Hymenaeus
（
Ὑμέναιος) or
Hymen (
Ὑμήν). The Greek god of marriage and of the marriage-song named
after him. He is sometimes described as the son of Apollo and a Muse (either
Terpsichoré, Urania, or Calliopé), who had vanished on his own
wedding-day, and was consequently always sought for at every wedding. He is also described as
a son of the Thessalian Magnes and of the Muse Calliopé, and as beloved by Apollo
and Thamyris; or as the son of Dionysus and Aphrodité, who lost his voice and life
while singing the nuptial song at the marriage of Dionysus and Ariadné. According
to Attic tradition, he was an Argive youth who, in the disguise of a girl, followed to the
feast of Demeter at Eleusis a young Athenian maiden whom he loved without winning the consent
of her parents. Hymenaeus and some of the maidens who were celebrating the festival,
were carried off by pirates, whom he afterwards killed in their sleep, and henceforth became
the champion of all women and damsels. In art he is represented like Eros, as a beautiful,
winged youth, only with a more serious expression, and carrying in his hand the marriage torch
and nuptial veil. The marriagesong called
Hymenaeus, which is mentioned as
early as Homer (
Il. xviii. 493), was sung by young men and maidens, to the sound of
flutes, during the festal procession of the bride from the house of her parents to that of the
bridegroom. In character it was partly serious and partly humorous. The several parts always
ended with an invocation of Hymenaeus. (See Catullus, 61 and 62, with the rendering by Sir
Theodore Martin; and the article
Epithalamium.)
On the Roman god of weddings, see
Talassio.
