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{{Short description|Greek nymph}}
{{Greek myth (nymph)}}
{{Greek myth (nymph)}}


In [[classical mythology|Greco-Roman mythology]], '''Leuce,''' also spelled '''Leuke''', ({{lang-grc|Λεύκη}}, "White", specifically "[[populus alba|White Poplar]]") was a [[nymph]] and a daughter of the titan [[Oceanus]]. [[Hades]] fell in love with her and abducted her to [[Greek underworld|the underworld]]. She lived out the span of her life in his realm, and when she died, the god turned her into a white poplar which he placed in the [[Elysium|Elysian Fields]]. To celebrate his [[Descent to the underworld|return from the underworld]], the hero [[Heracles]] crowned himself with a branch of this tree.<ref>[[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], note to ''[[Eclogues|Eclogue]]'' 7.61: ''Leuce, Oceani filia, inter nymphas pulcherrima fuit. hanc Pluton adamavit et ad inferos rapuit. quae postquam apud eum completo vitae suae tempore mortua est, Pluton tam in amoris, quam in memoriae solacium in Elysiis piorum campis leucen nasci arborem iussit, ex qua, sicut dictum est, Hercules se, revertens ab inferis, coronavit.''</ref>
In [[classical mythology|Greco-Roman mythology]], '''Leuce''', also spelled '''Leuke''' ({{lang-grc|Λεύκη}}, "white", specifically "[[Populus alba|white poplar]]"), was a [[nymph]], an [[Oceanids|Oceanid]]; a daughter of the [[Titans|Titan]] [[Oceanus]] and his wife, [[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]].
== Mythology ==
[[Hades]] fell in love with her and abducted her to [[Greek underworld|the underworld]]. She lived out the span of her life in his realm, and when she died, the god turned her into a white poplar which he placed in the [[Elysium|Elysian Fields]]. To celebrate his [[Descent to the underworld|return from the underworld]], the hero [[Heracles]] crowned himself with a branch of this tree.<ref>[[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], note to ''[[Eclogues|Eclogue]]'' 7.61: ''Leuce, Oceani filia, inter nymphas pulcherrima fuit. hanc Pluton adamavit et ad inferos rapuit. quae postquam apud eum completo vitae suae tempore mortua est, Pluton tam in amoris, quam in memoriae solacium in Elysiis piorum campis leucen nasci arborem iussit, ex qua, sicut dictum est, Hercules se, revertens ab inferis, coronavit.''</ref>


==Mythology of the poplar==
==Mythology of the poplar==
[[File:Populus alba leaf.jpg|thumb|The two sides of the white poplar leaf]]
[[File:Populus alba leaf.jpg|thumb|left|The two sides of the white poplar leaf]]
Maurus [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]] Honoratus identifies the tree as the [[Populus alba|white poplar]], the leaf of which is distinctively two-sided, one white and one dark. The double color, Servius says, made a wreath that represented the duality of the hero's [[Labours of Hercules|labors]] in both the upper and the underworld.<ref>''Qua corona usus, duplici colore foliorum geminos labores (superorum) inferorumque testatus est.'' See also [[Isidore of Seville]], ''[[Etymologiae]]'' 17.4.45: "The white poplar is named because its leaves are white on one side and green on the other. It is therefore two-colored, having marks as if of day and night, which correspond to the times of the rising and setting of the sun" (translation by [https://books.google.com/books?id=6jjsJ9NP6hYC&pg=PT222&dq=%22white+poplar%22&cd=4#v=onepage&q=%22white%20poplar%22&f=false Priscilla Throop]).</ref> The association of white poplar leaves with Herakles is also attested by archaeological remains, such as the poplar-leaf motif carved on a statue base found in a small sanctuary to Herakles (Roman [[Hercules]]) along the [[Tiber river]].<ref>Paul Zanker, ''The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus'' (University of Michigan Press, 1988, 199), p. 118</ref> It has been suggested<ref>David Evans, "Dodona, Dodola, and Daedala," in ''Myth in Indo-European Antiquity'' (University of California Press, 1974), p. 116.</ref> that behind the vague outlines of this tale lurks an older myth having to do with Herakles' encounter with the river deity [[Achelous]], who had [[chthonic]] associations and whose name was the subject of speculative theological etymology among the Greeks, in this case involving ''acherōïs'', another Greek word for "poplar." In a [[founding myth]] of the 1st century BC, Herakles is supposed to have established the [[Arverni]]an ''[[oppidum]]'' of [[Alesia (city)|Alesia]],<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]] 4.19; Nico Roymans, ''Ethnic Identity and Imperial Powers: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire'' (Amsterdam University Press, 2004), p. 241.</ref> the name of which likely derives from the [[Gaulish language|Gaulish]] word for poplar.<ref>Entry on "Alder," ''Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture'' (Taylor & Francis, 1997), p. 11; Xavier Delamarre, ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise'' (Éditions Errance, 2003).</ref>
Maurus [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]] Honoratus identifies the tree as the [[Populus alba|white poplar]], the leaf of which is distinctively two-sided, one white and one dark. The double color, Servius says, made a wreath that represented the duality of the hero's [[Labours of Hercules|labors]] in both the upper and the underworld.<ref>''Qua corona usus, duplici colore foliorum geminos labores (superorum) inferorumque testatus est.'' See also [[Isidore of Seville]], ''[[Etymologiae]]'' 17.4.45: "The white poplar is named because its leaves are white on one side and green on the other. It is therefore two-colored, having marks as if of day and night, which correspond to the times of the rising and setting of the sun" (translation by [https://books.google.com/books?id=6jjsJ9NP6hYC&dq=%22white+poplar%22&pg=PT222 Priscilla Throop]).</ref> The association of white poplar leaves with Herakles is also attested by archaeological remains, such as the poplar-leaf motif carved on a statue base found in a small sanctuary to Herakles (Roman [[Hercules]]) along the [[Tiber river]].<ref>Paul Zanker, ''The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus'' (University of Michigan Press, 1988, 199), p. 118</ref> It has been suggested<ref>David Evans, "Dodona, Dodola, and Daedala," in ''Myth in Indo-European Antiquity'' (University of California Press, 1974), p. 116.</ref> that behind the vague outlines of this tale lurks an older myth having to do with Herakles' encounter with the river deity [[Achelous]], who had [[chthonic]] associations and whose name was the subject of speculative theological etymology among the Greeks, in this case involving ''acherōïs'', another Greek word for "poplar." In a [[founding myth]] of the 1st century BC, Herakles is supposed to have established the [[Arverni]]an ''[[oppidum]]'' of [[Alesia (city)|Alesia]],<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]] 4.19; Nico Roymans, ''Ethnic Identity and Imperial Powers: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire'' (Amsterdam University Press, 2004), p. 241.</ref> the name of which likely derives from the [[Gaulish language|Gaulish]] word for poplar.<ref>Entry on "Alder," ''Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture'' (Taylor & Francis, 1997), p. 11; Xavier Delamarre, ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise'' (Éditions Errance, 2003).</ref>


Celebrants of the [[Dionysian mysteries|Bacchic rites]] wore a wreath of poplar leaves to honor the chthonic aspect of [[Dionysus]].<ref>Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets'' (Brill, 2008), pp. 93 and 125, citing [[Harpocration]].</ref>
Celebrants of the [[Dionysian mysteries|Bacchic rites]] wore a wreath of poplar leaves to honor the chthonic aspect of [[Dionysus]].<ref>Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets'' (Brill, 2008), pp. 93 and 125, citing [[Harpocration]].</ref>


At [[Elis]], white poplar was the only wood used in sacrifices to [[Zeus]], according to [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], because Herakles imported the tree and used it to burn the thigh bones of sacrificial victims at [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]]. The oak is the customary sacred tree of Zeus, and the substitution among the Eleans may simply reflect the more widespread growth habit of the poplar there.<ref>Evans, "Dodona, Dodola, and Daedala," p. 114, citing [[Arthur Bernard Cook]], "Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak," ''Classical Review'' 17 (1903), p. 273.</ref> The hero was supposed to have discovered the tree growing on the banks of the upperworld Acheron in [[Thesprotia]].
At [[Ancient Elis|Elis]], white poplar was the only wood used in sacrifices to [[Zeus]], according to [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], because Herakles imported the tree and used it to burn the thigh bones of sacrificial victims at [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]]. The oak is the customary sacred tree of Zeus, and the substitution among the Eleans may simply reflect the more widespread growth habit of the poplar there.<ref>Evans, "Dodona, Dodola, and Daedala," p. 114, citing [[Arthur Bernard Cook]], "Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak," ''Classical Review'' 17 (1903), p. 273.</ref> The hero was supposed to have discovered the tree growing on the banks of the upperworld Acheron in [[Thesprotia]].
Pausanias says this is [[aition|the reason]] for the [[Homeric epithet]] ''Acherōïda'' for the white poplar,<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''[[Description of Greece]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D5%3Achapter%3D14%3Asection%3D2 5.14.2]; ''[[Iliad]]'' 13.389, and 16.482. See also Servius, note to ''Eclogue'' 7.61, on ''Acherōïda'', where the underworld river seems meant. The [[English Renaissance]] poet [[Edmund Spenser]] alludes in ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' (Book 2, Canto V, stanza 31) to an association of "Olympick [[Jove]]" and the white poplar instead of his conventional [[oak]].</ref> which was also called ''leukē'' in Greek.<ref>Arthur Calvert, ''P. Vergili Maronis. Aeneidos Liber V'' (Cambridge University Press, 1879), p. 48.</ref>
Pausanias says this is [[aition|the reason]] for the [[Homeric epithet]] ''Acherōïda'' for the white poplar,<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''[[Description of Greece]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D5%3Achapter%3D14%3Asection%3D2 5.14.2]; ''[[Iliad]]'' 13.389, and 16.482. See also Servius, note to ''Eclogue'' 7.61, on ''Acherōïda'', where the underworld river seems meant. The [[English Renaissance]] poet [[Edmund Spenser]] alludes in ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' (Book 2, Canto V, stanza 31) to an association of "Olympick [[Jove]]" and the white poplar instead of his conventional [[oak]].</ref> which was also called ''leukē'' in Greek.<ref>Arthur Calvert, ''P. Vergili Maronis. Aeneidos Liber V'' (Cambridge University Press, 1879), p. 48.</ref>


