# Clytie explained — Bulfinch’s Mythology

> Chapter companion for Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch.

## What happens

Clytie, a water-nymph, pines away from unrequited love for Apollo, sitting on the cold ground for nine days without food or drink, her gaze fixed on the sun. She eventually transforms into a flower that constantly turns to face the sun, symbolizing constancy.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Transformation

Clytie's unrequited love for Apollo leads to her transformation into a sunflower, a symbol of constancy.

## Character check-ins

### Phoebus Apollo

The object of Clytie's unrequited love, who makes no return to her.

### Clytie

A water-nymph who pines away and transforms into a sunflower due to her constant devotion to Apollo.

## Key lines

> Clytie was a water-nymph and in love with Apollo, who made her no return.

Clytie, a water-nymph, loved Apollo, but he did not love her back.

_Establishes the unrequited love that drives the story._

> So she pined away, sitting all day long upon the cold ground, with her unbound tresses streaming over her shoulders.

She wasted away, sitting on the cold ground all day with her hair loose.

_Describes Clytie's physical and emotional decline._

> Nine days she sat and tasted neither food nor drink, her own tears and the chilly dew her only food.

For nine days she sat without eating or drinking, surviving only on her tears and dew.

_Highlights her extreme devotion and suffering._

> At last, they say, her limbs rooted in the ground, her face became a flower which turns on its stem so as always to face the sun throughout its daily course; for it retains to that extent the feeling of the nymph from whom it sprang.

Eventually, her limbs took root, and her face turned into a flower that always faces the sun, preserving the nymph's original feeling.

_Describes the transformation into a sunflower._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/bulfinch_s_mythology_se/chapters/clytie
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/bulfinch_s_mythology_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/bulfinch_s_mythology_se/chapters