PR in Ancient mythology. The Legend of Hyacinth Communicative means of creating images and symbols

A hundred years after the “tulip madness”, off the coast of the same Holland, a Genoese merchant ship was wrecked during a storm. One of the boxes from a sunken ship washed ashore, where it opened, I don’t understand how. Bulbs spilled out from there, which soon took root and sprouted.

What does the word hyacinth mean?

This is how a wonderful, unprecedented flower appeared on the Dutch lands. Thus began the European history of hyacinth. Although biologists claim that this plant comes from the Balkans, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. It's there in wildlife A wonderful flower grew, which was transferred to the gardens for its beauty and fragrance and cultivated.

Word " hyacinth"appeared in our language only at the beginning of the 18th century. Until then, this was the name of this flower in Germany. Interestingly, the Germans learned this word from the Romans, where it was called hyacinthus.

But you don’t even need to look for the first name of the plant in Latin. It was the Greeks who named the flower “purple cinquefoil” for its natural (and then only, color) and the shape of the leaves, reminiscent of this military weapon.

In India, the word hyacinth means “flower of rains,” because it bloomed just at this time. Until now, local beauties decorate their black braids with such fragrant arrows on special days. According to Indian tradition, this fragrant flower, and only white, is also necessarily woven into the groom’s wreath.

In Eastern countries, the word hyacinth means “Guria curls.” The great Uzbek poet of the 15th century, Alisher Navoi, wrote:

“The tangle of black curls will only be scattered by a comb,
And the hyacinths will fall in a stream onto the roses of the cheeks.”

Although even ancient Greek girls wove these flowers into their hair, and the hair had to be carefully chosen. Three thousand years ago, ancient Hellenic women wove wild hyacinths into their hair when they married off their friends. Therefore, the word hyacinth also meant “the pleasure of love” among the Hellenes.

Legends about hyacinth

Ancient Greek the legend of hyacinth says that Apollo’s favorite was the young man Hyacinth. One day, during a competition, God habitually threw a disc and accidentally hit the guy. He fell dead to the ground, and a fragrant and delicate violet-lilac flower soon grew on the drops of his blood. The ancient Greeks named it hyacinth, in memory of the favorite of the handsome Apollo.

This is where it came from that hyacinth symbolizes the resurrection of dead nature. And on the famous throne of Apollo in the city of Amikli the ascent of Hyacinth to Olympus is depicted. Tradition says that the base of the statue of Apollo sitting on the throne is actually an altar with the remains of an innocently murdered young man.

The Mouse Myth and Dutch Achievements

Usually the plant produced 5 arrows, which, as they grew, were decorated with delicate tiny lily-like flower stalks. But today breeders have developed varieties that produce... up to 100 branches of flowers!

And the struggle for such “family” began also in Holland. After the “tulip” lull, the inhabitants of this country apparently lacked a new flower favorite. This is what hyacinth became. It was there that a terry variety was bred, which also brought fabulous income to flower growers. Although, in fairness, we note that they did not give away houses and all their fortunes for his onions.

The most incredible myths about hyacinth Flora lovers are telling us today. How do you like, for example, the story about the mouse that helped the descendant of the Huguenots, the gardener Boucher, in breeding a plant? They say that no matter what this florist came up with, he could not quickly propagate hyacinth. But the little mouse got to the onion and... gnawed the bottom out of it.

And lo and behold! Children appeared on the “disabled onion”, which accidentally lay there until planting. And not just one, but a great many. Since then, they began to cut the bottom or cut the planting material crosswise. True, it takes 3-4 years to raise the children, because they are very small. But still, “the ice has broken” - the myth claims that it is thanks to the gray rodent that today we are able to propagate hyacinth.

What does hyacinth mean?

Each nation has its own meaning of the hyacinth flower. And this name has long become a household name. Suffice it to remember that only in Greek mythology there were 3 famous Hyacinths, besides the favorite of the god Apollo:

• Hyacinth from Amycles is a handsome young man, the son of the Spartan king Amycles;
• Hyacinth from Athens - hero-migrant from the Peloponnese to Athens;
• Hyacinth Dolion is a hero mentioned by Apollonius of Rhodes.

Nowadays meaning of hyacinth flowers also diverse. Depending on the color, it means jealousy, recognition of the girl as the most beautiful, a promise to pray for someone, and even a call to oblivion.

