Pomone

Pomone or Pomona , nymph of a remarkable beauty, is the divinity Fruit S. It hates wild nature and prefers the gardens carefully maintained to him.

No nymph knew like it art to cultivate the gardens and especially the fruit trees. Pomone did not have any attraction for the men but was required in marriage by all the pastoral gods.

Myth

Being isolated from the world, only some people could approach it. At the beginning, she thus refused to receive Vertumne, divinity of the seasons and of the fruit trees, passionately in love with her but she finishes by him giving her preference. This one found the trick adequate to approach it and speak to him: disguised as a old woman, it came to compliment Pomone on the fruits on its trees and good heart embraced it. Then, it showed him a Orme intertwined by a Vigne and pled the cause of the love. Then he then told him the history of love of Anaxarète:

“Anaxarète was a girl born of noble family of Cyprus, liked considerably by the Berger Iphis and which reacts so coldly to its love impassioned that it hung. It was not even moved by seeing the lifeless body by sighing sound. Like punishment, Aphrodite transformed it into stone whereas it looked by curiosity the procession of the burial of her in love to pass under her window. ”

Lastly, indicator that Pomone was allured by the history, it appeared under its true face, resplendent of youth and health. Pomone did not resist, éprit of him and accepted its love it.

Worship

Its worship passed from the Étrusques to Rome where it had a temple and furnace bridges.

Representations

One represented it usually sitted on a large basket full with flowers and fruits, holding of the left hand some Pomme S, and of the right-hand side a branch. The poets it depicted crowned sheets of Vigne and bunches of Raisin, holding in its hands a Horn of plenty or a basket filled with Fruit S.

The opera

The Mythe is at the origin of Pomone , opera of Robert Cambert.

Sources

(XIV, 623).
(VII, 190).

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