Phyllis is a character in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, daughter of a Thracian

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

 king (according to some, of Sithon

Sithon (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Sithon was a king of the Odomanti or Hadomanti in Thrace, son of either Poseidon and Ossa or of Ares and Anchiroe, daughter of the river god Neilus...

). She married Demophon

Demophon (King of Athens)

Demophon was a king of Athens, according to Pindar, son of Theseus and Phaedra, brother of Acamas. Some say that Demophon's mother was Iope, daughter of Iphicles. He fought in the Trojan War and was among those who entered the city in the Trojan Horse...

, King of Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 and son of Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

, while he stopped in Thrace on his journey home from the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

.

Demophon, duty bound to Greece, returns home to help his father, leaving Phyllis behind. She sends him away with a coffin with the sacrament of Rhea

Rhea (mythology)

Rhea was the Titaness daughter of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth, in Greek mythology. She was known as "the mother of gods". In earlier traditions, she was strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, the Great Goddess, and was later seen by the classical Greeks as the mother of the Olympian...

, asking him to open it only when he has given up hope of returning to her. From here, the story diverges. In one version, Phyllis realizes that he will not return and commits suicide by hanging herself from a tree. Where she is buried, an almond tree grows, which blossoms when Demophon returns to her. In a second version of the story, Demophon opens the caskets and, horrified by what he saw in there, rides off like wild, but his horse stumbles and he accidentally falls on his own sword.

This story most notably appears in the second poem of Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

's Heroides

Heroides

The Heroides , or Epistulae Heroidum , are a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets, and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek and Roman mythology, in address to their heroic lovers who have in some way mistreated,...

, a book of epistolary poem

Epistolary poem

An epistolary poem, also called a verse letter or letter poem, is a poem in the form of an epistle or letter.-History:Epistolary poems date at least as early as the Roman poet Ovid , who wrote the Heroides or Epistulae Heroidum , a collection of fifteen epistolary poems presented as though written...

s from mythological women to their respective men, and it also appears in the Aitia of Callimachus

Callimachus

Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...

.

The Nine Ways is derived from the story of Phyllis, who is said to have returned nine times to the shores to wait for Demophon's return.

Sources

• Fulkerson, Laurel. "Reading dangerously: Phyllis, Dido, Ariadne, and Medea". The Ovidian Heroine as Author. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.