Tithonus

Tithonus
Tithonus [ti thō′nəs]
n.
L < Gr Tithōnos
Gr. Myth. a son of Laomedon and a lover of Eos, who obtains immortality for him but not eternal youth: he continues to shrivel with age as a result and she turns him into a grasshopper out of pity

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      in Greek legend, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, and of Strymo, daughter of the river Scamander. Eos (Aurora) fell in love with Tithonus and took him to Ethiopia, where she bore Emathion and Memnon. According to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, when Eos asked Zeus to grant Tithonus eternal life, the god consented. But Eos forgot to ask also for eternal youth, so her husband grew old and withered. In a later version Tithonus was transformed into a cicada. The poem "Tithonus" by English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, famously begins:

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Tithonus — [ti thō′nəs] n. [L < Gr Tithōnos] Gr. Myth. a son of Laomedon and a lover of Eos, who obtains immortality for him but not eternal youth: he continues to shrivel with age as a result and she turns him into a grasshopper out of pity …   English World dictionary

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  • TITHONUS —    in the Greek mythology son of Laomedon, who was wedded to Eos, who begged Zeus to confer on him immortality but forgot to beg for youth, so that his decrepitude in old age became a burden to him; he was changed into a cicada …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • Tithonus — /təˈθoʊnəs/ (say tuh thohnuhs) noun Classical Legend a son of Laomedon, beloved by Eos (Aurora). He asked and was granted immortality, but finding himself immortally old he asked Eos to take back her gift and was metamorphosed into a grasshopper …  

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