depths of the waters everywhere alike, shining goddess-children’ (346–66).
Elsewhere nymphs are identified as daughters of particular rivers such as the
Achelous or Asopus.
Mountain nymphs have an intimate connection with mountain trees. They
cause them to grow (Il. 6. 419 f.), or, according to the poet of the Hymn to
Aphrodite, they themselves are born and die with the trees (260–72; cf. Pind.
fr. 165, Call. Hymn. 4. 82–5). So they are not immortal, but they enjoy very
long lives. In a Hesiodic fragment it is reckoned that the crow lives nine
human generations, the stag four times as long as a crow, the raven three
times as long as a stag, the date-palm nine times as long as a raven, and the
Nymphs ten times as long as the date-palm.^20 A similar concept is found in
the Buddhist Ja ̄takas: there is a deity living in the tree and closely identified
with it. The deity of a tree that has stood and been revered for sixty thousand
years sees that his end is approaching when the tree is about to be felled.^21
The Nymphs are outstandingly beautiful, and typically occupy themselves
with singing and dancing (Od. 6. 105–8, 122 f., 12. 318; Hymn. Aphr. 261;
Hymn. Pan. 3, 19–21; Cypria fr. 6. 6). Just as in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata, a man
encountering an exceptionally beautiful female may suspect her of being a
goddess or a nymph: ‘Hail, Lady, whichever of the blessed ones you are that
arrive at this dwelling, Artemis or Leto or golden Aphrodite... or perhaps
you are one of the Graces... or one of the Nymphs who haunt the fair groves
and the waters of rivers and the grassy meads’ (Hymn. Aphr. 92–9). A century
ago Greek brides were praised as being ‘as lovely as a Neráïs’, or as singing or
dancing like one.^22
It was the water nymphs in particular who were honoured with cults. They
were on the whole considered friendly and beneficent, promoting fertility and
growth, nurturing the young. But they could carry off children or handsome
youths for themselves, or afflict a person with a frenzy that might be perceived
either as inspiration or insanity. One so possessed was νυμφο ́ ληπτο
‘Nymph-seized’, in Latin lymphatus, lymphaticus (Varro, De lingua Latina
- 87; Festus p. 107. 17 L.).
There are many stories of sexual unions between nymphs and mortal men,
resulting in the birth of a child or twins, or the origin of a whole family.
Sometimes it is herdsmen alone in the countryside who have such encounters
(Il. 6. 21–6, 14. 444 f.), sometimes others (20. 384; ‘Hes.’ fr. 235, al.), but in
any case it is the rural nymphs, those of mountains and streams, who are
generally involved. The Aeacidae, on the other hand, were descended from
(^20) ‘Hes.’ fr. 304. J. C. Lawson heard an abbreviated version of this piece of popular
wisdom from ‘an unlettered peasant in Arcadia’ (as n. 19, 156–8). On the Nymphs’ longevity
cf. H. Herter, RE xvii. 1530.
(^21) Oldenberg (1917), 262 f. (^22) Lawson (as n. 19), 133.
- Nymphs and Gnomes 287