Every week, author Sarah Deming presents a profile of a god or monster. She gathers her information from a variety of sources, and it's fascinating to see how different cultures imagine these figures and how they have changed over time and place. Her first novel for young adults, Iris, Messenger was recently published by Harcourt. It tells the story of an imaginative girl named Iris Greenwold and her modern-day encounters with the forgotten Olympians.
In the spirit of Deming's "god or monster" feature, I'd like to present the naiad Minthe. Though I have been an avid reader of Greek mythology most of my life, I had never heard of her until a few months ago, when I came across her story on the back of a teabag wrapper. I had mistaken the wrapper for chamomile. A serendipitous error! Back at home, I did a quick on line search for more information. This is what came up:
In the Greek mythology of the underworld, there lived a pretty naiad
called Mintha. Her father was the king of the rivers, which wind their
way below the earth. Fate had it that she should fall madly in love
with Hades, king of death, married to Persephone. The wronged wife,
furious at discovering them together in the throes of passion, threw
Mintha to the ground and stomped her to pieces. Each piece changed into
an aromatic herb which is stilled called "mintha" or mint, a little
wild plant, fragile and defenseless, which humans trample underfoot
like a weed. Like a moan, a delicious perfume is released when it is
crushed.
(from the entry "Menta spicata," The Worldwide Gourmet)
According to Greek mythology, naiads were "water nymphs" often associated with particular bodies or sites of water. Minthe, for instance, was associated with Cocytus, the "river of wailing" located in the underworld. Those who could not pay for their passage into Hades were forced to wander the banks of Cocytus for a hundred years.
The Wikipedia entry on Minthe offers a different version of her metamorphosis:
She was dazzled by Hades' golden chariot and was about to be seduced by him had not Queen Persephone metamorphosed Minthe into the pungently sweet-smelling mint, which some call hedyosmus. The –nth– element in menthe is characteristic of a class of words borrowed from a pre-Greek language: compare acanthus, labyrinth, Corinth, etc.
Following the Wikipedia trail, I reached Strabo:
Near these temples, at the distance of 30 stadia, or a little more, above the sea-coast, is situated the Triphyliac, or Lepreatic, Pylus, which the poet calls Emathoeis, or Sandy, and transmits to us as the native country of Nestor, as may be collected from his poetry. It had the epithet Emathoeis either from the river, which flows by the city towards the north, and was formerly called Amathus, but now Mamaus, or Arcadicus; or because this river was called Pamisus, the same name as that of two rivers in Messenia, while with respect to the city, the epithet Emathoeis, or sandy, is of uncertain origin, since it is not the fact, it is said, that either the river or the country abounds with sand. [p. 17] Towards the east is a mountain near Pylus, named after Minthe, who, according to the fable, was the mistress of Hades, and being deluded by Proserpine, was transformed into the garden mint, which some call hedyosmus, or the sweet-smelling mint. There is also near the mountain an enclosure, sacred to Hades, held in great veneration by the Macistii; and a grove dedicated to Ceres, situated above the Pyliac plain. This plain is fertile, and situated close to the sea-coast; it extends along the interval between the Samicum and the river Neda. The sea-shore is sandy and narrow, so that no one could be censured for asserting that Pylus was called "sandy" from this tract.
(Strabo, Geography, viii.3.14)
But my favorite account comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the following passage, Orpheus sings of the death of Adonis, who was transformed into the anemone. The story of Minthe is part of Aphrodite's (Cytherea) lament to the gods, in which she claims that she is entitled to the same courtesy that the gods showed Persephone when they granted her the transformation of Minthe. In making this comparison, Aphrodite implies that her request is motivated by far more honorable or, at the very least, sympathetic reasons than Persephone's. The story of Minthe is a "metamorphosis within a metamorphosis" (a frame narrative technique) and it highlights one of the ways in which Ovid creates an interlocking narrative web of transformations in the Metamorphoses:
By chance, his dogs, following a well-marked trail, roused a wild boar from its lair, and as it prepared to rush from the trees, Cinyras’s grandson caught it a glancing blow. Immediately the fierce boar dislodged the blood-stained spear, with its crooked snout, and chased the youth, who was scared and running hard. It sank its tusk into his groin, and flung him, dying, on the yellow sand.
Cytherea, carried in her light chariot through the midst of the heavens, by her swans’ swiftness, had not yet reached Cyprus: she heard from afar the groans of the dying boy, and turned the white birds towards him. When, from the heights, she saw the lifeless body, lying in its own blood, she leapt down, tearing her clothes, and tearing at her hair, as well, and beat at her breasts with fierce hands, complaining to the fates. “And yet not everything is in your power” she said. “Adonis, there shall be an everlasting token of my grief, and every year an imitation of your death will complete a re-enactment of my mourning. But your blood will be changed into a flower. Persephone, you were allowed to alter a woman’s body, Menthe’s, to fragrant mint: shall the transformation of my hero, of the blood of Cinyras, be grudged to me?” So saying, she sprinkled the blood with odorous nectar: and, at the touch, it swelled up, as bubbles emerge in yellow mud. In less than an hour, a flower, of the colour of blood, was created such as pomegranates carry, that hide their seeds under a tough rind. But enjoyment of it is brief; for, lightly clinging, and too easily fallen, the winds deflower it, which are likewise responsible for its name, windflower: anemone.
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, X: 708-739)
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