Амброзия: пища богов в древнегреческой мифологии

Mythical food of the Greek gods

In the ancient Greek myths, ambrosia (/æ//m/'/b//r//oʊ//z//i//ə//, // //ʒ//ə/, ἀμβροσία 'immortality') is the food or drink of the Greek gods, and is often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus by doves and served either by Hebe or by Ganymede at the heavenly feast. Ancient art sometimes depicted ambrosia as distributed by the nymph named Ambrosia, a nurse of Dionysus.

In one version of the story of the birth of Achilles, Thetis anoints the infant with ambrosia and passes the child through the fire to make him immortal but Peleus, appalled, stops her, leaving only his heel unimmortalised (Argonautica 4.869–879). In the Iliad xvi, Apollo washes the black blood from the corpse of Sarpedon and anoints it with ambrosia, readying it for its dreamlike return to Sarpedon's native Lycia. Similarly, Thetis anoints the corpse of Patroclus in order to preserve it. Ambrosia and nectar are depicted as unguents (xiv. 170; xix. 38). In the Odyssey, Calypso is described as having "spread a table with ambrosia and set it by Hermes, and mixed the rosy red nectar." It is ambiguous whether he means the ambrosia itself is rosy red, or if he is describing a rosy red nectar Hermes drinks along with the ambrosia. Later, Circe mentions to Odysseus that a flock of doves are the bringers of ambrosia to Olympus. In the Odyssey (ix.345–359), Polyphemus likens the wine given to him by Odysseus to ambrosia and nectar. One of the impieties of Tantalus, according to Pindar, was that he offered to his guests the ambrosia of the Deathless Ones, a theft akin to that of Prometheus, Karl Kerenyi noted (in Heroes of the Greeks). In the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite, the goddess uses "ambrosial bridal oil that she had ready perfumed." In the story of Eros and Psyche as told by Apuleius, Psyche is given ambrosia upon her completion of the quests set by Aphrodite and her acceptance on Olympus. After she partakes, she and Eros are wed as gods. In the Aeneid, Aeneas encounters his mother in an alternate, or illusory form. When she became her godly form "Her hair's ambrosia breathed a holy fragrance."

Lycurgus, king of Thrace, forbade the cult of Dionysus, whom he drove from Thrace, and attacked the gods' entourage when they celebrated the god. Among them was Ambrosia, who turned herself into a grapevine to hide from his wrath. Dionysus, enraged by the king's actions, drove him mad. In his fit of insanity he killed his son, whom he mistook for a stock of ivy, and then himself.