Jump to content

Side (daughter of Ictinus)

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Deiadameian (talk | contribs) at 17:20, 6 February 2023. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about the transformed woman. For other uses, see Side (mythology).

In Greek mythology, Side (/saɪdɪ/, SYE-dee; Ancient Greek: Σίδη, romanized: Sídē, lit. 'pomegranate', pronounced [sǐːdɛː]) is a minor figure who tried to escape her enamored father and was transformed into a tree, in part of an aetiological myth that attempts to explain the nature of trees and birds. Her brief tale survives in the works of Dionysius Periegetes.

Etymology

The ancient Greek noun σίδη translates to "pomegranate", and refers to both the tree and its fruit.[1] Beekes and Furnée suggest that all of its variant spellings point to a Pre-Greek origin of the word,[2] and Witczak says specifically a Western Anatolian one.[3]

Family

The only known member of Side's family is a father named Ictinus. Nothing more is known about their family, nor is the land her myth takes place ever named, as most likely both Side and Ictinus were invented for the sake of this story.[4]

Mythology

According to the myth, Side's father Ictinus developed an incestuous desire for his daughter, and chased her down with the intention to rape her.[5] Side fled from him until she reached the gravestone of her dead mother, and killed herself on it. Her blood spilt on the ground and gave rise to a pomegranate tree, while her father himself was transformed into a kite,[4][6][7] a bird of prey which, according to Oppian, hates to rest on pomegranate trees.[8][9]

Symbolism

Karl Kerenyi compared this story to both the goddess Persephone, who was abducted to the Underworld by its king Hades and forced to stay there for several months a year thanks to her consumption of pomegranate fruit, and the hunter Orion's first wife Side, who angered Hera and was cast in Tartarus as punishment. All three stories have in common the theme of a pomegranate-related maiden who dies, either literally or metaphorically, and is led to the Underworld. In this Side's case, her father Ictinus supplants the subterranean god who seduces/rapes the maiden. Kerenyi summarized the theme as a woman who has to go down to the Underworld for the benefit of her community.[10]

The pomegranate fruit was seen as a symbol of fertility and Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility, possibly because its numerable red seeds suggest procreation and sexuality; it was also used as birth-control.[11] Most significantly when it comes to this myth, other than the connection it has to kites, is its bright red colour that resembles blood, as Side spilt her own when she took her life, which then gave rise to the tree.[4]

Side's myth has also similar elements with those of Nyctaea[12] and Nyctimene,[13][14] two other women who were transformed into something else in their effort to escape the embraces of their rapacious fathers.

See also

References

  1. ^ Liddell & Scott s.v. σίδη
  2. ^ Beekes 2009, p. 1329.
  3. ^ Witczak & Zadka 2014, pp. 113–126 and 131–139.
  4. ^ a b c Forbes Irving 1990, pp. 242–243.
  5. ^ Stone 2017, p. 15.
  6. ^ Dionysius, De Aucupio 7
  7. ^ Garzya 1955, pp. 205-206.
  8. ^ Folkard 1884, p. 500.
  9. ^ Bell 1991, p. 400.
  10. ^ Kerenyi 1967, p. 139.
  11. ^ Cyrino 2010, pp. 63-64.
  12. ^ Lactantius Placidus, On the Thebaid 3.507
  13. ^ Ovid 1916, pp. 100-101, lines 2.591-5.
  14. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 204, 253

Bibliography

  • Beekes, R. S. P. (2009). Lucien van Beek (ed.). Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series. Vol. 1. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Publications. ISBN 978-90-04-17420-7.
  • Bell, Robert E. (1991). Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-Clio. ISBN 9780874365818.
  • Cyrino, Monica S. (June 25, 2010). Aphrodite. Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World. New York and London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-77523-6.
  • Folkard, Richard (1884). Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics: Embracing the Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore of the Plant Kingdom. Michigan: S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.
  • Forbes Irving, Paul M. C. (1990). Metamorphosis in Greek Myths. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-814730-9.
  • Garzya, Antonius (1955). "Paraphrasis Dionysii Poematis de Aucupio". Byzantion. 25–27 (1). Peeters Publishers, JSTOR. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
  • Hyginus, Gaius Julius, The Myths of Hyginus. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
  • Kerenyi, Karl (1967). Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Translated by Ralph Manheim. New York City, New York: Pantheon Books.
  • Lactantius Placidus (1898). Lactantii Placidi qui dicitur Commentarios in Statii Thebaida it Commentarium in Achilleida recensuit. Translated by Ricahrd Jahnke. Lipsiae: B. G. Tevbneri.
  • Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Online version at Perseus.tufts project.
  • Ovid (1916). Metamorphoses. Loeb Classical Library 42. Vol. I: Books 1-8. Translated by Frank Justus Miller, revised by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Stone, Damien (May 15, 2017). Pomegranate: A Global History. London, UK: Reaktion Books Ltd. ISBN 9781780237954.
  • Witczak, Krzysztof Tomasz; Zadka, Małgorzata (2014). "Ancient Greek σίδη as a borrowing from a Pre-Greek substratum/On the Anatolian origin of Ancient Greek σίδη". Graeco-Latina Brunensia. 19 (1–2).

External links

  • The dictionary definition of σίδη at Wiktionary
Retrieved from "https://en.chped.com/w/index.php?title=Side_(daughter_of_Ictinus)&oldid=1137825718"