HESPERIDES

The Hesperides were nymphs who, according to Greek myth, lived in a beautiful garden and guarded a tree that bore golden apples. The nymphs played a minor role in a number of stories, but their apples were of great significance in accounts of the Trojan War, among other tales.

The ancient Greeks compared the sun, when it set over the sea, to a golden apple. They believed such golden apples were produced by a tree that stood on an island at the end of the earth. The third-century-BCE Greek poet Apollonius wrote that the island was near Mount Atlas, in northwest Africa, while the second-century-BCE Greek scholar Apollodorus suggested it was in the far north. The Greeks believed that the Hesperides were two (or seven) beautiful sisters who wandered through the garden, singing to the tree. They were its protectors, together with a serpentlike dragon called Ladon.

The name Hesperides can be translated as “daughters of evening” and derives from the Greek word hesper, which not only means “evening,” but also refers to the evening star, which the Romans renamed Venus. In some sources, the Hesperides were the offspring of the Titaness Hesperis, who married her uncle, the Titan Atlas. In other accounts, notably that of the eighth-century-BCE poet Hesiod, the Hesperides were the daughters of Nyx (Night) and her brother Erebus (Darkness, or the underworld). Hesiod’s description of their parentage would make the Hesperides sisters to the Fates, the Keres (Destinies), Pain, Blame, Sleep, and Dreams, among others. In yet another version, however, the sea god Phorcys and the sea monster Ceto are the father and mother of the Hesperides—meaning that they would be sisters to Ladon, as well as to the three strange old women, the Graeae, and the three monsters, the Gorgons, who also lived near Mount Atlas. The number of Hesperides varies between accounts from two to seven. In some cases at least three were named: Aegle (“brightness”), Erytheis (“scarlet”), and Hesperethusa (“sunset glow”).

Below: A scene depicting the Hesperides in their garden, on a fourth-century-BCE Greek vase. To the left of the image is the tree bearing golden apples, around which coils the dragon Ladon.

HESPERIDES