Acis and Galatea
Channel: all the knowledge of the universe PRINCIPIA
Date: 2022-01-19

Acis and Galatea, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10100830 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Metamorphoses_into_bodies_of_water_in_Greek_mythology
#Sicilian_characters_in_Greek_mythology
#Nereids
#Greek_sea_gods
#Metamorphoses
#Mythological_lovers
#Metamorphoses_characters
The Loves of Acis and Galatea by Alexandre Charles Guillemot （1827） Acis and Galatea are characters from Greek mythology later associated together in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
The episode tells of the love between the mortal Acis and the Nereid （sea-nymph） Galatea; when the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus kills Acis, Galatea transforms her lover into an immortal river spirit.
The episode was made the subject of poems, operas, paintings, and statues in the Renaissance and after.
Galathea or Galatea （Ancient Greek: Γαλάτεια; "she who is milk-white"）, the "glorious" and "comely" daughter of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris,
was a sea-nymph anciently attested in the work of both Homer and Hesiod, where she is described as the fairest and most beloved of the 50 Nereids.
She lived in the sea and aroused the love of a most improbable suitor, the Sicilian Cyclops Polyphemus.
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Galatea appears as the beloved of Acis, the son of Faunus and the river-nymph Symaethis, daughter of the River Symaethus.
One day, when Galatea was lying beside the sea with her lover, Polyphemus saw them.
The latter, in his jealousy, tore an enormous boulder out of the side of Mt.
Etna and hurled it at the young man.
Although Acis tried to flee, the huge rock crushed him beneath to death.
Galatea then turned his blood into sparkling waters as it trickled from under the rock, so creating the stream on Etna that bore his name, the Sicilian River Acis.
She turned her lover himself into the horned god of the stream.
He retained his original features except that he was larger and his face was now a deep blue.
This version of the tale now occurs nowhere earlier than in Ovid's work and might perhaps have...