Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Tithonus.
The gallery
Aurora Taking Leave of Tithonus
Francesco Solimena, c. 1704
Solimena's Getty canvas: Eos rises from Tithonus' bed into her chariot — the dawn goddess leaving the Trojan prince she made immortal but not forever young.
Aurora and Tithonus
Sebastiano Ricci, c. 18th century
Ricci's Royal Collection oil: Aurora and the aging Tithonus — Venetian light on the myth of immortality without youth.
Aurora and Tithonus
Giovanni da San Giovanni, c. 17th century
Giovanni da San Giovanni's Florentine take: the dawn goddess and her Trojan lover — Baroque tenderness before the cicada fate.
Eos and Tithonos (kylix)
Unknown (Attic), c. 5th century BC
Boston MFA red-figure kylix: Eos pursues young Tithonus — the love story before immortality, painted for a symposium cup.
In play
Tithonus
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Tennyson's dramatic monologue — "The woods decay, the woods decay and fall" — remains the defining modern voice of the immortal who cannot die.
Homeric Hymns
Hymn 5 to Aphrodite: Eos asks Zeus for Tithonus' immortality and forgets to ask for youth — the canonical Greek telling of the dawn's tragic gift.
Tithonus
Trojan prince beloved by Eos — granted eternal life, denied eternal youth, and in some tellings turned into a cicada.