Between this story and the story of Naricissus, it can probably be inferred tjat Ancient Greece had a bit of a think for turning cute boys into plants. So, le’s go ahead and dig into how the Greeks thought the hyacinth flower came about.

It’s delightfully tragic.

So, we start off with this guy named Hyachinthus, the youngest son of King Amyclus and Queen Diomede of Sparta. I mean, there’s a lot of different versions of his parentage floating about, because that’s the kind of thing that tends to come about with myths that have been around a while, but this is the version I’m going with. Anyway, Hyacinthus is super, super attractive. He’s so attractive that he manages to attract the attentions of Apollo.

Honestly, despite the fact that his lovers usually meet pretty tragic ends, it probably better than getting the attention of other Greek gods. Looking at you, Zeus and Poseidon.

At any rate, Hyacinthus is also pretty into Apollo, and the two kick off a pretty sweet romance. They go on vacations together, Apollo teaches him to play the lyre, it’s just super adorable. There’s just one small problem, though.

See, Zephyr, the west wind, is also super into Hyacinthus. And is really, really unhappy that he’s dating Apollo. So, when Apollo and Hyacinthus are throwing a discus around one day, Zephyr kicks up a strong wind and sends the discus right into Hyacinthus’s head.

Apollo, naturally, is pretty distraught over the loss of his boyfriend, and starts trying to use ambrosia and his own godly powers to try and bring him back to life. Unfortunately, because this whole mess was ordained by the Fates, it doesn’t work. So Apollo takes some of Hyacinthus’s blood and turns it into a flower: the aforementioned hyacinth.

It should be noted, however, that in some versions of the story Apollo is able to resurrect Hyacinthus eventually, and he ends up getting deified. He gets his own cult and feast day and everything, so it does have a bit of a happy ending.

And I guess the moral here is that dating most Greek gods is probably a bad idea, and will end with your death. Hyacinths are super pretty, though.