Dinner at a Great House (trans. Wright) (Roman poetry C1st to C2nd AD)
  • Longus, Daphnis and Chloe Book 3 (Longus Athenian Society 1896 p. 108) (Greek romance C2nd AD)
  • Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library 2. 5. 11 ff (trans. Frazer) (Greek mythography C2nd AD)
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 13. 8 (trans. Frazer) (Greek travelogue C2nd AD)
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 11. 6 ff
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 17. 2 ff
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 18. 4 ff
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 6. 19. 8 ff
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 6. 19. 12 ff
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae Preface (trans. Grant) (Roman mythography C2nd AD)
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 30
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 31
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 3 (trans. Bunte)
  • Lucian, The Dance 56 ff (trans. Harmon) (Assyrian satirist C2nd AD)
  • Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2. 15 P. ff (trans. Butterworth) (Christian philosophy C2nd to C3rd AD)
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 3. 23 (trans. Yonge) (Greek rhetoric C2nd to C3rd AD)
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 3. 25
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 3. 27
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 11. 39
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned, Poetical Fragments, Ibycus Book xiii. § 76, p. 958. (ed. Yonge)
  • Diogenes Laertius, Fragment 317 (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta Arnim 1964 Vols 1 p.69) (Greek biography C3 AD)
  • Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 17. 34a ff (trans. Fairbanks) (Greek rhetoric C3rd AD)
  • Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 21. 5 ff
  • Hippolytus, Philosophumena 5 The Ophite Heresies 14 (Philosophumena by Hippolytus, Legge 1921 Vol 1 p.153) (Christian theology C3rd AD)
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 2. 418 ff (trans. Way) (Greek epic poetry C4th AD)
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 4. 128 ff
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 6. 256 ff
  • Nonnos, Dionysiaca 13. 333 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic poetry C5th AD)
  • Nonnos, Dionysiaca 30. 276 ff
  • Nonnos, Dionysiaca 38. 131 ff
  • Martianus Capella, Martianus Capella, Liber VI De Geometria 659. 15 ff (ed. Eyssenhardt) (Roman prose C5th AD)
  • Servius, Servius In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii 4. 246 ff (trans. Thilo) (Greek commentary C4th AD to 11th AD)
  • Servius, Servius In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii 4. 484 ff
  • First Vatican Mythographer, Scriptores rerum mythicarum 38 Hesperides (ed. Bode) (Greco-Roman mythography C9th AD to C11th AD)
  • First Vatican Mythographer, Scriptores rerum mythicarum 39 Atalante et Hippomenes
  • Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 2.4 355 ff (trans.Untila et. al.) (Greco-Byzantine history C12th AD)
  • Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 8.63 717 ff
  • Third Vatican Mythographer, Scriptores rerum mythicarum 13 Hercules 5. 42 ff (ed. Bode) (Greco-Roman mythography C11th AD to C13th AD)

Apples of the Hesperides

Chronological listing of classical literature sources for the Fruits or Apples of the Hesperides:

