067 Cyparissus' depressing hunting trip

I know, I know, another guy gets turned into a plant after a tragedy, but I swear this will be the last one for a while. It is also another story involving Apollo and a youth that he fell in love with. (You'd think after the 50 death of a lover that he would take it easy for a bit or at the very least not let anything bad happen to whoever he wanted to fuck that day) Anyway this is the story of Cyparissus and why we have Cypress trees.

Like I said, Apollo, god music and dance, loved the little boys (Think of him as the Michael Jackson of the Olympians)

066 Hyacinthus and the discus incident

You know, in retrospect I should have done these flower myths back in the early weeks of Spring, but seeing as Summer is around the corner I think it is kosher for me to do one last flower myth. (That is before I realize there's ten more obscure stories of young men dying horrible deaths and their corpse's nurturing the birth of a new plant) 

This is the myth of how the Hyacinth came to be and how discus' are dangerous projectiles (but we don't need this story to tell us since we saw what happened *see the Perseus post*)

Zeus wasn't the only immortal who loved little boys

065 Adonis and the tragic fate of being too pretty

Today's story is another one of those classic "guy dies horribly and turns into a pretty flower" myth that we have seen in last week's myth of Narcissus. So yeah it is one of those tragic myths, but when was Greek Mythology ever cheery and happy? (And believe me, probably every flower the Ancient Greeks picked up, they somehow derived into a story of a youth dying and metamorphosis story {you don't want to know how Orchids formed, poor bastard got castrated and burned alive}[okay I lied :P])

064 Narcissus the first douchebag mortal

You ever wonder where the word narcissistic or narcissist came from? From the Greek Myth of Narcissus and Echo of course! It's a cautionary tale of vanity and being cruel to women  and of course features a metamorphosis because what Greek Myth is there without one.

However, before I talk about this story let me tell you a small story of a nymph named Echo. Echo was a mountain nymph with a natural ability at talking, so good was she at this that Zeus himself had her talk and amuse Hera while he went off to rape nymphs, mortals, and goddesses. Eventually Hera found out that Zeus was using the talkative nymph to distract her from her husband's escapades. Because of this Hera punished the chatty servant by taking away her voice; only allowing her to repeat the words of another person's shout. (It's not like her name means that now, that would just be silly)  Unable to speak freely, Echo fled from Olympus to woods of Greece and that is where Narcissus comes in to our story.

God damn I'm a sexy beast!