Home › Glossary › Letter H

Hyacinthus

Mythology
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Beautiful Spartan youth beloved by Apollo who was accidentally killed by the god's discus. From his blood sprang the hyacinth flower, marked with Apollo's cry of grief.

Detailed Definition
Hyacinthus was accidentally killed by Apollo during a discus game; from his blood sprang the hyacinth flower. His myth, tied to vegetation cycles, symbolizes beauty cut short and the fusion of grief and art. Poets use him to represent ephemeral youth, homoerotic love, and nature’s commemoration of loss.
Example
Example in poetry:
Hyacinthus is killed by a discus thrown by Apollo and transformed into a flower in Ovid’s Metamorphoses; In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, his cult is linked to Spartan rites; Bion’s “Lament for Adonis” parallels Hyacinthus’s floral metamorphosis; Renaissance poets use Hyacinthus to symbolize youthful beauty and loss; Romantic verse invokes Hyacinthus as a metaphor for artistic creation from grief; Modern LGBTQ+ poetry reclaims Hyacinthus as a queer love myth.
Additional Notes
Hyacinthus, a Spartan youth loved by Apollo, was killed by a discus (or Zephyrus’ jealousy) and transformed into the hyacinth flower; his myth symbolizes beauty cut short and the origin of floral tributes—central to spring elegies and homoerotic pastoral poetry; the flower’s markings were said to echo Apollo’s lament “ai, ai.”
Also Known As
Flower-Born Youth Beloved of Apollo Hyakinthos
Skip to main content