  • Hesiod, Theogony 215 ff (Hesiod the Homeric Hymns and Homerica 1920 trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic poetry C8th or 6th BC)
  • Hesiod, Theogony 333 ff
  • Hesiod, Doubtful Fragment 5
  • Herodotus, Herodotus 7. 41 (trans. Godley) (Greek history C5th BC)
  • Pindar, Dirges, Elysium (trans. Sandys) (Greek lyric C5th BC)
  • Scholiast on Pindar, Dirges, Elysium (The Odes of Pindar trans. Sandys 1915 pp. 586-587)
  • Aeschylus, Prometheus Unbound, Fragment 109 (from Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics 6. 17. 1) (trans. Weir Smyth) (Greek tragedy C5th BC)
  • Scholiast on Aeschylus, Prometheus Unbound Fragment 109 (Aeschylus trans. Weir Smtyh 1926 Vol II p. 446-447)
  • Euripides. The Madness of Hercules 395 ff (trans. Way) (Greek tragedy C5th BC)
  • Euripides, Hippolytus 742 ff (trans. Murray)
  • Scholiast on Euripides, Hippolytus 742 ff (Plays of Euripides trans. Murray 1911 Vol I p. 83)
  • Sophocles, Trachiniae 1090 ff (trans. Jebb) (Greek tragedy C5th BC
  • Scholiast on Sophocles Trachiniae 1098 (Sophocles The Plays and Fragments Part 5 The Trachiniae trans. Jebb 1892 p. 159)
  • Anonymous, Lyra Graeca, Anonymous Fragments: Later Poets 107 (Greek poetry 4th BC)
  • Callimachus, Hymn 6 to Demeter 10 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poetry C3rd BC)
  • Scholiast on Callimachus, Hymn 6 to Demeter 10 ff (Callimachus and Lycophron Aratus trans. Mair 1921 p. 125) (Greek epic poetry C3rd BC)
  • Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 1390 - 1451 (trans. Coleridge) (Greek epic poetry C3rd BC)
  • Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 1396 (The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius trans. Coleridge 1889 p. 195)
  • Theocritus, Idyll 3. 35 ff (trans. Banks) (Greek poet C3rd BC)
  • Scholiast on Theocritus, Idyll 3. 35 ff (The Idylls of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus Banks 1853 p. 20)
  • Theocritus, Idyll 29. 35 ff (trans. Banks)
  • Plautus, Asinaria or, The Ass-dealer.; Act 3 Sc. 3 (trans. Riley) (Roman comedy C3rd to C2nd BC)
  • Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 5. Proem 1-54 (trans. Leonard) (Roman philosophy C1st BC)
  • Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 26. 2 ff (trans. Oldfather) (Greek history C1st BC)
  • Virgil, Eclogue 3. 70 ff (trans. Fairclough) (Roman poetry C1st BC)
  • Virgil, Eclogue 6. 61 ff (trans. Lonsdale & Lee)
  • Scholiast on Virgil, Eclogue 6. 61 ff (The Latin Classics ed. Miller trans. Lonsdale & Lee 1909 Vol 2 Pastoral And Epic Literature p. 41)
  • Virgil, Eclogue 8. 52 ff (trans. Fairclough) (Roman poetry C1st BC)
  • Virgil, The Aeneid 4. 480 ff (trans. Hamilton Bryce) (Roman epic poetry C1st BC)
  • Scholiast on Virgil, The Aeneid 4. 484 (The Works of Virgil trans. Hamilton Bryce 1894 p. 251)
  • Catullus, The Poems of Catullus 2 (trans. Davies) (Latin poetry C1st BC)
  • Propertius, Elegies, 2. 24a. 23 ff (trans. Butler) (Latin poetry C1st BC)
  • Fragment, Homerica, The Epic Cycle The War of the Titans, Fragment 8 (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek commentary C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Strabo, Geography 3. 2. 13 (trans. Jones) (Greek geography C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses 4. 635 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman epic poetry C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses 9. 187 ff
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 648 ff
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 665 ff
  • Ovid, Heroides 21. 124 (trans. Showerman) (Roman poetry C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Scholiast on Ovid, Heroides 21. 124 (Ovid Heroides and Amores trans. Showerman 1914 p. 301)
  • Lucan, The Pharsalia 9. 358 ff (trans. Riley) (Roman poetry C1st AD)
  • Scholiast on Lucan, The Pharsalia 9. 358 (The Pharsalia of Lucan trans. Riley 1853 p. 358)
  • Seneca, Hercules Furens 240 (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy C1st AD)
  • Scholiast on Seneca, Hercules Furens 240 (Seneca's Tragedies trans. Miller 1938 1917 Vol 1 p. 23)
  • Seneca, Hercules Furens 527 ff
  • Seneca, Agamemnon 852 ff (trans. Miller)
