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Pygmalion (mythology)
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Pygmalion (/pɪɡˈmeɪliən/; Greek: Πυγμαλίων, gen.: Πυγμαλίωνος) is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, he is most familiar from Ovid's narrative poem Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.
In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides he was "not interested in women", but his statue was so beautiful and realistic that he fell in love with it.
In time, Aphrodite's festival day came, and Pygmalion made offerings at the altar of Aphrodite. There, too scared to admit his desire, he quietly wished for a bride who would be "the living likeness of my ivory girl." When he returned home, he kissed his ivory statue, and found that its lips felt warm. He kissed it again, and found that the ivory had lost its hardness. Aphrodite had granted Pygmalion's wish.
Pygmalion married the ivory sculpture changed to a woman under Aphrodite's blessing. In Ovid's narrative, they had a daughter, Paphos, from whom the city's name is derived.
In some versions Paphos was a son, and they also had a daughter, Metharme.
Ovid's mention of Paphos suggests that he was drawing on a more circumstantial account than the source for a passing mention of Pygmalion in Pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheke, a Hellenic mythography of the 2nd-century AD. Perhaps he drew on the lost narrative by Philostephanus that was paraphrased by Clement of Alexandria. Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, and figures in legend of Paphos in Cyprus.
Parallels in Greek myth
The story of the breath of life in a statue has parallels in the examples of Daedalus, who used quicksilver to install a voice in his statues; of Hephaestus, who created automata for his workshop; of Talos, an artificial man of bronze; and (according to Hesiod) of Pandora, who was made from clay at the behest of Zeus.
The moral anecdote of the "Apega of Nabis", recounted by the historian Polybius, described a supposed mechanical simulacrum of the tyrant's wife, that crushed victims in her embrace.
The trope of a sculpture so lifelike that it seemed about to move was a commonplace with writers on works of art in antiquity. This trope was inherited by writers on art after the Renaissance.
Re-interpretations of Pygmalion
The basic Pygmalion story has been widely transmitted and re-presented in the arts through the centuries. At an unknown date, later authors give as the name of the statue that of the sea-nymphGalatea or Galathea. Goethe calls her Elise, based upon the variants in the story of Dido/Elissa.
A variant of this theme can also be seen in the story of Pinocchio, in which a wooden puppet is transformed into a "real boy", though in this case the puppet possesses sentience prior to its transformation; it is the puppet and not its creator, the woodcarver Mister Geppetto, who beseeches the divine powers for the miracle.
In the final scene of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, a statue of Queen Hermione which comes to life is revealed as Hermione herself, so bringing the play to a conclusion of reconciliations.
In George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, a modern variant of the myth with a subtle hint of feminism, the underclass flower-girl Eliza Doolittle is metaphorically "brought to life" by a phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, who teaches her to refine her accent and conversation and otherwise conduct herself with upper-class manners in social situations.
Paintings
The story has been the subject of notable paintings by Agnolo Bronzino, Jean-Léon Gérôme (Pygmalion and Galatea), Honoré Daumier, Edward Burne-Jones (four major works from 1868–1870, then again in larger versions from 1875–1878 with the title Pygmalion and the Image), Auguste Rodin, Ernest Normand, Paul Delvaux, Francisco Goya, Franz von Stuck, François Boucher, and Thomas Rowlandson, among others. There have also been numerous sculptures of the "awakening".
Literature
Ovid's Pygmalion has inspired many works of literature, some of which are listed below. The popularity of the Pygmalion myth surged in the 19th century.
Poems
England
John Marston's "Pigmalion", in "The Argument of the Poem" and "The Authour in prayse of his precedent Poem" (1598)
John Dryden's poem "Pygmalion and the Statue" (1697–1700)
Arthur Henry Hallam's poem "Lines Spoken in the Character of Pygmalion" from his work Remains in verse and prose of Arthur Henry Hallam: With a preface and memoir (1863)
Robert Buchanan's poem "Pygmalion the Sculptor" in his work Undertones (1864)
William Morris's poem "Earthly Paradise" in which he includes the section "Pygmalion and the Image" (1868)
William Moulton Marston's origin of Wonder Woman was inspired by the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, as she was sculpted by her mother Hippolyta from clay and given life by Aphrodite's breath. The sculpture represents the creative power of a mother's love for a child, passing some of her qualities on to her daughter.
