person
Tithonus
also: Τίθωνος, Τίθωνον
Trojan prince beloved of the dawn-goddess Eos, who won him immortality but not unaging youth, so he withered forever beside an unwithering wife. The cautionary kernel of fr. 58, the Tithonus poem.
Reading notes
- Fragments of Books Three and Four §58 Tithonus
The Trojan prince whom Dawn loved and carried off. She asked Zeus to make him immortal but forgot to ask for unaging youth, so he withered forever beside an unwithering wife — in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite she finally shuts him in a room, a voice with no strength. Sappho needs only the kernel: even the goddess's husband was caught by gray old age.