Ligdus of Crete vowed to expose any child that was not a boy; when his wife Telethusa bore a daughter she raised the infant Iphis as a son — until the girl fell in love with Ianthe and prayed to Isis on the eve of the wedding, and the goddess changed Iphis into a man.1
The hidden girl
Near Phaestus and Gnossus lived Ligdus, poor but honest, and his wife Telethusa. When she was with child he swore to kill the infant if it were a girl, for they could not afford a dowry. Isis appeared to Telethusa in a dream and forbade the exposure; when a daughter was born the mother lied and named her Iphis after the grandfather.2
The betrothal
Iphis grew up with a girl's face but a boy's dress, and no one suspected the fraud except the nurse. When the time came to marry, Ligdus betrothed Iphis to Ianthe, fairest of the Cretan girls — and Iphis loved her with a love that seemed impossible, for both seemed maidens to the world.3
Isis answers
On the eve of the wedding Telethusa and Iphis prayed in Isis' temple. The goddess nodded; the horns of the crescent moon shone, and sistrums rattled. When mother and daughter left, Iphis walked with a lengthened stride, darker face, and short hair — a man in form. Venus and Hymenaeus came to the marriage fire, and Iphis took Ianthe as his bride.4
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
In play
Iphis
Ovid's Cretan wedding tale — a girl raised as a boy, love for Ianthe, and Isis' gift of a male body on the eve of the rites.
Metamorphoses
Ovid
Book IX holds Ligdus' vow, Telethusa's deception, and the goddess who answers a mother's prayer — still the West's classic sex-change myth.
Isis
The Egyptian goddess who walks Ovid's Crete — the deity Telethusa trusts when no Greek god will remake her child.