- Pygmalion
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/pig may"lee euhn, -mayl"yeuhn/, n.1. Class. Myth. a sculptor and king of Cyprus who carved an ivory statue of a maiden and fell in love with it. It was brought to life, in response to his prayer, by Aphrodite.2. (italics) a comedy (1912) by George Bernard Shaw.
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In Greek mythology, a king of Cyprus who fell in love with a statue of Aphrodite.The goddess took pity on him and brought the statue to life, and he married her. In some versions of the myth Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved the statue himself because he was disgusted with the faults of ordinary women, and when it was brought to life he gave it the name Galatea.* * *
in Greek mythology, a king who was the father of Metharme and, through her marriage to Cinyras, the grandfather of Adonis, according to Apollodorus of Athens. The Roman poet Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, Book X, relates that Pygmalion, a sculptor, makes an ivory statue representing his ideal of womanhood and then falls in love with his own creation, which he names Galatea; the goddess Venus brings the statue to life in answer to his prayer. Their daughter Paphos gives her name to the city of Paphos, the centre of Aphrodite's worship on Cyprus. The story was the inspiration for many artists: Jean-Léon Gérôme depicted the moment of transformation, and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion in turn provided the basis of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's musical, My Fair Lady.* * *
Universalium. 2010.