The sad, sad woe thy lettered petals keep;
Our minstrel sings no more his friends among
Sicilian muses! now begin the doleful song.”
M. J. Chapman trans. in the
Greek Pastoral Poets, 1836.
Story of Hyacinthus
The allusion to Hyacinth is thus explained by Chapman:—
“Hyacinthus, a Spartan youth, the son of Clio, was in great favour with Apollo. Zephyrus, being enraged that he preferred Apollo to him, blew the discus when flung by Apollo, on a day that Hyacinthus was playing at discus-throwing with that god, against the head of the youth, and so killed him. Apollo, being unable to save his life, changed him into the flower which was named after him, and on whose petals the Greeks fancied they could trace the notes of a grief, ἂι, ἂι.[5] A festival called the Hyacinthia was celebrated for three days in each year at Sparta, in honour of the god and his unhappy favorite.” Note to Moschus, Idyl iii.
Told by Ovid
The story of Apollo and Hyacinth is gracefully told by Ovid, in the tenth book of his Metamorphoses:—
“Midway betwixt the past and coming night