Tragic Greeks who became plants
The ancient Greek gods loved to play with mortal lives. Although they preferred turning people into animals, sometimes the Olympians went for garden decoration instead. Whether it was to punish them or to help them, these are the tragic Greeks who were turned into plants.
Syceus
Syceus was a son of mother earth, Gaia, and therefore a member of the warrior race called ‘giants’. Although that term might make you think that he and the rest of his race were tall, Syceus was of average human size.
Because Olympians (Zeus and co) had ruled the world for a long time and had shoved all other deities aside, the giants started a war to gain power, called the Gigantomachy. The Olympians, being the most divine and powerful, won the conflict and punished the losing giants in a lot of diverse ways. Some of the giants were buried, crushed, burnt alive, or even eaten.
Gaia, seeing how all of her children were coming to their tragic ends, was able to save Syceus from death by turning him into a fig tree.
Smyrna
Smyrna was a princess of Cyprus and the daughter of one of the island’s first kings, Theias.
The ancient Greek love goddess Aphrodite didn’t like the way Theias and his people had been neglecting her lately. Instead, the inhabitants of Cyprus had started to worship the wine god Dionysus. Aphrodite came up with a plan to destroy the royal family as a punishment.
The goddess bewitched Smyrna into falling in love with her father. One night, when Theias was drunk of the wine he had every evening, Smyrna got into bed with him, and they had sex. For a week, Theias didn’t recognize his daughter during her nightly visits.
The king was curious about the identity of the young woman who had made his past nights so pleasant and told the entire kingdom to look out for his mysterious sexual companion. Smyrna, hearing the news, awoke from her spell and was so ashamed of her incestuous relationship that she hid in a forest and begged the gods to help her. The Olympians responded by turning her into a weeping myrrh tree.
Out of the tree, a boy was born: Theias and Smyrna’s son Adonis. Ironically enough, one look at the handsome youth was enough to make Aphrodite fall in love with him and make him her most famous mortal lover.
If you’re curious about who else suffered the wrath of Aphrodite, check out this post.
Trees weren’t the only natural form the gods liked to turn people into. Flowers were another chosen transformation for mortals, as the next young men will show us.
Narcissus
Narcissus was the son of water nymph Liriope. His mother became anxious about her son’s wellbeing after he turned fifteen because his beauty attracted a lot of unwanted attention. And in ancient Greece, it was better to stay clear of the glances of gods and kings.
Liriope consulted Tiresias, the oracle in Thebes, to find out how Narcissus could protect himself from any harm. Tiresias saw the boy’s future and proclaimed that as long Narcissus wouldn’t recognize himself, he would live a happy life.
Liriope, puzzled by the oracle’s response, assumed her son was safe. Because who in the world could ever physically recognize themselves?
Narcissus became older, and one day, he went hunting in a forest. After the hunt, he went for a swim in a secluded stream and fell asleep naked. This attracted the attention of Echo, a nymph who lived in the forest by herself.
Echo had been punished by the marriage goddess Hera because she had caught the nymph lying about the whereabouts of her cheating husband, the god of heaven and earth Zeus. Hera knew how much Echo loved to talk and gossip and had made it impossible for the nymph to ever speak again, except when she repeated others. And because Echo annoyed and insulted everyone by continually repeating them, she became forced to live by herself.
Narcissus woke up when Echo crawled closer to him. He didn’t believe in love because nobody had ever taken any serious interest in him. People only admired him for his looks and didn’t care about anything else.
Disgusted by Echo’s creepy staring, Narcissus started yelling at her. Of course, Echo only repeated his yelling, which pissed him off even more. He started throwing rocks at the nymph until she left him alone.
Embarrassed by the encounter, Echo ran into a cave and prayed to Aphrodite to release her from her human form. The love goddess granted her wish. All that was left of Echo was her voice that we can still hear today when we enter caves, canyons, or some other places.
After scaring Echo away, Narcissus drank from the stream, only to discover his reflection for the first time. He became obsessed with the beautiful man he saw in the water and failed to realize that it was his image. After laying by the stream for days and trying to make love to the water, the gods felt so sorry for the delusional Narcissus that they turned him into a flower.
Today, the daffodil that’s named after Narcissus still bows his head to try and look at himself in puddles and streams.
Crocus and Smilax
Crocus was a mortal who fell in love with the nymph Smilax. Because she rejected him, the boy asked the gods for the release of his lovesickness. The Olympians turned Crocus into the saffron flower that bears the same name.
For some reason (maybe as a punishment for her rejection), the gods also turned Smilax into a plant. Today, over 300 flowering plant species carry the name Smilax.
Hyacinthus
Hyacinthus was a Spartan prince whose beauty attracted not one, but two gods. Zephyrus, the personification of the West Wind, fought over him with music god Apollo. Because Hyacinthus preferred being the beautiful Apollo’s lover, he rejected the wind every time he felt it trying to caress him.
One day, Apollo and his mortal lover were throwing a discus. Zephyrus got so enraged by their playing that the wind blew Apollo’s discus off course, hitting Hyacinthus’s head hard and killing him.
The boy’s death saddened Apollo so much that he refused to bring Hyacinthus’s soul to the underworld. Instead, the god mixed his divine tears with his lover’s blood and let the mixture flow into the earth. From the soil, a sweet-smelling flower emerged, the hyacinth.
Don’t turn into a plant
Whatever reason the gods had for turning people into plants, their nature-loving acts became the origin stories of some of our best-known trees and flowers. They also contain a couple of valuable life lessons that you can follow to save yourself from the dangerous gods.
- Don’t start a war with the Olympians.
- Don’t neglect Aphrodite.
- Don’t stare at yourself in the mirror for too long.
- Don’t reject anyone too harshly.
- Don’t get hit by a discus.
And as always, don’t be too beautiful. You don’t want to attract any unwanted attention from the vengeful Greek gods.
Source:
Fry, Stephen. Mythos. London: Penguin, 2017.
