Dangerous Beauty: Ganymede in Olympus, Apollonius Rhodes III.314-318

 Trigger Warning: abduction

Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite ask Eros to help Jason obtain the Golden Fleece:

Invenit autem ipsum seorsim Iovis florenti in campo,

non solum, sed una etiam Ganymedem, ( quem olim Jupiter

In coaelum transtulerat, contubernalem Deorum

Pulchritudinis desiderio perculsus) cum talis autem illi

aureis, utpote pueri familiares, ludebant.

εὗρε δὲ τόνγ᾽ ἀπάνευθε Διὸς θαλερῇ ἐν ἀλωῇ,

οὐκ οἶον, μετα καὶ Γανυμήδεα, τόν ῥά ποτε Ζεὺς

οὐρανῷ ἐγκατένασσεν ἐφέστιον ἀθανάτοισιν,

κάλλεος ἱμερθείς. ἀμφ᾽ ἀστραγάλοισι δὲ τώγε

χρυσείοις, ἅ τε κοῦροι ὁμήθεες, ἑψιόωντο.

--Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica III.314-318; translated into Latin by Joannes Shaw (1777)

She found Cupid in the blossoming fields of Olympus,

Not alone, but together with Ganymede.

Struck by the youth’s beauty,

Jupiter had  brought him to Olympus

as a squire for the gods.

Cupid & Ganymede were playing with golden dice like childhood friends.

 

APOLLONIUS OF RHODES	MAP:
Name:  Apollonius of Rhodes Date:  3rd century BCE Works:  Argonautica	REGION  4
BIO:	Timeline:
Little is known of this Hellenistic poet, but what is clear is that his surviving epic, the Argonautica, was wildly influential to later epic poets. According to the Suda, he was the Director of the Library of Alexandria and was a contemporary of the poet Callimachus (α.4319).	HELLENISTIC GREEK