Sculptor of Cyprus who, disgusted by the shameless Propoetides, carved a snow-white ivory virgin so lifelike he loved his own art — and on Venus' festival won a living bride when the goddess warmed the statue to flesh.1
The women of Amathus denied that Venus was a goddess; the angry goddess made them the first to prostitute their bodies publicly, and shame at last hardened their faces into flint. Pygmalion, seeing how nature's faults could waste women's lives, chose to live unmarried.2
With consummate skill he carved snow-white ivory into a virgin's form more beautiful than any living woman — modest in expression, so lifelike that he wondered if it were flesh, kissed it, and felt the kisses returned. He brought gifts, draped her in jewels, and laid her on a purple couch as his bride, praying only that she were real.3
On Venus' festival, when he dared not say ivory statue aloud but prayed for one like his ivory maiden, the goddess heard. Three times the altar flame leaped high. When he returned and kissed the figure, warmth spread beneath his hand — the ivory softened like wax under the sun, veins pulsed, and the astonished sculptor won a living wife.4
Apollodorus knows another Pygmalion — king of Cyprus whose daughter Metharme married Cinyras and bore Adonis among other children. The sculptor who loved his statue and the royal father-in-law in the Bibliotheca must never share one star.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
