Cycnus of Liguria
Ligurian king and kinsman of Phaethon transformed into a swan while mourning along the river Eridanus.
The Legend of Cycnus of Liguria
Cycnus was a king of Liguria in northern Italy and a close kinsman — described variously as cousin or beloved friend — of Phaethon, the youth who drove the solar chariot and was struck down by Zeus. After Phaethon's body fell into the river Eridanus (identified in some traditions with the Po), Cycnus came to the riverbanks and wandered there for years in grief, singing laments. The gods, moved by his mourning, transformed him into a swan — an animal whose mournful song was said by the Greeks to be its death-song, though this belief was also applied to the bird independently. The transformation accounts for the swan's long neck (stretched from reaching down toward the water where Phaethon fell) and its characteristic haunting call. Cycnus is one of several figures in Greek myth whose intense grief, rather than any heroic act, earns them divine metamorphosis.
Parents
Sthenelus (father, in some traditions)
Symbols
Fun Fact
Cycnus is the mythological origin of the "swan song" concept — his continuous lament for Phaethon was the archetype of the swan's mournful, repeated cry by the water.
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