Salmacis
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Salmacis is a mythological figure whose only attestation is in Book IV of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A nymph from Phrygia, her tale centers around her unrequited love for the boy demigod Hermaphroditus.
Salmacis was an atypical nymph, rejecting the ways of the virginal goddesss of the hunt Diana in favor of vanity and idleness. Her attempted rape of Hermaphroditus places her as the only nymph rapist in the Greek mythological canon.
"There dwelt a Nymph, not up for hunting or archery:
unfit for footraces. She the only Naiad not in Diana’s band.
Often her sisters would say: “Pick up a javelin, or
bristling quiver, and interrupt you leisure for the chase!”
But she would not pick up a javelin or arrows,
nor trade leisure for the chase.
Instead she would bathe her beautiful limbs and tend to her hair, with her
waters as a mirror."
Ovid ’’Metamorphoses’’ IV. 306-312
Musical reference
"The Fountain of Salmacis" by Genesis, on the album Nursery Cryme (1971)