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Zephyrus

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Zephyrus

Other Names

Zephyr, Favonius

First Appearance

Greek Myth

Created by

Unknown

Origin[]

In Greek mythology and religion, Zephyrus, also spelled in English as Zephyr, is the god and personification of the West wind, one of the several wind gods, the Anemoi. The son of Eos (the goddess of the dawn) and Astraeus, Zephyrus is the most gentle and favourable of the winds, associated with flowers, springtime and even procreation. In myths, he is presented as the tender breeze, known for his unrequited love for the Spartan prince Hyacinthus. Alongside Boreas, the two are the most prominent wind gods with relatively limited roles in recorded mythology.

Zephyrus, similarly to his brothers, received a cult during ancient times although his worship was minor compared to the Twelve Olympians. Still, traces of it are found in Classical Athens and surrounding regions and city-states, where it was usually joint with the cults of the other wind gods.

In Greek tradition, Zephyrus became the consort of Iris, the goddess of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. According to Nonnus, a late-antiquity poet, together they became the parents of Pothos, the god of desire, and according to Alcaeus of Mytilene (a six-century BC poet from the island of Lesbos), of Eros as well, though he is more commonly a son of Ares and Aphrodite. In the same passage, Zephyrus is described as having golden hair.

By the Harpy Podarge (who is Iris's sister) he became the father of Balius and Xanthus, the two fast, talking horses that were given to Achilles, when he mated with her while she was grazing on a meadow near the banks of the Ocean, implied in the form of a mare. Quintus Smyrnaeus also says that by a Harpy he had Arion, the talking horse. Like with the case of Eros, Arion's more common parentage is different, in this case the Olympians Demeter and Poseidon.

In some sources Zephyrus has a son named Carpus ("fruit") by a nymph Hora, who drowned in the Maeander river when the wind drove a wave right into his face, driving his lover Calamus into despair, who went on to take his life. According to Pseudo-Oppian, he also became the genitor of tigers by an unnamed consort.

Zephyrus, along with his brother Boreas, is one of the most prominent of the Anemoi; they are frequently mentioned together by poets, and along with a third brother, Notus (the south wind) they were seen as the three useful and favourable winds (the east wind, Eurus, seen as bad omen). They are the three wind gods mentioned by Hesiod, as ancient Greeks avoided talking about Eurus. Zephyrus and Boreas were thought to dwell together in a palace in Thrace.

In the Odyssey however, they all seem to dwell on the island of Aeolia, as Zeus has tasked Aeolus with the job of the keeper of the winds. Aeolus receives Odysseus and his wretched crew, and hosts them for a month gracefully. As they part, Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag containing all the winds, except for Zephyrus himself, who is let free to blow Odysseus's ship gently back to Ithaca; Odysseus's crewmates foolishly open the bag, thinking it to contain treasure, and set free all the other winds, blowing the ships back to Aeolia. Many years later, right after Odysseus left Calypso, the sea-god Poseidon in rage unleashed all four of them to cause a storm and raise great waves in order to drown Odysseus in the sea.

In the Iliad, Zephyrus is visited by his wife Iris in his home as he dines with his wind brothers. He wishes to summon him and Boreas to blow on Patroclus's funeral pyre following his death, as Achilles prayed for their help when the pyre failed to kindle. In the Dionysiaca, all four live together with their father Astraeus; Zephyrus plays sweet notes with an aulos for Demeter when she pays them a visit.

In the myth of Eros and Psyche, Zephyrus serves Eros, the god of love, by transporting his bride-to-be, the mortal princess Psyche with his soft breeze from the cliff (where she had been left in an oracle's suggestion) to Eros's palace. Later, he also helps rather reluctantly Psyche's two sisters transport the same way to the palace as well, when Psyche wishes to see them again. After Eros abandons Psyche over her betrayal, both sisters take advantage of the situation and each independently goes to the cliff (having both been lied to by Psyche that Eros wished to maker her his new wife), calling for Eros to make them his bride, and Zephyrus to take them to the palace. But this time Zephyrus does not act when they jump, and thus they both fall to their deaths, torn limb to limb and made food for the birds of prey and wild beasts below.

