Tithonus

Tithonus [ti thō′nəs]

n.

〚L < Gr Tithōnos〛

Gr. Myth. a son of Laomedon and a lover of Eos, who obtains immortality for him but not eternal youth: he continues to shrivel with age as a result and she turns him into a grasshopper out of pity

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▪ Greek mythology

      in Greek legend, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, and of Strymo, daughter of the river Scamander. Eos (Aurora) fell in love with Tithonus and took him to Ethiopia, where she bore Emathion and Memnon. According to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, when Eos asked Zeus to grant Tithonus eternal life, the god consented. But Eos forgot to ask also for eternal youth, so her husband grew old and withered. In a later version Tithonus was transformed into a cicada. The poem "Tithonus" by English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, famously begins:

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,

The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,

Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,

And after many a summer dies the swan.

Me only cruel immortality

Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms.

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