A gift of a bouquet of these flowers promises victory and achievement. It is a symbol of rebirth and incredible joy. You will be able to purchase hyacinths wholesale in our florist salon or please someone with a small bouquet. Flower girls will choose a color suitable for the occasion and create a charming, fragrant composition.

All you have to do is present your beloved with a mono-bouquet of hyacinth or mixed with other flowers once in the spring, and joy and tenderness will settle in the heart of the most discreet girl.

With us you can arrange hyacinths with delivery in Rostov-on-Don or buy fresh cut flowers directly from the store. And if you want to give a gift to a person whose zodiac sign is Capricorn, then feel free to complement our bouquet with a precious stone - hyacinth, invigorating, cheerful and giving patience and determination.

Stop your choice on the magical gift of spring - hyacinth flowers.
After all, you simply won’t find them at any other time!

The name of the flower “hyacinth” in Greek means “flower of rains”, but the Greeks simultaneously called it the flower of sadness and also the flower of memory of Hyacinth...

There is a Greek legend associated with the name of this plant. In Ancient Sparta, Hyacinth was for some time one of the most significant gods, but gradually his glory faded and his place in mythology was taken by the god of beauty and sun Phoebus, or Apollo. For thousands of years, the legend of Hyacinth and Apollo remains one of the most famous stories about the origin of flowers.

The favorite of the god Apollo was a young man named Hyacinth. Hyacinth and Apollo often organized sports competitions. One day, during a sports competition, Apollo was throwing a discus and accidentally threw a heavy discus directly at Hyacinth. Drops of blood splashed onto the green grass and after a while fragrant purple-red flowers grew in it. It was as if many miniature lilies were collected into one inflorescence (sultan), and Apollo’s sorrowful exclamation was inscribed on their petals. This flower is tall and slender, and the ancient Greeks called it hyacinth. Apollo immortalized the memory of his favorite with this flower, which grew from the blood of a young man.

In the same Ancient Greece Hyacinth was considered a symbol of dying and resurrecting nature. On the famous throne of Apollo in the city of Amykli, the procession of Hyacinth to Olympus was depicted; According to legend, the base of the statue of Apollo seated on the throne represents the altar in which the deceased young man was buried.

According to a later legend, during the Trojan War, Ajax and Odysseus simultaneously claimed ownership of Achilles' weapons after his death. When the council of elders unfairly awarded weapons to Odysseus, Ajax was so shocked that the hero pierced himself with a sword. From the drops of his blood a hyacinth grew, the petals of which are shaped like the first letters of Ajax's name - alpha and upsilon.

Guria curls. This is what hyacinth was called in Eastern countries. “The tangle of black curls will only be scattered by the comb - And hyacinths will fall in a stream on the roses of the cheeks,” these lines belong to the 15th century Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi. True, the claim that beauties learned to curl their hair from hyacinths appeared in Ancient Greece. About three thousand years ago, Hellenic girls decorated their hair with “wild” hyacinths on their friends’ wedding days.

The Persian poet Ferdowsi constantly compared the hair of beauties with the curling petals of hyacinth and highly praised the aroma of the flower: Her lips smelled better than a light breeze, and her hyacinth-like hair was more pleasant than Scythian musk.

For a long time, hyacinths were cultivated in gardens only in Eastern countries. There they were no less popular than tulips. Hyacinth lives in Greece, Turkey and the Balkans. He was popular in Ottoman Empire, from where it penetrated into Austria, Holland and spread throughout Europe. IN Western Europe The charming hyacinth came to Vienna in the second half of the 17th century.

In Holland, hyacinth turned up by chance from a shipwrecked ship that had boxes of bulbs on it; broken and thrown ashore by a storm, the bulbs sprouted, bloomed and became a sensation. It was in 1734, when the fever for tulip cultivation began to cool down and the need for a new flower was felt. So it became a source of great income, especially when it was possible to accidentally breed double hyacinth.

The efforts of the Dutch were aimed first at breeding and then at developing new varieties of hyacinths. Flower growers tried different methods to propagate hyacinths faster, but nothing worked. Chance helped. One day a mouse ruined a valuable onion - it gnawed the bottom out. But unexpectedly for the upset owner, children appeared around the “crippled” place, and how many more! Since then, the Dutch began to specially cut the bottom or cut the onion crosswise. Tiny onions formed in places of damage. True, they were small and took 3-4 years to grow. But flower growers have a lot of patience, and good care of the bulbs speeds up their development. In short, more and more commercial bulbs began to be grown, and soon Holland was trading them with other countries.

