Apollo is in many respects the paradigm of a Greek god. He represents order, harmony, and civilization in a way that most other Olympian deities cannot equal. Carrying a lyre that symbolizes music, poetry, and dance, Apollo is a patron of the arts, poets, and muses.

The god of sun, music, poetry, prophecy, agriculture and pastor life, and the leader of the Muses. He was a twin child with Artemis (Diana), of Zeus and Leto. His chief cult centres were his supposed birthplace on the island of Delos, and Delphi. Ancient statues show Apollo as the embodiement of the Greek ideal of male beauty.

Apollo is the only Greek god who did not sleep with Aphrodite, but he did sleep with her son, Hymen. Apollo's other male lovers included: King Admetus of Thessaly, Amyclas and his son Hyacinthus the king of Sparta, Branchus, Cyparissus, Daphnis, Hylas, Iapis, Orpheus, Paros, Phrobas, Potneius, Troilus, Tymnius, Hyacinthus, and the ram-god Carneius.

The story of Apollo and Hyacinth is gracefully told by Ovid, in the tenth book of his Metamorphoses:

" Midway betwixt the past and coming night
Stood Titan [the Sun] when the pair, their limbs unrobed,
And glist'ning with the olive's unctuous juice,
In friendly contest with the discus vied."

[The younger one is struck by the discus; and like a fading flower]

" To its own weight unequal drooped the head
Of Hyacinth; and o'er him wailed the god: -
Liest thou so, OEbalia's child, of youth
Untimely robbed, and wounded by my fault -
At once my grief and guilt? - This hand hath dealt
Thy death I 'Tis I who send thee to the grave!
And yet scarce guilty, unless guilt it were
To sport, or guilt to love theel Would this life
Might thine redeem, or be with thine resigned!
But thou-since Fate denies a god to die-
Be present with me everl Let thy name
Dwell ever in my heart and on my lips,
Theme of my lyre and burden of my song;
And ever bear the echo of my wail
Writ on thy new-born flower
The time shall come
When, with thyself associate, to its name
The mightiest of the
Greeks shall link his own.
Prophetic as Apollo mourned, the blood
That with its dripping crimson dyed the turf
Was blood no more: and sudden sprang to life
A flower."

Ovid's Metamorphoses (trans. H. King, London, 1871)

Cyparissus and his deer

The young Cyparissus, the lover of Apollo, killed for a mistake with his javelin a magnificent, docile deer, that was his deares play mate. Grieved, the boy prayed the gods to concede him an eternal mourning for his beloved animal. His supplication was heard by the gods and he was transformed on the sad tree that is named after him - the cypress.

Apollo grieved over his beloved boy, who for love grieved the loss of another love.

Ovid's Metamorphoses, 10, 106