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The white poplar was also sacred to [[Persephone]], for whom Leuce seems to be a doublet or [[epithet]], as a goddess of regeneration.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}} [[Robert Graves]] used the myth of Leuce in developing his poetic theories of mythology. Graves, for instance, holds that the back of the poplar leaf was turned white by the sweat of Herakles.<ref>[[Robert Graves]], (1955). ''[[The Greek Myths]] I'' (London: Penguin, 1955, revised edition 1960), pp. 121, 124-125, and ''The Greek Myths II'', p. 154.</ref> In ''[[The White Goddess]]'', he names the white poplar as one of the "three trees of resurrection", along with alder and cypress.<ref>[[Robert Graves]], ''The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' (New York, 1948, 1975, 1999 printing), p. 171. The basis for Graves' assertion that Herakles bound his head with white poplar after killing [[Cacus]] (p. 193) is unclear.</ref>
The white poplar was also sacred to [[Persephone]], for whom Leuce seems to be a doublet or [[epithet]], as a goddess of regeneration.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}} [[Robert Graves]] used the myth of Leuce in developing his poetic theories of mythology. Graves, for instance, holds that the back of the poplar leaf was turned white by the sweat of Herakles.<ref>[[Robert Graves]], (1955). ''[[The Greek Myths]] I'' (London: Penguin, 1955, revised edition 1960), pp. 121, 124-125, and ''The Greek Myths II'', p. 154.</ref> In ''[[The White Goddess]]'', he names the white poplar as one of the "three trees of resurrection", along with alder and cypress.<ref>[[Robert Graves]], ''The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' (New York, 1948, 1975, 1999 printing), p. 171. The basis for Graves' assertion that Herakles bound his head with white poplar after killing [[Cacus]] (p. 193) is unclear.</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Crocus (mythology)|Crocus]]
* [[Hyacinth (mythology)|Hyacinthus]]
* [[Minthe]]


== References ==
== References ==
{{Reflist}}
{{Reflist}}


== External links ==
⚫
{{Greek mythology (deities)}}
* [https://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NympheLeuke.html LEUCE on The Theoi Project]


⚫
{{Greek mythology (deities)|state=collapsed}}
⚫
{{Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Authority control}}


⚫
[[Category:Nymphs]]
⚫
[[Category:Metamorphoses in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Trees in mythology]]
[[Category:Trees in mythology]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses into trees in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Women of Hades]]
[[Category:Chthonic beings]]
⚫
[[Category:Oceanids]]
[[Category:Women in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Greek underworld]]
[[Category:Fictional hostages and kidnapped people]]

Revision as of 21:51, 8 August 2024

Greek deities
series
Nymphs

In Greco-Roman mythology, Leuce, also spelled Leuke (Ancient Greek: Λεύκη, "white", specifically "white poplar"), was a nymph, an Oceanid; a daughter of the Titan Oceanus and his wife, Tethys.

