In the grove Orpheus drew together with his song, the fairest youth of Ceos loved a sacred stag with golden collar — and when a summer noon's javelin cast at a shadow killed the pet by mischance, Apollo granted his prayer to mourn forever and changed him into the cypress that still weeps at graves.1
The sacred stag
Orpheus' lyre had raised an hilltop grove where trees and beasts gathered to listen. Among them came a stag sacred to the nymphs of Carthaea, with antlers tipped in gold and a jewelled collar — tame enough to accept strangers' hands, but dearest to Cyparissus of Ceos, who led it to pasture and wove garlands for its horns.2
The mis-thrown javelin
At high noon, when the Crab burned overhead, the stag lay in forest shade. Cyparissus cast a javelin at a moving shadow — and struck the beloved creature. Apollo comforted him in vain; the youth could not endure life without the stag and begged the gods that he might grieve eternally.3
The cypress
Phoebus granted the prayer with sorrow: Cyparissus' limbs took a green tint, his hair became a bristling crest, and he rose a slender tree pointing to the stars — the cypress, forever associated with mourning. Apollo said he would mourn Cyparissus as truly as the youth had mourned for others.4
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
Cyparissus
Jacopo Vignali, c. 1620
Vignali's Strasbourg canvas: the youth mourns the tame stag he has slain — grief Apollo will root as the cypress.
Metamorphosis of Cyparissus (House of the Vettii)
Unknown Roman wall-painter, 1st century AD
Pompeian fresco: Cyparissus beside the stag whose death will turn him into the funeral evergreen.
Apollo and Cyparissus
Unknown (Dutch Metamorphoses print), 17th century
Dutch Ovid engraving: Apollo with Cyparissus and the doomed stag — pastoral friendship before the accidental shot.
Cyparissus Changed into a Cypress
Unknown (Dutch print), 17th century
Rijksmuseum climax: the boy becomes the cypress — endless mourning made evergreen.