Editing Hymen (god) (section)

==Mythology==
Hymen was mentioned in [[Euripides]]'s ''[[The Trojan Women]]'' in which [[Cassandra]] says:
{{blockquote|Bring the light, uplift and show its flame! I am doing the god's service, see! I making his shrine to glow with tapers bright. O Hymen, king of marriage! blest is the bridegroom; blest am I also, the maiden soon to wed a princely lord in Argos. Hail Hymen, king of marriage!}}

Hymen is also mentioned in [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'' and in seven plays by [[William Shakespeare]]: ''[[Hamlet]]'',<ref>ln. 3.2.147.</ref> ''[[The Tempest (play)|The Tempest]]'', ''[[Much Ado about Nothing]]'',<ref>In 5.3.</ref> ''[[Titus Andronicus]]'', ''[[Pericles, Prince of Tyre]]'', ''[[Timon of Athens]]'' and ''[[As You Like It]]'', where he joins the couples at the end&nbsp;—
{{blockquote|Tis Hymen peoples every town;<br />High wedlock then be honoured.<br />Honour, high honour, and renown,<br />To Hymen, god of every town!}}

Hymen also appears in the work of the 7th- to 6th-century BCE Greek poet [[Sappho]] (translation: [[M. L. West]], ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Oxford University Press):
{{blockquote|High must be the chamber&nbsp;–<br />Hymenaeum!<br />Make it high, you builders!<br />A bridegroom's coming&nbsp;–<br />Hymenaeum!<br />Like the War-god himself, the tallest of the tall!}}

Hymen is most commonly the son of [[Apollo]] and one of the [[Muses]], [[Clio]] or [[Calliope]] or [[Urania]] or [[Terpsichore]].<ref name="auto3">Nonnus, ''Dionysiaca'' 33.67</ref><ref name="auto1">Vatican Scholiast on Euripides' Rhesus, 895 (ed. Dindorf)</ref><ref name="auto">Scholiast on Pindar's Pythian Odes 4.313</ref><ref name="auto2">Alciphron, ''Epistles'' 1.13.3</ref><ref name="auto4">Tzetzes. ''Chiliades'' 8.599</ref> In [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]]'s play ''[[Medea (Seneca)|Medea]]'', he is stated to be the son of [[Dionysus]].<ref name="Medea">Seneca, ''Medea'' 56 ff</ref> [[Servius the Grammarian|Servius]] calls him the son of Dionysus by [[Aphrodite]].<ref>Hard, pp. 223, 630 n. 111.</ref>

Other stories give Hymen a legendary origin. In one of the surviving fragments of the ''[[Megalai Ehoiai]]'' attributed to [[Hesiod]], it's told that [[Magnes (son of Argos)|Magnes]] "had a son of remarkable beauty, Hymenaeus. And when Apollo saw the boy, he was seized with love for him, and wouldn't leave the house of Magnes".<ref name="Metamorphoses">[[Antoninus Liberalis]], ''Metamorphoses'' [https://topostext.org/work/216#23 23] [= [[Hesiod]], ''[[Megalai Ehoiai]]'' fr. 16].</ref>

[[Aristophanes]]' ''Peace'' ends with Trygaeus and the Chorus singing the wedding song, with the repeated phrase "Oh Hymen! Oh Hymenaeus!",<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Nonfiction/Drama/Aristophanes/Peace/Aristophanes_PeaceP12.htm |title=Peace Page 12 |access-date=2005-11-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051201140548/http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Nonfiction/Drama/Aristophanes/Peace/Aristophanes_PeaceP12.htm |archive-date=2005-12-01 }}</ref> a typical refrain for a wedding song.<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica, ''hymen''.</ref>

According to [[Athenaeus]], [[Likymnios of Chios]], in his ''Dithyrambics'', says that Hymenaeus was the ''[[Erastes (Ancient Greece)|erastes]]'' of [[Argynnus]], a boy from [[Boeotia]].<ref name=Athenaeus1380>[[Athenaeus]], ''Deipnosophists'', [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ath.+13.80&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2013.01.0003 13.80]</ref>

[[Maurus Servius Honoratus]], in his commentaries on [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Eclogues]]'', mentions that [[Hesperus]], the Evening Star, inhabited [[Mount Oeta]] in [[Thessaly]] and that there he had loved the young Hymenaeus, son of [[Apollo]] with a similar singing voice, which he was said to have lost at the wedding of [[Dionysus]] and [[Ariadne]].<ref name=ServEclg>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0091%3Apoem%3D8%3Acommline%3D30 Serv. Ecl. 8.30]</ref>

===Later story of origin===
According to a later romance, Hymen was an Athenian youth of great beauty but low birth who fell in love with the daughter of one of the city's wealthiest women. Since he could not speak to her or court her because of his social standing, he instead followed her wherever she went.<ref name="befd">Berens, E.M. The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome. New York: Maynard, Merril, & Co., 1880.</ref>

Hymen [[Cross-dressing|disguised himself as a woman]] in order to join one of those processions, a [[Eleusinian Mysteries|religious rite at Eleusis]] in which only women went. The assemblage was captured by pirates, Hymen included. He encouraged the women and plotted strategy with them, and together, they killed their captors. He then agreed with the women to go back to [[Athens]] and win their freedom if he were allowed to marry one of them. He thus succeeded in both the mission and the marriage, and his marriage was so happy that Athenians instituted festivals in his honour, and he came to be associated with marriage.<ref name="befd"/>

According to [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], "the Orphics report" that Hymenaeus was among those resurrected by [[Asclepius]].<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D3 3.10.3].</ref>