Mythology

Hades fell in love with her and abducted her to the underworld. She lived out the span of her life in his realm, and when she died, the god turned her into a white poplar which he placed in the Elysian Fields. To celebrate his return from the underworld, the hero Heracles crowned himself with a branch of this tree.[1]

Mythology of the poplar

The two sides of the white poplar leaf

Maurus Servius Honoratus identifies the tree as the white poplar, the leaf of which is distinctively two-sided, one white and one dark. The double color, Servius says, made a wreath that represented the duality of the hero's labors in both the upper and the underworld.[2] The association of white poplar leaves with Herakles is also attested by archaeological remains, such as the poplar-leaf motif carved on a statue base found in a small sanctuary to Herakles (Roman Hercules) along the Tiber river.[3] It has been suggested[4] that behind the vague outlines of this tale lurks an older myth having to do with Herakles' encounter with the river deity Achelous, who had chthonic associations and whose name was the subject of speculative theological etymology among the Greeks, in this case involving acherōïs, another Greek word for "poplar." In a founding myth of the 1st century BC, Herakles is supposed to have established the Arvernian oppidum of Alesia,[5] the name of which likely derives from the Gaulish word for poplar.[6]

Celebrants of the Bacchic rites wore a wreath of poplar leaves to honor the chthonic aspect of Dionysus.[7]

At Elis, white poplar was the only wood used in sacrifices to Zeus, according to Pausanias, because Herakles imported the tree and used it to burn the thigh bones of sacrificial victims at Olympia. The oak is the customary sacred tree of Zeus, and the substitution among the Eleans may simply reflect the more widespread growth habit of the poplar there.[8] The hero was supposed to have discovered the tree growing on the banks of the upperworld Acheron in Thesprotia. Pausanias says this is the reason for the Homeric epithet Acherōïda for the white poplar,[9] which was also called leukē in Greek.[10]

The white poplar might be worn as a crown at athletic contests in honor of Herakles, a patron of the Olympic games. Its infernal origin made it appropriate for funeral games,[11] which played an important role in the development of Greek athletics.[12]

The white poplar was also sacred to Persephone, for whom Leuce seems to be a doublet or epithet, as a goddess of regeneration.[citation needed] Robert Graves used the myth of Leuce in developing his poetic theories of mythology. Graves, for instance, holds that the back of the poplar leaf was turned white by the sweat of Herakles.[13] In The White Goddess, he names the white poplar as one of the "three trees of resurrection", along with alder and cypress.[14]

See also

References

  1. ^ Servius, note to Eclogue 7.61: Leuce, Oceani filia, inter nymphas pulcherrima fuit. hanc Pluton adamavit et ad inferos rapuit. quae postquam apud eum completo vitae suae tempore mortua est, Pluton tam in amoris, quam in memoriae solacium in Elysiis piorum campis leucen nasci arborem iussit, ex qua, sicut dictum est, Hercules se, revertens ab inferis, coronavit.
  2. ^ Qua corona usus, duplici colore foliorum geminos labores (superorum) inferorumque testatus est. See also Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae 17.4.45: "The white poplar is named because its leaves are white on one side and green on the other. It is therefore two-colored, having marks as if of day and night, which correspond to the times of the rising and setting of the sun" (translation by Priscilla Throop).
  3. ^ Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (University of Michigan Press, 1988, 199), p. 118
  4. ^ David Evans, "Dodona, Dodola, and Daedala," in Myth in Indo-European Antiquity (University of California Press, 1974), p. 116.
  5. ^ Diodorus Siculus 4.19; Nico Roymans, Ethnic Identity and Imperial Powers: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire (Amsterdam University Press, 2004), p. 241.
  6. ^ Entry on "Alder," Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (Taylor & Francis, 1997), p. 11; Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003).
  7. ^ Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets (Brill, 2008), pp. 93 and 125, citing Harpocration.
  8. ^ Evans, "Dodona, Dodola, and Daedala," p. 114, citing Arthur Bernard Cook, "Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak," Classical Review 17 (1903), p. 273.
  9. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.14.2; Iliad 13.389, and 16.482. See also Servius, note to Eclogue 7.61, on Acherōïda, where the underworld river seems meant. The English Renaissance poet Edmund Spenser alludes in The Faerie Queene (Book 2, Canto V, stanza 31) to an association of "Olympick Jove" and the white poplar instead of his conventional oak.
  10. ^ Arthur Calvert, P. Vergili Maronis. Aeneidos Liber V (Cambridge University Press, 1879), p. 48.
  11. ^ Calvert, P. Vergili Maronis. Aeneidos Liber V, p. 48.
  12. ^ Donald G. Kyle, Athletics in Ancient Athens (Brill, 1987, 1993), pp. 10–15.
  13. ^ Robert Graves, (1955). The Greek Myths I (London: Penguin, 1955, revised edition 1960), pp. 121, 124-125, and The Greek Myths II, p. 154.
  14. ^ Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (New York, 1948, 1975, 1999 printing), p. 171. The basis for Graves' assertion that Herakles bound his head with white poplar after killing Cacus (p. 193) is unclear.
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