Remember the myth of the goddess Eos and her mortal husband Tithonus. She asked he be granted immortality but forgot to include eternal youth. He thus withered as the years passed, and eventually transformed into a cicada. Tennyson wrote a poem of his imagined lament:
Whoa there, chicken! No cause for celebration!
Remember the myth of the goddess Eos and her mortal husband Tithonus. She asked he be granted immortality but forgot to include eternal youth. He thus withered as the years passed, and eventually transformed into a cicada. Tennyson wrote a poem of his imagined lament:
.
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms.