After the first of the daughters of Minyas has finished telling the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, the second daughter starts telling her story. As is so often the case in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, we get more than we had expected: she opens with a brief summary of the adultery of Venus and Mars, then relates two intertwined stories of the loves of Leucothoë and Clytie for the god of the Sun.
The discovery of the adultery of Venus and Mars has been told widely, and its most popular account is that in Homer’s Odyssey (book 8, around line 326). Homer also uses another narrator to tell the story, the bard Demodocus, who gives his account in a bid to cheer Odysseus up when he’s being entertained by King Alcinous on the island of the Phaeacians.
The Metamorphoses are the earliest surviving account of the myths of Leucothoë (not to be confused with Leucothea) and Clytie, which may originate from a non-Greek source. While there has been confusion over who they loved, more recent accounts give their partner as Apollo. In Greek mythology, Helios, personification of the Sun, is a Titan, but Apollo is an Olympian god with other roles. Roman mythology transferred Helios as Sol, but they became increasingly confused with Apollo.
The second daughter of Minyas, confusingly named by Ovid as Leuconoë, first announces that she will tell of how the Sun fell in love, then embarks on an account of how the Sun was the first to witness the adultery of Venus and Mars, which he reported to the husband of Venus, Vulcan. The latter immediately fabricated a fine net of bronze, which he arranged around the bed in which the couple were about to make love.
This is the likely source for Diego Velázquez’s Forge of Vulcan from 1630. This shows Apollo, at the left, visiting Vulcan (to the right of Apollo) in his forge, to tell him about this infidelity and arouse shock.
Vulcan’s net trapped the couple in the act of lovemaking, at which point Vulcan threw the doors open and invited the gods in to witness the couple’s shame, an episode that was long talked about.
Tintoretto’s Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan from about 1545 offers an unusual interpretation: Vulcan is inspecting his wife, as Mars cowers under the bed at the right. A small dog is drawing attention to Mars’ hiding place, and Venus’s child Eros rests in a cradle behind them. Within this is skilful mirror-play: the circular mirror behind the bed reflects an image of Vulcan leaning over Venus (below).
Joachim Wtewael is not only known for his ostensibly unpronounceable surname, but for his remarkably explicit figures. In Mars and Venus Surprised by the Gods from about 1606-10, he gives a full visual account of the story, and leaves the viewer in no doubt as to what the couple were doing, even adding a flush to the cheeks of Venus. He uses multiplex narrative too: Vulcan is seen forging his fine net in the far background, and again at the right, as he is about to throw the finished net over the couple. Mars’ armour is scattered over the floor, and there is a chamber-pot under the bed. Behind Vulcan the other gods are arriving, and laughing with glee at the raunchy scene being unveiled.
At the other extreme in time is Lovis Corinth’s splendid Homeric Laughter, painted exactly three centuries later, in 1909. Corinth inscribes a German translation of line 326 in book 8 of the Odyssey, which reads in English:
unquenchable laughter arose among the blessed gods as they saw the craft of wise Hephaestus
This is the first of Corinth’s two versions, showing Venus recumbent on the bed, shielding her eyes from the crowd around her. Mars struggles with the net which secures the couple, looking frustrated. Vulcan, clad in black with his tools slung around his waist, is talking to Poseidon (wearing a crown) with Bacchus behind clutching a champagne glass. At the right edge is Mercury, with his winged helmet. Sundry putti are playing with Mars’ armour, and an arc of putti adorns the sky.
Venus didn’t forget this, and obtained her revenge on the Sun by making him fall in love with Leucothoë. This led to the Sun becoming erratic in his course and timing, as he paused to cast his light on his sweetheart. Then one night, the Sun took the form of Leucothoë’s mother, gained access to her chamber where she was spinning, and sent her maids away. The Sun then revealed himself, and raped her.
Clytie, another woman who might have been Leucothoë’s sister and who had fallen in love with the Sun, came to hear of this, and spread the story. Leucothoë’s father ignored his daughter’s account of the rape, and buried her alive with a mound of sand on top. Although the Sun melted that sand away in an effort to rescue her, she was already dead, and past any hope of resuscitation. The Sun then laid fragrant nectar around her, and she was transformed into a frankincense tree (now of the Boswellia genus, which exudes the resin).
With the Sun no longer dallying after Leucothoë, Clytie pined in vain for his attention. She sat outdoors for nine days and nights without food or drink, weeping, and turning her head to watch the Sun as he passed. She became rooted into the soil, and was transformed into a heliotrope plant, or sunflower.
Charles de La Fosse tells Ovid’s complete story in Clytie Transformed into a Sunflower (1688). The unrequited lover sits weeping on the shore, as the chariot of the Sun moves on to set behind. Growing on the rocks behind Clytie are sunflowers, to which she will shortly be transformed.
Nicolas Colombel’s Clytie, probably from around 1670-80, is simpler: here she holds her right hand up to help her look at the Sun, while grasping the stalk of a sunflower with her left.
Louis Welden Hawkins’ undated portrait of Clytie combines the same key elements of a lovelorn nude, and a mass of sunflowers.
Evelyn De Morgan hints more explicitly at the transformation about to overtake her Clytie (1887), set against a superb rendering of the western sky at dusk.
The other late Victorian British painter to explore Ovid’s story was Lord Leighton, who painted Clytie at least twice. In his Clytie from about 1890-92, I have been unable to spot the woman’s figure, and suspect that the only image that I have has cropped it out.
His later version, Clytie (1895-96), shows Clytie prostrating herself before the sun, her head thrown back and arms outstretched, but no sign of her signature flowers.
Strictly speaking, in English heliotropes are members of the borage family, Boraginaceae, which doesn’t include sunflowers. However, it’s clear from Ovid’s description that he meant what we now call the sunflower, from the genus Helianthus. Sunflowers not only resemble the sun, but the plant tilts its flowering head during daylight to face the sun, making them heliotropic.