  • Philippus of Thessalonica, The Twelve Labors of Hercules (The Greek Classics Vol 3 ed. Miller 1909 Didactic and Lyric Poetry p. 397) (Greek epigram C1st AD)
  • Statius, Silvae 3. 1. 158 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic poetry C1st AD)
  • Silius, Punica 3. 282 ff (trans. Duff) (Roman epic poetry C1st AD)
  • Scholiast on Silius, Punica 3. 282 ff (Silius Italicus Punica trans. Duff 1961 1927 Vol 1 p. 134)
  • Silius, Punica 4. 635 ff
  • Scholiast on Silius, Punica 4. 365 ff (Silius Italicus Punica, trans. Duff 1961 1927 Vol 1 p. 216)
  • Pliny, Natural History 5. 1. 1 ff (trans. Rackham) (Roman encyclopedia C1st AD)
  • Pliny, Natural History 15. 10 ff
  • Scholiast on Pliny, Natural History 15. 10 (The Natural History of Pliny Bostock & Riley 1855 Vol 3 p. 293)
  • Plutarch, Moralia, The Oracles At Delphi 402 ff (trans. Babbitt) (Greek history C1st to C2nd AD)
  • Juvenal, Satire 5 Dinner at a Great House (trans. Wright) (Roman poetry C1st to C2nd AD)
  • Scholiast on Juvenal, Satire 5 Dinner at a Great House (The Latin Classics ed. Miller trans. Wright 1909 Vol 3 Horace and the Satirists p. 400)
  • Lucian, The Dance 56 ff (trans. Harmon) (Assyrian satirist C2nd AD)
  • Longus, Daphnis and Chloe Book 3 (trans. for the Athenian Society) (Greek romance C2nd AD)
  • Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library 2. 5. 11 ff (trans. Frazer) (Greek mythography C2nd AD)
  • Scholiast on Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library 2. 5. 11 ff (Apollodorus, The Library trans. Frazer 1921 Vol 1 pp. 220-221)
  • Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library 3. 9. 2 (trans. Frazer) (Greek mythography C2nd AD)
  • Scholiast on Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library 3. 9. 2 (Apollodorus, The Library trans. Frazer 1921 Vol 1 pp.398-400)
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 13. 8 (trans. Frazer) (Greek travelogue C2nd AD)
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 11. 6 ff
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 18. 4 ff
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 6. 19. 8 ff
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 30 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythography C2nd AD)
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 151
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 3 (trans. Grant)
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 3. 23 (trans. Yonge) (Greek rhetoric C2nd to C3rd AD)
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 3. 25
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 3. 27
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 12. 8
  • Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned, Poetical Fragments (Ibycus Book xiii. § 76, p. 958) (trans. Yonge) (Greek rhetoric C2nd to C3rd AD)
  • Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 17. 34a ff (trans. Fairbanks) (Greek rhetoric C3rd AD)
  • Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 21. 5 ff
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 6. 256 ff (trans. Way) (Greek epic poetry C4th AD)
  • Julian, The Orations Of Julian 5. 176 (trans. Wright) (Roman philosophy C4th AD)
  • Nonnos, Dionysiaca 13. 333 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic poetry C5th AD)
  • Nonnos, Dionysiaca 25. 242 ff
  • Scholiast on Nonnos, Dionysiaca 25. 248 (Nonnos Dionysiaca trans. Rouse 1942 Vol II p. 269)
  • Nonnos, Dionysiaca 48. 180 ff
  • Scholiast on Nonnos, Dionysiaca 48. 182 (Nonnos Dionysiaca trans. Rouse 1942 Vol II p.436-437)
  • Colluthus, The Rape of Helen 58 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek epic poetry C5th to C6th AD)
  • Scholiast on Colluthus, The Rape of Helen 58 ff (Oppian Colluthus Tryphiodorus trans. Mair 1928 pp. 546-547)
  • Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4. 7. 13 ff (trans. Rand & Stewart) (Roman philosophy C6th AD)
  • Second Vatican Mythographer, Scriptores rerum mythicarum, 161 Aurea poma (ed. Bode) (Greco-Roman mythography C11th AD)
  • Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 2. 355 ff (trans. Untila et. al.) (Greco-Byzantine history C12th AD)

