Hesperides

The Hesperides (Greek Ἑσπερίδες ) are nymphs ( the hellsing daughters ) of Greek mythology. Their number varies depending on the source of between three and seven.

Myth

Be mentioned as Hesperides Aigle, Arethusa, Erythia Hespere, Hesperusa (also: Hesperthusa ) and Hespereia. They are sometimes also referred to as the " African sisters ". There are different details, who is their father: time Erebus is called this, sometimes Atlas, sometimes Hesperus ( the evening star ).

Equally different statement of their mother. Hesiod called as such Nyx ( goddess of night ), other sources Hesperis, the female personification of the evening star that is, the Roman Venus. All of these pedigrees, however, indicate the location of the Hesperides respectively at the seen of Greece from the farthest west.

This shifted, however, over the centuries, with growing geographical knowledge of the ancient Greeks to the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa runaround Okeanos ( Atlantic). The same thing happened with the Hesperides and their most prominent sister Erytheia circular stories with the cattle of the giant Geryon, the serpent Ladon äpfelbewachenden and the resultant of Heracles for his drive to Erytheia cup of the sun god.

(Formerly called Euhesperides ) first in the Greek Arcadia, then in the Great Syrtis at today's Benghazi, in Campania then in Morocco at the Atlas and finally - According to different places of residence are always mentioned in each case at the edge of the known to the Greeks Earth depending on the author and his life period one of the islands in the Atlantic. Which of these islands are the Hesperides, is still not fully understood ( perhaps the Canaries or the Cape Verde Islands).

The Hesperides guarded in a beautiful garden a miracle tree with golden apples, the Gaia Hera allowed to grow to her wedding to Zeus. The apples awarded the gods eternal youth. The tree was guarded by the hundred -headed dragon Ladon. Only Heracles was able to steal the apples. By a ruse he moved Atlas, the father of the Hesperides, to pick the apples for him, because he need it for the fulfillment of his twelve labors. However, Eurystheus, Heracles gave the apples, they passed it on to Athena, who put them back into place. In Irish mythology, the Hesperides Apples are mentioned in the narrative Aided Chlainne Tuirenn ( " The Death of the Children Tuirenns ").

Reception

When Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the term reappears and used to describe the citrus fruits. It has Linné to Giovanni Baptista ferrarius (1584-1655, Italian botanist ) oriented, who in his work Hesperides sive de cultura et usu libri malorum aureorum quator about the genus Citrus is already writing in 1646, and speaks of the golden fruit of the Hesperides. So probably both scholars have remembered the sight of the golden bowls of various citrus fruit to the mythological sources and assigned to the citrus fruits, the name Hesperides. However, no evidence for a knowledge of citrus fruits in classical Greece. Even the tree with the golden apples was suspected exactly where the world had come to an end and the Titan Atlas supported the heavens.

The Parfumerie took up this name creation, and so citrus scents are called not only as citrus fruits, but also often as Hesperidien. The citrus bioflavonoids, which also carry their feedstock origin in the name are medically interesting ( Hesperidinkomplex ).

External links and sources

• Heracles and the apples of the Hesperides. Meyers on retrobibliothek.de