We are very interested in hyacinths in Germany. A descendant of the Huguenots, gardener David Boucher, who had an excellent collection of primroses, began growing hyacinths. In the second half of the 18th century, he organized the first exhibition of these flowers in Berlin. Hyacinths captured the imagination of Berliners so much that many became interested in growing them, taking up the task thoroughly and on a grand scale. This was a fashionable entertainment, especially since King Frederick William III himself visited Boucher more than once. The demand for hyacinths was so great that they were grown in huge quantities.

In France in the 18th century, hyacinth was used to stupefy and poison those people they were trying to get rid of. Usually the bouquet intended for this purpose was sprayed with something poisonous, and the flowers intended for poisoning were placed in the boudoir or bedroom of the victim.

Hyacinth.
One day the sun god Apollo saw a beautiful earthly youth and fell in love with him tender feeling. This beautiful young man's name was Hyacinth, and he was the son of the Spartan king Amycles.
But the loving deity had a rival - Thamyrid, who was also not indifferent to the handsome prince Hyacinth, who was rumored to be the founder of same-sex love in Greece in those years. At the same time, Apollo became the first of the gods to be seized by such a love illness.
Apollo easily eliminated his rival after learning that he had carelessly boasted of his singing talents, threatening to surpass the muses themselves.
The golden-haired lover quickly informed the muses of what he had heard, and they deprived Thamirides of the ability to sing, play and see.
The unfortunate braggart dropped out of the game, and Apollo calmly, without rivals, began to seduce the object of his love's desire.

After leaving Delphi, he often appeared in the bright valley of the Eurotas River and amused himself there with games and hunting with his young favorite.
Once, on a sultry afternoon, they both took off their clothes and, anointing their bodies with olive oil, began to throw the discus.
At that time, Zephyr, the god of the south wind, flew by and saw them.
He did not like that the young man was playing with Apollo, since he also loved Hyacinth, and he picked up Apollo's disk with such force that it hit Hyacinth and knocked him to the ground.
Apollo tried in vain to help his lover. Hyacinth faded away in the arms of his divine patron, whose love gave rise to envy among others and brought him death.

Hyacinth could no longer be helped, and soon he breathed his last in the arms of his friend.
To preserve the memory of the beautiful young man, Apollo turned drops of his blood into beautiful fragrant flowers, which began to be called hyacinths, and Zephyr, who realized too late what terrible consequences his unbridled jealousy had led to, flew, sobbing inconsolably, over the place of his friend’s death and tenderly caressed the exquisite flowers that grew from drops of his blood.

V.A. dedicated his musical work to this ancient plot. Mozart.
This "school opera" Latin written by an eleven-year-old composer. The plot is based on an ancient myth, developed in one of the episodes of the X book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

"Apollo et Hyacinthus seu Hyacinthi Metamorphosis"
Apollo and Hyacinth, or the transformation of Hyacinth

Cypress
On the island of Keos in the Carthean Valley, there was a deer dedicated to the nymphs. This deer was beautiful. His branched horns were gilded, a pearl necklace adorned his neck, and precious jewelry hung from his ears. The deer completely forgot his fear of people. He entered the houses of the villagers and willingly extended his neck to anyone who wanted to stroke it.
All the residents loved this deer, but most of all loved him young son King Keos, Cypress.

Apollo saw this amazing friendship between man and deer, and he wanted, at least for a while, to forget his divine destiny in order to also enjoy life carefree and cheerfully. He descended from Olympus to a flowering meadow, where a wonderful deer and his young friend Cypress were resting after a rapid jump. “I have seen a lot both on earth and in heaven,” Apollo said to two inseparable friends, “but I have never seen such pure and tender friendship between man and beast. Take me into your company, the three of us will have more fun.” And from that day on, Apollo, Cypress and the deer became inseparable.

The cypress led the deer to clearings with lush grass and to loudly murmuring streams; he decorated its mighty horns with wreaths of fragrant flowers; often, playing with a deer, young Cypress, laughing, jumped onto its back and rode around on it through the flowering Carthean valley.

One day, hot weather settled over the island, and in the midday heat, all living things hid from the burning rays of the sun in the thick shade of trees. On the soft grass under a huge old oak tree, Apollo and Cypress dozed off, while a deer wandered nearby in the thicket of the forest. Suddenly Cypress woke up from the crunch of dry branches behind the nearby bushes, and thought that it was a wild boar creeping up. The young man grabbed a spear to protect his friends, and with all his strength, he threw it towards the sound of crunching dead wood.

A weak, but full of excruciating pain groan was heard by Cypress. He was glad that he did not miss, and rushed after the unexpected prey. Apparently evil fate guided the young man - it was not a ferocious boar that lay in the bushes, but his dying golden-horned deer.
Having washed his friend’s terrible wound with tears, Cypress prayed to the awakened Apollo: “Oh, great, almighty god, save the life of this wonderful animal! Don’t let him die, because then I will die of grief!” Apollo would have gladly fulfilled Cypress’s passionate request, but it was too late—the deer’s heart stopped beating.

In vain did Apollo console Cypress. Cypress's grief was inconsolable; he prayed to the silver-bowed god that God would let him be sad forever.
Apollo heeded him. The young man turned into a tree. His curls became dark green pine needles, his body was covered with bark. He stood like a slender cypress tree before Apollo; like an arrow, its top went into the sky.
Apollo sighed sadly and said:

I will always grieve for you, wonderful young man, and you will also grieve for someone else’s grief. Always be with those who mourn!

Since then, the Greeks hung a branch of cypress at the door of a house where there was a deceased person; funeral pyres were decorated with its needles,
on which the bodies of the dead were burned, and cypress trees were planted near the graves.
This is such a sad story...

FIRST VERSION OF THE MURDER OF HYACINTH.

Apollo needs no introduction.
Here he is - a handsome man and an athlete (there is still a third epithet missing - Komsomol member!)

Marble bust (Roman copy of a bronze original from 460 BC)

His friend, lover, partner (choose the options yourself!) Hyacinth or Hyakinthos is the son of the Spartan king Amycles and the great-grandson of Zeus.
According to another version of the myth, his parents are the muse Clio and Pierre.

Hyacinth was the favorite of Apollo, who accidentally killed him by hitting him while throwing discs. From Hyacinth's blood, hyacinth flowers grew, as if stained with blood, on their petals the exclamation “ah, ah” appears - the dying groan of a beautiful young man.

Beautiful, equal in beauty to the Olympian gods themselves, the young son of the king of Sparta Hyacinth was a friend of Apollo. Apollo often came to Sparta to visit his friend and spent time with him there, hunting on the mountain slopes or having fun with gymnastics, in which the Spartans were so skilled.
Why did Apollo leave the Olympian gods and come to Sparta to Hyacinth?
The heart of this deity of light burned with love.
Hyacinth also lived in friendship with Apollo. Playing the cithara, arts, sciences were only the content with which this divine love was filled.

Alexander Ivanov Apollo, Hyacinth and Cypress 1831-34

He often asked about the life of the gods and asked Apollo to talk about his exploits, about the many great judgments committed, to explain the reasons for the cruel sentences of some and untold mercies for others. But Apollo rarely answered, but mostly smiled and remained silent.
What were their endless conversations about?
They were connected by an unearthly relationship, a marriage of two souls from time immemorial. No words “love”, “eros”, “intimacy”, “communication”, “dialogue” can define this relationship, called virgin love - the indescribable attraction of an immortal divine being to an earthly mortal, and an earthly one to the divine.

More than once they said to each other:
- Oh, Hyacinth, if I were a mortal like you, I would sacrifice myself to love.
- Oh, Apollo, there is no greater joy for me than to die out of love for you. Perhaps this way at least a small portion of my sins will be redeemed. I can reach Olympus, and we will be inseparable.
Hyacinth forgot about his destiny to become the king of Sparta, about his duty to the fatherland and father. No, for him there was only one Apollo.
- To die in your arms, oh divine, and to be raptured to Olympus! Perhaps this is how I will thank Zeus for the miracle of communication with His divine messenger.
You, brilliant Apollo, the Olympic favorite. And I, a miserable mortal, will descend into the dark and dark underworld. Are we really facing eternal separation? Or will I ever wait for my bright friend Apollo to visit his Hyacinth in the kingdom of shadows? No! No no! No one will ever separate us. The gods will do something so that we are inseparable! Heavenly love is inseparable, isn't it, Apollo?

Once friends competed in discus throwing. The mighty Apollo was the first to throw the bronze disc. A disk flew high into the heavens, like the sun, sparkled like a star and flew to the ground.
Hyacinth can't take his eyes off him. What is this? Has the bronze disk turned into a shining sun? And Hyacinth, blinded by frantic joy, runs after the disk. He is about to grab the sun in his hands and drink from its divine rays!
Hyacinth ran up to the place where the disk was supposed to fall. But the disk, bouncing off the ground, hits him in the head with terrible force. Blood gushes like a river. The dark curls of the beautiful young king of Sparta, equal in beauty to the Olympian gods themselves, turned scarlet.

Death of Hyacinth 1675

A.A. Kiselev Hyacinth Dying in the Arms of Apollo 1884

Giovanni Batista Tiepolo Death of Hyacinth 1752-53

J. Broc Death of Hyacinth 1801

Apollo runs up to his friend, lifts him up, and places his bloody head in his lap. Apollo's attempts to stop the blood gushing from the wound and heal his friend are in vain. He covers Hyacinth's face with kisses, but Hyacinth fades away before his friend's eyes. His clear eyes fade.
Apollo hears his words from his lips:
- So this is how our Mother Wisdom judged! Now my sins will be forgiven.
Oh Apollo, I thank you. Through what you have done, the gods of Olympus will accept me into their kingdom.
Apollo is in despair.
- No no! You will not die, my beautiful friend, my Hyacinth, with a face more beautiful than the gods, surpassing the Olympians in wisdom! Oh woe is me, woe! I became a friend's killer. Why did I throw the disc? How can I now atone for my guilt before you? Oh, that I might come into the world as a mortal, and could die for love of you! Wouldn't it be better for me to descend into the joyless kingdom of the dead in order to be inseparable from you? Oh, why am I immortal? How I would like to be in your place, Hyacinth, and die in your arms.
- Now we will be inseparably together, right, Apollo? Forgive me and do not forget me, my madly beloved.
With these words, Hyacinth dies in the arms of Apollo.
Apollo gives his last kiss to his lover.
- The memory of our love, divine Hyacinth, will forever be preserved in the history of mankind.
A beautiful flower bloomed at the site of Hyacinth's death. Its petals shone like dew from the tears of Apollo.

Materials taken from WIKIPEDIA and websites.

When Zeus, turning into a bull, kidnapped beautiful Europa, her father, King Agenor, sent his three sons - Phoenix, Kilik and Cadmus - to find her and ordered them not to return home until they found their sister Europa. But Phoenix and Kilik could not find young Europe, and the first of them settled in Africa, and the other in Cilicia. Cadmus, after long wanderings, arrived with his mother on the island of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea. From here he went to ask Apollo where it would be better for him to settle, since he no longer hoped to find his sister, but, fearing his father’s wrath, did not want to return home. And Apollo answered him:
- You will meet a bull in a meadow in a desert valley, he will lead you, and in the place where he lies on the soft grass, build a city and call it Boeotian Thebes.
Cadmus set off on his journey, and soon he saw a beautiful bull in the meadow. Cadmus followed the bull, forded the Cephisus River after him and passed the Panopean meadows. Suddenly the bull stopped and, raising his beautiful horns, mooed loudly and lay down on the green grass.
Cadmus rejoiced, kissed the foreign land and greeted the unknown meadows and mountains. Then he sent several of his companions to a mountain spring to bring water for a sacrificial libation to Zeus. And the spring flowed from a deep cave, and it was guarded by the terrible dragon of the war god Ares, who lived in the cave. He had fiery eyes, his crest shone with gold, his whole body was filled with poison, and in his mouth were hidden three stingers and three rows of teeth.
When Cadmus' companions came for water, the dragon stuck his head out of the cave. They got scared and threw their jugs. The dragon rushed at them, strangled some, and killed others with its poisonous breath.
Cadmus waited for them for a long time and in vain and finally decided to go in search. Armed with a military spear and sword, throwing on the skin of the lion he had killed, he entered the dense forest.
Soon he found dead companions there and a dragon lying on their corpses. Cadmus grabbed a huge stone and threw it at the dragon; but thick scales protected him like a shell, and only a sharp spear pierced deeply into the dragon’s body. The enraged monster began to swing its huge scaly tail, its mouth breathing poison.
The dragon rushed at Cadmus, but young hero jumped to the side and, covering himself with a lion's skin, met the dragon with a spear. Blood gushed from the dragon's neck. Cadmus managed to thrust a sharp sword into the monster’s mouth, and it pierced through it. Cadmus looked at the dragon he had killed, and suddenly Pallas Athena appeared to him from Olympus and ordered him to sow the dragon’s teeth into the ground. Cadmus carried out the advice of good Athena, and suddenly the field sown with teeth began to move. First the tips of spears appeared from the ground, then helmets, powerful shoulders and arms armed with spears, and then a crowd of armed warriors appeared on the field in front of the astonished hero.
Cadmus began to prepare for battle with new enemies, but suddenly one of the warriors who emerged from the earth turned to him:
- Stop and don't interfere in our battle! - And with a cry he rushed at one of his own warrior brothers, but immediately fell, struck by a blow from a spear.
In rage, the warriors began to destroy each other; and now they are lying, bleeding, on the earth that just gave birth to them, and only five of them remain alive.
One of them, named Echion, threw down his sword and invited the brothers to make peace. And these five earth-born warriors helped Cadmus and his companions to found the city of Thebes and the fortress of Cadmea.
Having built the city, Cadmus married the beautiful Harmony, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, and he experienced many happy days, and he and his family endured many sorrows and troubles. They had a son, Polydorus, and four daughters: Ino, Autonoe, Semele and Agave. Ino and Semele experienced many misfortunes, and the sons of Agave and Autonoe also suffered a difficult fate.
Cadmus, anticipating the unhappy fate of his children and grandchildren, left the city of Thebes in his old age and went with his wife Harmony to Illyria.
There they were turned into dragons and, after death, went into the underworld in the form of monsters.