Hespere

Classical literature source for Hespere:

Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 1422 ff (trans. Coleridge) (Greek epic poetry C3rd BC)

See also

Citations

  1. Diodorus Siculus. Library, 4.27.2
  2. Evelyn Byrd Harrison, "Hesperides and Heroes: A Note on the Three-Figure Reliefs", Hesperia 33.1 (January 1964 pp. 76–82) pp 79–80.
  3. Hesiod, Theogony 215
  4. Hyginus. Fabulae, Preface; Cicero. De Natura Deorum, iii.44
  5. quoting Pherecydes, Hyginus. Astronomica ii.3
  6. Scholia. ad Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica iv.1399
  7. Scholia. ad Euripides, Hippolytus 742
  8. Servius. ad Aeneid, iv.484
  9. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4.1396–1449
  10. Wilhelm Friedrich Rinck (1853). Die Religion der Hellenen: aus den Mythen, den Lehren der Philosophen und dem Kultus. p. 352
  11. Higí (2011). Faules (vol. I) (in Catalan). Fundació Bernat Metge. ISBN 9788498591811.
  12. Aerica is an adjective not a name, literally "aerial" Hyginus. Fabulae, Preface
  13. Peter Parley (1839). Tales about the mythology of Greece and Rome, p. 356
  14. Charles N. Baldwin, Henry Howland Crapo (1825). A Universal Biographical Dictionary, P. 414
  15. Hesiod, Theogony 275
  16. Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 4. 484
  17. Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, edited and translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White.
  18. Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, 2.5.11
  19. Fulgentius, Expositio Virgilianae continentiae secundum philosophos moralis
  20. Ersch, Johann Samuel (1830). Allgemeine encyclopädie der wissenschaften und künste in alphabetischer folge von genannten schrifts bearbeitet und herausgegeben von J. S. Ersch und J. G. Gruber. p. 148
  21. Henry Beauchamp Walters (1905). History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman: Based on the Work of Samuel Birch, Volume 2, p. 92
  22. Attic pyxis (red-figure) by Douris, circa 470. London, British Museum: E. 772.
  23. Michael Grant, John Hazel (2002). Who's who in Classical Mythology, p. 268
  24. Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Krētē; Solinus. Polyhistor, 11.5. Translated by Arwen Apps
  25. Hesiod. Theogony, 518; Orphic Fragments, 17; Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica, 4.1399
  26. Euripides. Heracles, 394
  27. Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica, 4.1422ff
  28. "Circular Pyxis". The Walters Art Museum.
  29. A confusion of the Garden of the Hesperides with an equally idyllic Arcadia is a modern one, conflating Sir Philip Sidney's Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia and Robert Herrick's Hesperides: both are viewed by Renaissance poets as oases of bliss, but they were not connected by the Greeks. The development of Arcadia as an imagined setting for pastoral is the contribution of Theocritus to Hellenistic culture: see Arcadia (utopia).
  30. Ham, Anthony, Libya, 2002, p.156
  31. Poet. Astron. ii. 3
  32. Colluthus. Rape of Helen, 59ff. Translated by Mair, A. W. Loeb Classical Library Volume 219. London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1928
  33. Athenaeus. Deipnosophistae, 3.83c
  34. Karl Kerenyi, The Heroes of the Greeks, 1959, p.172, identifies him in this context as Nereus; as a shape-shifter he is often identified as Proteus.
  35. Aeschylus. Prometheus Unbound, Fragment 109 (from Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics, 6.17.1). Translated by Weir Smyth.
  36. Apollodorus ii. 5; Hyginus, Fab. 31
  37. Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica, 4.1393ff.
  38. The word μῆλον means both "sheep" and "apple"
  39. Diodorus Siculus. Library, 4.26.2-3
  40. R. Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (published 1594)

General references

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