Diana and Actaeon
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"When Actaeon saw Diana bathing naked, Diana transformed him into a stag and set his own hunting dogs to kill him."--Diana and Actaeon as told by Sholem Stein |
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The Greek myth of Diana and Actaeon can be found within Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The tale recounts the unfortunate fate of a young hunter named Actaeon, who was the grandson of Cadmus, and his encounter with chaste Diana, goddess of the hunt. The latter is nude and enjoying a bath in a spring with help from her escort of nymphs when the mortal man unwittingly stumbles upon the scene. The nymphs scream in surprise and attempt to cover Diana, who, in a fit of embarrassed fury, splashes water upon Actaeon. He is transformed into a deer with a dappled hide and long antlers, robbed of his ability to speak, and thereafter promptly flees in fear. It is not long, however, before his fellow hunters and his own hounds track him down and kill him, failing to recognize their friend.
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Diana
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and also of the moon. In literature she was the equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis, though in cult beliefs she was Italic, not Greek, in origin. Diana was worshipped in ancient Roman religion and is currently revered in the religions of Religio Romana Neopaganism and Stregheria.
Along with her main attributes, Diana was an emblem of chastity. Oak groves were especially sacred to her. According to mythology, Diana was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos, daughter of Jupiter and Latona. Diana made up a trinity with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.
Actaeon
In Greek mythology, Actaeon (Greek: Ακταίων), son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a famous Theban hero, trained by the centaur Cheiron, who suffered the fatal wrath of Artemis; (later his myth was attached to her Roman counterpart Diana). The surviving details of his transgression vary: "the only certainty is in what Aktaion suffered, his πάθος, and what Artemis did: the hunter became the hunted; he was transformed into a stag, and his raging hounds, struck with a 'wolf's frenzy' (λύσσα), tore him apart as they would a stag." This is the iconic motif by which Actaeon is recognized, both in ancient art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance depictions.
In art
- paintings of this scene, such as
- Diana and Actaeon (Titian)
- one by Thomas Gainsborough now in the Royal Collection
See also
