Eos and Tithonus

Canonical narrative

Eos sees Tithonus, a beautiful Trojan of Priam's family, and carries him away. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite calls her golden-throned and places their life together beside the streams of Ocean at the ends of the earth. Wanting to keep him, Eos approaches Zeus and asks that Tithonus become immortal and live forever. Zeus grants exactly that request.

Eos has not asked that youth remain with immortality. For a time Tithonus flourishes beside her, but grey hairs appear, then age settles through his body. Eos withdraws from his bed yet continues to cherish him in her house. She gives him food, ambrosia, rich clothing, and care even as strength leaves his limbs.

At last Tithonus can no longer move or lift himself. Eos closes him inside a chamber behind shining doors. His voice goes on endlessly, thin and without the bodily power it once possessed. The hymn uses his fate to warn Anchises that a mortal joined to a goddess cannot simply escape mortality's conditions. Later cicada tellings are not folded into this version. Here the horror is immortality itself when youth and movement have been omitted.

Episodes in this myth

Participants and roles

Source-scoped variants

Source witnesses