![]() ![]() Mint, men say, was once a maid beneath the earth, a Nymph of Cocytus, and she lay in the bed of Aidoneus but when he raped the maid Persephone from the Aetnaean hill, then she complained loudly with overweening words and raved foolishly for jealousy, and Demeter in anger trampled her with her feet and destroyed her. Afterwards, she would boast that she surpassed Persephone in beauty and that Hades would soon return to her in anger over the nymph's insolence, Persephone's mother Demeter trampled her, and thus from the earth sprang the mint herb: According to Oppian, Minthe had been Hades' mistress before he abducted and married Persephone, but he set her aside once he carried off and married his queen. Ovid also briefly mentions Minthe and her transformation at the hands of Persephone in his Metamorphoses, but neglects to mention the story behind it. Similarly to that, a scholiast on Nicander wrote that Minthe became Hades' mistress for this Persephone tore her into pieces, but Hades turned his dead lover into the fragrant plant that bore her name in her memory. Furthermore, near the mountain is a precinct sacred to Hades, Near Pylus, towards the east, is a mountain named after Minthe, who, according to myth, became the concubine of Hades, was trampled under foot by Core, and was transformed into garden-mint, the plant which some call Hedyosmos. A mountain near Pylos was named after Minthe, where one of the few temples of Hades in Greece was situated: In jealousy, his wife Persephone intervened and metamorphosed Minthe, in the words of Strabo's account, "into the garden mint, which some call hedyosmos (lit. The Naiad nymph Minthe, daughter of the infernal river-god Cocytus, became concubine to Hades, the lord of the Underworld and god of the dead. The word has been also found in a Bronze Age tablet, spelled in Linear B as □□ (mi-ta). The -nth-/ -nthos- element in menthe has been described as a characteristic of a class of words borrowed from a Pre-Greek language: compare akanthos, labyrinthos, Korinthos, and hyakinthos. Beekes, it is of undoubtedly pre-Greek origin due to the variant ending in "-ᾰ". The ancient Greek noun μίνθη or μίνθα translates to 'mint'. The plant was also called by some as Hedyosmos (ἡδύοσμος), which means "sweet-smelling". She was beloved by Hades, the King of the Underworld, and became his mistress, but she was transformed into a mint plant by either his wife Persephone or his sister and mother-in-law Demeter. In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, Minthe (also Menthe, Mintha or Mentha Μίνθη or Μένθη or Μίντη) is an Underworld Naiad nymph associated with the river Cocytus. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |