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| Ancient Rome Hermaphroditus 1st century BC sardonyx cameo Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Ancient Rome Hermaphroditus 1st century AD marble Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Roman Egypt Hermaphroditus with Cupids 1st century BC onyx cameo Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Enea Vico Farnese Hermaphroditus (antique statue in niche) 1552 engraving British Museum |
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| Bartholomeus Spranger The Nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus ca. 1581-82 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
from The Metamorphoses
Mercury once had a son by the goddess Venus,
nurtured and reared by the naiads who dwell in the caves on Mount Ida.
Father and mother could both be seen in his handsome features.
Between them they also gave him his name, Hermaphroditus.
Once he had reached the age of fifteen, he abandoned his native
mountains; Ida, his foster-mother, was left behind
as he ventured forth to explore the unknown; the sight of new places,
new rivers, enthralled him, excitement taking the pain out of travel.
He came as far as the cities of Lycia and Lycia's neighbours
in Caria. Here he discovered a pool which was perfectly clear
right through to the bottom, entirely empty of marshy reeds,
unfertile sedge-grass and spiky rushes; the crystalline water
was lushly fringed by a circle of fresh and evergreen grass.
Now this was the home of a nymph, but one who didn't enjoy
the normal pursuits of archery, hunting and running races,
the only naiad not to belong to the train of Diana.
* * *
Sometimes she gathered flowers; and she chanced to be gathering flowers
when she saw this glorious boy and wanted at once to possess him.
Keen as she was to approach him, she didn't move closer until
she had made herself pretty. She cast a careful eye on her dress
and arranged her expression. Nobody now could have questioned her beauty.
At last she spoke: 'Magnificent boy, one could easily take you
to be a god! If you are a god, you must surely be Cupid.'
* * *
The boy held out like a hero, refusing the nymph the delights
that she craved for. Salmacis squeezed still harder, then pinning the whole
of her body against him, she clung there and cried: 'You may fight as you will,
you wretch, but you shan't escape me. Gods, I pray you, decree
that the day never comes when the two of us here shall be riven asunder!'
Her prayer found gods to fulfil it. The bodies of boy and girl
were merged and melded in one. The two of them showed but a single
face. You know, when a twig is grafted on to a tree,
the stock and the branch will join as they grow and mature together;
so, when those bodies united at last in that clinging embrace,
they were two no more but of double aspect, which couldn't be fairly
described as male or as female. They seemed to be neither and both.
And so, when he saw that the pool which his manhood had entered had left him
only half of a man and this was the place where his limbs
had softened, Hermaphroditus stretched out his hands and appealed,
no more with masculine voice: 'Dear father and mother, I pray you,
grant this boon to the son who bears the names of you both:
whoever enters this pool as a man, let him weaken as soon
as he touches the water and always emerge with his manhood diminished!'
Venus and Mercury both were moved and fulfilled the prayer
of their androgyne son by infecting the pool with a neutering tincture.
– Ovid (8 AD), translated by David Raeburn (2004)
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| Scarsellino Hermaphroditus and the Nymph Salmacis ca. 1585 oil on panel Galleria Borghese, Rome |
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| attributed to Ludovico Carracci Salmacis and Hermaphroditus before 1619 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Francesco Albani Salmacis and Hermaphroditus ca. 1620 oil on copper Musée du Louvre |
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| Anonymous Artist Replica of the Borghese Hermaphrodite (Louvre version) 18th century terracotta statuette Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Robert Macpherson Borghese Hermaphrodite (Louvre version) ca. 1861 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Fratelli Alinari, Rome Borghese Hermaphrodite (Galleria Borghese version) ca. 1880-95 albumen print Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Cavaliere d'Arpino Hermaphroditus before 1640 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Bernard Picart Sleeping Hermaphrodite approached by Satyr and Cupid 1693 engraving Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini Hermaphroditus and Salmacis 1704 fresco Villa Alessandri, Mira |