Chihiro Watanabe's manga series Pygmalion, which started its serialization in 2015 in the magazine Monthly Comic Garden, and Web Comic Beat's.
Opera, ballet, and music
The story of Pygmalion is the subject of Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1748 opera, Pigmalion.
The English progressive rock group Yes composed "Turn Of The Century" (1977); it tells the story of the sculptor Roan who, in the grief of his wife's death, "molds his passion into clay." The sculpture of his wife comes to life and they fall in love.
British shoegazing band Slowdive named their third LP Pygmalion in 1995.
The song "Trial By Fire" by darkwave/gothic band ThouShaltNot recreates the idea of a modern-day Pygmalion with lyrics such as "I sculpt your nature within, I am your Pygmalion" and "I dust away the plaster from off your breathing body...You'll never be the same."
Mariusz Duda, working under his moniker Lunatic Soul, named a track off of his 2014 album after Pygmalion. Walking on a Flashlight Beam and the longest track, Pygmalion's Ladder, in a general sense, speak of a reclusive individual who struggles to understand the fiction around him, and the ways in which his imagination is affected by this introspective seclusion he has embraced or succumbed to "LunaticSoul" (2014).
The progressive house artist Hellberg (Jonathan Hellberg) released a song called 'The Girl' featuring vocalist Cozi Zuehlsdorff in 2015. They have both admitted to having been inspired by the Pygmalion myth when creating the track.
Stage plays
There have also been successful stage-plays based upon the work, such as W. S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea (1871). It was revived twice, in 1884 and in 1888.
In January, 1872, Ganymede and Galatea opened at the Gaiety Theatre. This was a comic version of Franz von Suppé's Die schöne Galathee, coincidentally with Arthur Sullivan's brother, Fred Sullivan, in the cast.
George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1912, staged 1914) owes something to both the Greek Pygmalion and the legend of "King Cophetua and the beggar maid"; in which a king lacks interest in women, but one day falls in love with a young beggar-girl, later educating her to be his queen. Shaw's comedy of manners in turn was the basis for the Broadway musical My Fair Lady (1956).
P. L. Deshpande's play Ti Fulrani ("Queen of Flowers") is also based on Shaw's Pygmalion. The play was a huge success in Marathi theater and has earned many accolades.
Television
The American TV series My Living Doll portrayed a female robot (Julie Newmar) whose creators attempted to transform her into a "perfect woman".
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 3rd-season episode "The Galatea Affair" from 1966 is a spoof of My Fair Lady. A crude barroom entertainer (Joan Collins) is taught to behave like a lady. Noel Harrison, son of Rex Harrison, star of the My Fair Lady film, is the guest star.
The Aerosmith music video for "Hole in My Soul" features a nerdy college student who tries to find the girl of his dreams by creating one in a lab, only to have her leave him.
The Japanese anime series Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 includes a character named Galatea, an artificial life form designed to be the next evolution of the human race.
In Justice League Unlimited, Emile Hamilton creates a clone of Supergirl, that he names Galatea.
An episode of the Philippine TV series Love Spell features a teenage boy who falls in love with a Mannequin who comes to life when lightning strikes it.
In the music video for "This Time" by K-pop group Wonder Girls, a designer falls in love with his mannequin, and she comes to life. She runs away, leaving the designer to chase after her.
In "Fagmalion" a three-part episode of Will and Grace, Will Truman falls in love with a man named Barry whom he sculpts into a more refined gay man following his coming out.
In King of the Hill Season 7 Episode 9 "Pigmalion" Luanne becomes involved with a psychotic owner of a pork processing plant.
In Disney's Hercules: The Animated Series, Pygmalion was Hercules' art teacher. His success in crafting a perfect wife for himself prompted Hercules to do the same to create a date for a school dance, naming her Galatea.
In the "Live Show" episode of 30 Rock the character Jack tries to give up drinking and asks Liz Lemon to comfort him by telling a story. She impersonates Eliza selling flowers to which Jack orders her to leave the room.
In Pygmoelion, an episode of The Simpsons, Moe gets plastic surgery and watches as his life is rewritten.
In an episode of So Weird called Still Life, the family is pulled into a painting by wishing to be there.
In the My Fair Ernest T. Bass episode of The Andy Griffith Show, Andy teaches Ernest T. Bass some manners and tries to pass him off as Andy's more refined cousin from Raleigh at a local society affair.
Interactive fiction
The text adventure Galatea, by Emily Short, is based on the myth of Galatea.
