Tithonus

Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn,
love-smitten, carried off to the world’s end,

handsome and young then, yet in time grey age
o’ertook him, husband of immortal wife."

From the 4-th poem of Sappho discovered 2004

Greek mythology, Tithonos (Τιθωνός) was a son of Eos and Cephalus.

The name of Eos' lover Tithonus is also sometimes spelled Tithonos.

The tragic story of Tithonus was that Eos asked Zeus to make Tithonus immortal as he did. Unfortunately she did not ask Zeus to keep him young so that Tithonus although immortal got older and weaker.

Tithonus and Eos had two sons, Memnon and Emathion. Memnon fought among the Trojans in the Trojan War and was slain. Eos image with the dead Memnon across her knees, like Thetis with the dead Achilles, are icons that inspired the Christian Pietà.

Sculptures

Rodin - Eos and Tithonus (Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1905)

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wareh/story.html (with a translation of the last discovered poem of Sappho)

Aurora and Tithonus, Francesco de Mura

Mythology Images

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