Before Romeo and Juliet, there was Apollo and Hyacinthus – a love story between a god and a mortal prince that was celebrated across ancient Greece. Apollo, the mighty god of sun, music, and poetry, found himself completely obsessed with the beautiful Prince Hyacinthus.
Apollo left his divine duties just to be with Hyacinthus on earth. They would hunt, make love, and make music so beautiful it made the mountains weep. For the first time in his immortal life, Apollo knew what it meant to truly be in love.
But Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, watched their happiness with bitter jealousy. One day, as Apollo was teaching Hyacinthus to throw the discus, Zephyrus sent a brutal wind that drove the disc back, striking the young prince.
As Hyacinthus lay dying in his lover’s arms, Apollo’s grief shook the heavens. Rather than let death take his beloved, the god transformed Hyacinthus’s spilled blood into a flower of deepest purple – the first hyacinth.
Apollo’s grief was so profound that the other gods agreed to write his cries of anguish on the hyacinth’s petals.
Unlike many tragic Greek myths, their love was celebrated and honored, never portrayed as scandalous or wrong. And the Queer God Squad says: Amen.
