Apollo also fell in love with a handsome boy, Hyacinthus. Zephyrus, the West Wind, fell in love with the boy, too, and became very jealous of Apollo. One day as Apollo was instructing the boy in discus-throwing Zephyrus seized the missile in mid-air and hurled it against Hyacinthus' head. The boy was killed, but where his blood fell there sprang up the hyacinth flower bearing the boy's initials.
The twin sister of Apollo, Artemis was the virgin-huntress, a goddess of the chase and forest creatures. The young also fell under her care, and because her mother Leto had delivered her without pain Artemis was called upon to help in childbirth. She was usually depicted in long robes carrying a bow and quiver, and she was accompanied by a troop of woodland nymphs.
One of those nymphs was Callisto, whom Zeus made love to in the guise of Artemis herself. One account says that when Artemis discovered the poor nymph was pregnant she reached for her bow and an arrow. Just as Artemis was about to kill the hapless girl, Zeus changed Callisto into a bear and set her up in heaven as the constellation of Ursa Major.
Artemis was very secretive about where she bathed, so when the hunter Actaeon came across her and her nymphs in the nude she changed him into a stag and set his own hounds to tear him to pieces.
Aphrodite was the goddess of love in all its forms, a protectress of marriage, the inspirer of ideal affection, and a deity of abandoned sexuality. Often she was depicted as a voluptuous nude of striking beauty. But as though her natural charms were not enough, she also possessed a magical girdle that rendered her irresistible to gods and mortals alike.
