Galatea (mythology)

For other uses, see Galatea (Greek myth).
"Metharme" redirects here. For the plant genus, see Metharme (plant).
Falconet's 1763 sculpture Pygmalion and Galatea (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore)

Galatea (/ˌɡæləˈtiːə/; ‹See Tfd›Greek: Γαλάτεια; "she who is milk-white")[1] is the post-antiquity name popularly applied to the statue carved of ivory alabaster by Pygmalion of Cyprus, which then came to life in Greek mythology.

Galatea is also the name of a sea-nymph, one of the fifty Nereids (daughters of Nereus) mentioned by Hesiod and Homer.[2] In Theocritus Idylls VI and XI she is the object of desire of the one-eyed giant Polyphemus and is linked with Polyphemus again in the myth of Acis and Galatea in Ovid's Metamorphoses.[3] She is also mentioned in Virgil's Eclogues and Aeneid.[4]

  1. ^ Galene in the Smith Classics Dictionary Archived 2007-10-13 at the Wayback Machine. The suffix -teia or -theia means "goddess", as in other Nereid names: Amatheia, Psamathe, Leukotheia, Pasitheia, etc. Hesiod has both a Galene ("Calm-Sea") and a Galateia named as Nereids. Galateia as "sea-calm Goddess" seems a likely inference; the reasoning for Galateia as Milky-White comes from the adjectival form of galaktos, galakteia.
  2. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 250; Homer, Iliad, 18.45.
  3. ^ Ovid, Met. 13.738, 13.789.
  4. ^ Virgil, Ec. 1.30, 1.31, 3.64, 3.72, 7.37, 9.39, Aen. 9.103.