Cycnus

In Greek mythology, multiple characters were known as Cycnus (Ancient Greek: Κύκνος) or Cygnus. The literal meaning of the name is "swan", and accordingly most of them ended up being transformed into swans.

  • Cycnus, one of the suitors of Penelope.[5]
  • Cycnus, son of King Eredion of Achaea, who, in one version, seduced Leda and made her mother of triplets: the Dioscuri and Helen.[6] In all other sources, she had these children by Zeus who approached her in the shape of a swan (kyknos).
  • Cycnus, a blunder for Guneus in the manuscript of Hyginus' Fab. 97 (list of the Achaean leaders against Troy).
The butterfly genus Cycnus is now synonymized with Panthiades.

According to Pseudo-Eratosthenes and Hyginus' Poetical Astronomy, the constellation Cygnus was the stellar image of the swan Zeus had transformed into in order to seduce Leda[7] or Nemesis.[8]

References
  1. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1. 27. 6
  2. Strabo, Geography, 13. 1. 19
  3. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2, 367 sqq.
  4. Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 12
  5. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Epitome of Book 4, 7. 27
  6. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 506
  7. Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Catasterismi, 25
  8. Hyginus, Poetical Astronomy, 2. 8
  • Media related to Cycnus at Wikimedia Commons
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