Encyclopedia > Hermaphroditus

  Article Content

Hermaphroditus

In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus was a child of Aphrodite and Hermes. He was born a remarkably handsome boy but was changed into a hermaphrodite.

Hermaphroditus was raised by Phrygian nymphs. One of the local nymphs, Salmacis, who lived in a lake, fell in love with him; Hermaphroditus rejected her. He undressed himself by the lake, and jumped into the water to go swimming. Salmacis embraced him and he struggled while she prayed that they would never be separated. The gods granted her this and their bodies fused. Hermaphroditus begged that the lake would take the virility from anyone who bathed in it; this was also granted.

Ovid IV, 288



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Northampton, Suffolk County, New York

... together, 20.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 23.4% are non-families. 20.3% of all households are made up of individuals and 5.7% have someone ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 59.1 ms