Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Hermaphroditus.
The gallery
Sleeping Hermaphroditus
Unknown (Roman copy); mattress by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, c. 2nd century CE (mattress 1620)
The Borghese Hermaphrodite in the Louvre — Hellenistic languor with Bernini's buttoned mattress — Salmacis' embrace made marble.
In play
WORK · c. 2nd century CEREAD MORE ↗
Sleeping Hermaphroditus
The Borghese Hermaphrodite — Hellenistic languor on Bernini's mattress — remains the figure's defining afterlife in marble.
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Hermaphroditus
Child of Hermes and Aphrodite — Salmacis' fountain still supplies the vocabulary for dual-sexed form.
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Metamorphoses
Ovid
Book IV's Carian episode — the nymph who will not let go — is still the canonical telling of Hermaphroditus' change.