Pygmalion (mythology) Pygmalion (mythology) Pygmalion (; Ancient Greek: Πυγμαλίων "Pugmalíōn", "gen".: Πυγμαλίωνος) is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though "Pygmalion" is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name "Pumayyaton", he is most familiar from Ovid's narrative poem "Metamorphoses", in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved. In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides he was "not interested in women", but his statue was so beautiful and realistic that he fell in love with it. In time, Aphrodite's festival
Greek mythology in popular culture bodies have been named after elements of Greek mythology. The constellation of Scorpius represents the scorpion that attacked Hercules and the scorpions that frighted the horses when Phaëton was driving the sun-chariot; while Capricorn may represent Pan in a myth that tells of his escape from Typhon by jumping into the water while turning into an animal - the half in the water turned into a fish and the other half turned into a goat. 1108 Demeter, a main-belt asteroid discovered by Karl Reinmuth on May 31, 1929, is named after the Greek goddess of fruitful soil and agriculture. The