Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Demophon.
The gallery
Phyllis and Demophoon
Edward Burne-Jones, 1870
Burne-Jones' Birmingham canvas: Phyllis, transformed into an almond tree, clasps the returning Demophon — Theseus' son who abandoned her and found her changed. Pre-Raphaelite myth turns the Athenian prince's Thracian love into a tree-embrace of forgiveness and desire.
The Tree of Forgiveness
Edward Burne-Jones, 1882
A later Burne-Jones reworking of Phyllis and Demophon: the almond-tree nymph still holds the Athenian king. The painting keeps Demophon's afterlife as the lover who returned too late — and was forgiven in bark and blossom.
Phyllis and Demophoön
John William Waterhouse, c. 1897
Waterhouse's Phyllis and Demophon restages the reunion at the almond tree — Demophon of Athens as Pre-Raphaelite errant lover, caught by the woman he left.
In play
Demophon of Athens
Son of Theseus and Phaedra; Athenian king who loved Phyllis of Thrace — and, in some tellings, brought the Palladium or Heracles' sons home.
Heroides
Ovid
Ovid's letter of Phyllis to Demophoon (Heroides 2) gives the abandoned Thracian princess her voice against Theseus' son.