Bulfinch’s Mythology · Chapter
Clytie explained
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.
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.
Free preview opens on this chapter — companions, themes, and character notes appear beside the text.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Exposition.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
- Aftermath
- Closing
This excerpt marks the dramatic climax because it presents the emotional peak of Tristram’s brief reunion with…
Full beat labels and climax notes unlock in the reader.
Follow the arc while readingThemes in this chapter
- Love and Transformation
Clytie's unrequited love for Apollo leads to her transformation into a sunflower, a symbol of constancy.
Characters to notice
- 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 passages
“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.