One day the cheerful god Dionysus walked from Thrace to Phrygia. The road led to the mountain valleys of Tmol, where grapes grew, and further to Pactol, whose waters did not yet sparkle with golden sand. Dionysus was accompanied by a crowd of young bacchantes and satyrs, but there was no eldest among them, whose name was Silenus. Intoxicated with wine, he ended up in the rose garden of the Phrygian king Midas, where the Phrygians grabbed him and, tying his hands with woven flowers, brought him to the king. King Midas recognized the cheerful companion of Dionysus and affectionately received him. King Midas entertained Silena for ten days and nights, and on the eleventh morning he brought him to Dionysus. Dionysus was delighted to see his friend Silenus and promised Midas to fulfill his every wish. Midas began to ask the god Dionysus to reward him with such a gift that everything he touched would turn into pure gold. And Dionysus fulfilled the desire of King Midas.

Midas was delighted with such a gift and decided to test whether Dionysus had really fulfilled his promise. He broke off an oak branch - and suddenly he had a golden branch in his hand. He picked up a stone from the ground, and the stone also became golden. Every apple seemed to him to have been picked from the garden of the Hesperides - and the apples there were all golden. The water with which he washed his hands turned into a golden stream. King Midas rejoices at such happiness. And so he ordered a sumptuous dinner to be prepared for himself. There is a dish of fried meat, white bread and wine on the table. But as soon as Midas wants to bring a piece of bread to his mouth, the bread turns into gold, the meat turns into gold, and the wine mixed with water also turns into gold. Midas was frightened; he did not expect such a disaster. The rich man, he becomes poorer than the beggar, wants to run away from his wealth, which he so strived for. He is tormented by hunger and thirst, but Midas is punished for his greed for gold.
He turned to Dionysus with a prayer so that he would take pity on him, forgive him and save him from this golden misfortune.
Dionysus fulfilled the prayer of the repentant Midas and took back his destructive gift. He ordered him to go to the Pactolus River and, having reached its very sources, plunge into its waters and wash his body in the foamy waves, promising that then there would be no trace of the gold that he so coveted.
Midas carried out the advice of Dionysus and lost his power to turn everything he touched into gold, but from that time on the Pactolus River began to carry golden shiny sand that falls in the spring in the meadows.
From then on, King Midas hated wealth, and he lived in poverty and simplicity. He wandered through the fields and meadows and became a worshiper of Pan, the god of forests and fields. But one day a new misfortune came to King Midas, and he could not part with it until his death.
Once Pan dared to compete in music with Apollo himself. And the matter took place on Mount Tmol, and the god of that mountain was elected as a judge. He sat down in his place of honor, the nymphs stood around him, listening to the music, and with them King Midas.
The god Pan began to play his flute, and Midas listened to him with pleasure. But then the radiant god Apollo, crowned with laurels, stepped out and began to play the cithara.
Fascinated by Apollo's play, the god of Mount Tmol immediately recognized him as the winner.
And everyone agreed with him. Only one king, Midas, did not agree with everyone and called the judge unjust. The radiant Apollo was angry with the foolish King Midas and decided to punish him. He stretched the ears of King Midas in length, covered them with thick gray hair, and endowed them with flexibility and mobility. And King Midas always had donkey ears. Midas felt ashamed and had to cover them with a purple bandage. And only from one barber, who always cut his hair and beard, could he hide his donkey ears, but strictly forbade him to divulge this secret.
But the barber, afraid to tell people about it, went to the river bank, dug a hole in the ground and whispered into it: “And King Midas has donkey ears,” and then buried the hole. And soon, in the place where the secret was buried, thick reeds grew, and in the wind the leaves whispered to each other: “And King Midas has donkey ears.”
This is how people learned the secret of Midas.

The solar god Apollo loved no one as much as the beautiful young man Hyacinth, the son of the Spartan king Amycles. After leaving Delphi, he often appeared in the bright valley of the Eu-rot River and amused himself there with games and hunting with his young favorite.
Once, on a sultry afternoon, they both took off their clothes and, anointing their bodies with olive oil, began to throw the discus. The god Apollo was the first to take the copper disk with his mighty hand and throw it so high that it disappeared from sight.

But then the disk falls to the ground; the young man Hyacinth hurries to pick it up to show his skill in throwing, but the disc bounces to the side and hits Hyacinth in the head. And the young man falls to the ground dead.
In horror, Apollo hurries to him and picks up the fallen young man from the ground. He warms him, wipes the blood from his face, applies healing herbs to the wound, but he cannot help him. Just as a lily or violet, picked in the garden, bends its leaves to the ground, so, dying, young Hyacinth bows his head. In deep sadness, Apollo stands in front of his deceased beloved and is sad that he cannot die with him.
And so, by the will of Apollo, in memory of the young man, a white, slender flower with blood-red spots grows from the ground, stained with blood.
Every spring the beautiful hyacinth flower blooms, and at the beginning of summer a festival is held in honor of Hyacinth and Apollo in Sparta. It begins with sad songs about the young man who died early and ends with a cheerful and cheerful song about his rebirth.

The young goddess Aphrodite loved no one more than the beautiful young shepherd Adonis, the son of the Syrian king.
Knidos and Paphos and the ore-rich Amathuntus, where she had often visited before, are now forgotten by her. For Adonis, she forgot the sky itself. She does not pamper herself as before, and in simple clothes she wanders with the young man through the mountains, through forests and rocks overgrown with thorny bushes. She hunts deer and hares with dogs, but she avoids wild boar, bear and wolf and advises Adonis to stay away from these fierce animals. She says: “Excessive courage is dangerous, do not be recklessly courageous, do not attack a strong lion, your courage can be dangerous to both you and me.”
While Aphrodite was with him, he followed her advice.

But one day on the island of Cyprus, Adonis forgot the words of Aphrodite. While hunting with dogs, he drove an angry boar out of a dense forest into a clearing and threw a hunting dart at it. The wounded boar rushed at the young man. Adonis began to run away, but the beast soon caught up with him and inflicted such a severe wound with its fangs that Adonis fell to the ground dead.
Aphrodite heard the groans of the dying Adonis and, in a chariot drawn by white swans, hurried to his aid. Seeing the murdered young man, she got off the chariot, tore her clothes out of grief and wept bitterly. But tears cannot resurrect the dead Adonis.

Then, in memory of the beautiful young man, Aphrodite mixed divine nectar with the blood of Adonis and turned it into a blood-red flower.
Its flowering time is short, like the life of a young man; the wind soon blows away its withered petals, and that is why the flower was called anemone, or anemone.
According to other legends, in order to console Aphrodite, the gods commanded Adonis every spring and summer to leave the underground region of shadows, the abode of Hades and Persephone, and be with Aphrodite. When Adonis returns to earth again, it is the time of flowering in nature and the time of ripening of fruits and harvest. And in the fall, festivities and the burial ceremony of Adonis begin in Hellas; with sad songs they accompany him to the gloomy abode of shadows, to the underground kingdom of Hades.
But at the end of the holiday they sing cheerful songs, hoping that in the spring he will return to earth again: “Adonis is alive, he will come to us again in the spring!”