Zephyrus seems to have had a connection to swans; in Philostratus the Elder's works, he joins them twice in their song, once while they are carrying the Erotes and another when the young Phaethon is killed driving his father Helios's fiery chariot. This apparently symbolizes the belief that swans took to singing when the mild west wind blew.

In his most notable myth, Zephyrus fell in love with a beautiful Spartan prince named Hyacinthus, who nevertheless rejected him and became the lover of another god, Apollo. One day when the prince and Apollo were playing at discus-throwing, Zephyrus deflected the course of Apollo's discus, redirecting it right onto Hyacinthus's head and fatally wounding him. Hyacinthus' blood then became a new flower, the hyacinth. In some versions, Zephyrus is supplanted by his brother Boreas as the wind-god who bore a one-sided love for the beautiful prince. Zephyrus's role in this myth reflects his connection to flowers and springtime as the gentle west wind, who, in spite of his traditional gentleness, is nonetheless a harsh lover, like all the winds. Not every version of this tale features Zephyrus, however, and his participation is a secondary narrative; in many of them he is absent, and Hyacinthus's death stems from a genuine accident on Apollo's part.

On another occasion, another beautiful youth named Cyparissus ("cypress") and Zephyrus became lovers. The youth, wanting to preserve his beauty, fled to Mount Cassium in Syria, where he became transformed into a cypress tree. This myth, which might be of Hellenistic origin, seems to have been modeled after that of Apollo and Daphne. It also, along with Zephyrus's role in Hyacinthus's story, fits the pattern–also fit by his brother Boreas–of a wind god appearing in the story of the origin of a plant. In all other narratives, however, Zephyrus is absent, and the role of Cyparissus's divine partner is filled by Apollo; furthermore, Cyparissus is transformed into a cypress by Apollo at his own request after accidentally killing his own pet deer, which caused him much sorrow.

Zephyrus also features in some of the dialogues by the satirical author Lucian of Samosata; in the Dialogues of the Sea Gods, he appears in two dialogues with his brother Notus, the god of the south wind. In the first, they discuss the Argive princess Io and how she was loved and got turned into a heifer by Zeus in order to hide from his jealous wife Hera, while in the second, Zephyrus enthusiastically recounts the scene he has just witnessed of how Zeus transformed into a bull, tricked another princess, the Phoenician Europa, into riding him, transported her to Crete and then mated with her while Notus expresses his jealousy and complains of seeing nothing noteworthy.

His equivalent in Roman mythology is the god Favonius who held dominion over plants and flowers, however 'Zephyrus' was also commonly used by Romans. Some later authors would also describe him as having wings in his head.

Unlike Greek authors, Roman writers held that Zephyrus/Favonius married not Iris but rather a local vegetation and fertility goddess named Flora (identified and linked by Ovid with a minor Greek nymph named Chloris and her legend) after abducting her while she tried to run away and escape him; he gave her dominion over flowers, thus making amends for his violence and abduction of her.

Public Domain Appearances[]

All published appearances of Zephyrus from before January 1, 1930 are public domain in the US.

Some notable appearances are listed below:

Public Domain Literary Appearances[]

  • The Iliad
  • The Odyssey
  • Theogony
  • Catalogues of Women Fragments
  • The Homeric Hymns
  • Pindar, Odes
  • Greek Lyric I Alcaeus, Fragments
  • Greek Lyric I Sappho, Fragments
  • Greek Lyric II Anacreontea, Fragments
  • Greek Lyric V Philoxenus, Fragments
  • Aeschylus, Agamemnon
  • Callimachus, Hymns
  • Callimachus, Fragments
  • Strabo, Geography
  • Description of Greece
  • The Orphic Hymns
  • Philostratus the Elder, Imagines
  • Philostratus the Younger, Imagines
  • Callistratus, Descriptions
  • Halieutica
  • Fall of Troy
  • Dionysiaca
  • The Rape of Helen
  • Hero and Leander
  • Greek Papyri III Pankrates, Fragments
  • Fabulae
  • Metamorphoses
  • Fasti
  • Heroides
  • Georgics
  • Medea
  • Oedipus
  • Phaedra
  • The Argonautica
  • Silvae
  • The Golden Ass

Public Domain Comic Appearances[]

  • Hercules #2: Zephyr appeared in the story When Man Meets Monster where Hercules defeats Geryon in the second of his twelve trials

Notes[]

See Also[]

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