Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Cyparissus.
The gallery
Cyparissus
Jacopo Vignali, c. 1620
Vignali's Baroque canvas in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg shows the Cean youth mourning the tame stag he has accidentally slain — the grief Apollo will answer by turning him into the cypress, emblem of endless mourning.
Metamorphosis of Cyparissus (House of the Vettii)
Unknown Roman wall-painter, 1st century AD (Pompeian)
A Pompeian fresco from the House of the Vettii stages Ovid's metamorphosis: Cyparissus beside the stag whose death will root him forever as the funeral cypress.
Apollo and Cyparissus
Unknown (Dutch print; Metamorphoses of Ovid series), 17th century
A Dutch Metamorphoses engraving: Apollo with Cyparissus and the doomed stag — the pastoral friendship that ends when the youth's accidental shot becomes the aetiology of the cypress.
Cyparissus Changed into a Cypress
Unknown (Dutch print), 17th century
Rijksmuseum engraving of the climax Ovid names: Cyparissus transformed into the cypress tree, grief made evergreen — the reception image that keeps the Cean youth as a botanical myth.