Ianthe

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For the fictional character in the Dragon Prince series, see Roelstra's Line.

Origin: Greek. Meaning: Purple or violet flower.

In Greek mythology, Ianthe was a Cretan girl who was betrothed to Iphis. Iphis was a woman raised as a man; she also fell in love with Ianthe and prayed to the gods to allow the two women to marry. She was changed by Isis into a man, and became Ianthe's husband. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX, 666-797.

Also one of the 3,000 Oceanides sons and daughters of the Titan Oceanus and Tethys Greek mythology,

In another Greek myth Ianthe was a young girl, so beautiful that when she died the Gods made purple flowers grow around her grave.

Ianthe is also the name of a nymph mentioned in homeric hymn to Demeter, who was with the Goddess of Spring, Persephone when she was captured by Hades, the God of the Underworld.

Ianthe was also the nickname the poet Lord Byron gave to his patron Lady Charlotte Mary, to whom Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is dedicated.

In Percy Shelley's poem, "Queen Mab," the fairy queen visits a character named Ianthe. The fairy then takes the dead soul of Ianthe and leads it across existance and uses the soul to highlight the good and pure in man kind. Shelley uses this to then to demstrate the evils in mans nature.

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