Miscellaneous Myths: Pygmalion and Galatea

Hey, any of you ever wanted a girlfriend? Statistically speaking, more than half of you just thought "yes", and a non-trivial percentage probably even went so far as to think "HECK yes." Well, this is the story of one brave pioneer who, rather than waiting for Miss Right to find him, decided to speed up the process by MAKING her! Don't go getting any ideas, though - I'm afraid our boy didn't quite think this through in advance.

MERCH LINKS:

[oozer]

Pygmalion: "I took a calculated risk, but boy am I bad at math."

[mapleblackoak]

"So now she can do things like talk"
*CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'VE PLAYED YOURSELF*

[poissony]

Someone on Tumblr once described this story as "Aphrodite will turn your waifu body pillow into a real person if you ask nicely." It all makes sense now...

[matthewpang]

If Galatea looks at Medusa, would she turn into marble or stone?

[sethmillerd]

I've actually heard a version of this story with a good ending.

Pygmalion lives on an island where the majority are worshipers of Aphrodite, and the fact that he's not interested in anyone is getting on everyone's nerves.

After getting numerous requests from her priests, Aphrodite decides to do something, but instead of using the usual approach (sending Eros, zapping him herself) Aphrodite visits Pygmalion in his dreams and confronts him.

After some time talking with her, Pygmalion makes a deal with Aphrodite, if she allowed him to make a sculpture of her true form he would choose someone to love.

The next few days were spent working on the statue, admiring her true form in his dreams (the only way to see her true form safely) and capturing as many details as he could, and spending his days diligently working.

When he was done, he adorned the statue with flawless clothes and priceless jewels, somehow improving on her already perfect beauty, Aphrodite appeared asking who he would choose.

This is when Pygmalion apologized to Aphrodite, admitting that there was nothing he loved more than his craft and willing to accept any punishment from the goddess for going back on his word.

After talking a moment to admire the work and detail he put into the statue, Aphrodite decided that his craft was his true love and denying him of it would go against her title of the love goddess, so for his work and honesty she reworded him by bringing the statue to life to be his wife.

While many on the island where upset with this outcome, (most of them being ones who wanted to claim him) there was nothing that they could do because Galatea was an act of Aphrodite, so they stopped harassing Pygmalion, and he and Galatea lived a long and happy life together.

[DisneyFanatic]

"Bring his waifu to life-u"
I choked on my milk.

[joeyenochs]

He made fun of my waifu so I ended his laifu.

[DisneyFanatic]

I get the not wanting to have sex part, but...having a partner who can't communicate with you in any way is just boring.

[AshtonPyr]

"We have a word for that now. Several words, actually." I'm dying xD

[jizzjesus]

"You have to date the marble!"

[randomx]

its worth noting that Pygmalion lived on Cyprus. (The island Aphrodite comes from). It's basically an island that worships the goddess of love and holds orgies. Even to the point that the greeks were like "yeah no, that's too many orgies". Pygmalion was prudish and declared he'd never love anyone because all people around him want is sex. Well, his studio happened to be where Aphrodite took shape from the severed balls of Chronos (whole other story) and she wasn't having a prude in her spot. so she compels him to make the statue, makes him fall in love with it then after a prayer or twelve makes it real

[MrRostit]

Proof that waifus have been around since ancient times

[Galimeer]

Person 1: "Aphrodite, make my crush fall in love with me"
Aphrodite: "Just talk to him"

Person 2: "Aphrodite, make me beautiful so my best friend will love me back"
Aphrodite: "Seriously, just talk to her"

Pygmalion: "Aphrodite, bring my statue to life because I love her"
Aphrodite: "Oh my god, just ta- ...what a second. Run that by me again?"

[adina]

"I want a woman who doesnt eat talk drink sleep or move"
"so kid you want a womaned shaped object"
"Yeah I made her myself"

[nighty]

does aphrodite work for modern day waifus? asking for a friend

[eastromangaming]

How to make the perfect girlfriend: water 35L carbon 20kg ammonia 4L lime 1.5kg phosphorus 800g salt 250g fluorine 7.5g iron 5g silicon 3g and trace amounts of 15 other elements. This may cost an arm and a leg

[Borderose]

Pyg is now officially the Ancestor of all-waifu-having otaku.

[TheSongwritingCat]

To everyone in the comments arguing about the "real" version of the story: this is what happens when a story is popular and retold and translated multiple times. Things are added and twisted based on the biases of the person recording the story. You will not get a definitive answer about which version is "right." Just enjoy and reflect on the version that has the most resonance to you.

[Electrovolutiona]

There's also a version of the story where he lives on the island that Aphrodite first stepped onto land after forming from sea foam. So the women of the island were especially devout followers and hated how he was such a homebody and workaholic. The older women who loved to gossip and get all up in the biznizzI of the other people started to complain; mostly because he didn't like their daughters because they weren't nearly as pretty as his statues and he was rich from his work. He didn't want to waste time on women because they were annoying, they took up time, bothered him during his work and generally distracted him while he went about his craft. This was especially a problem due to the island they were on where almost all the women were followers of Aphrodites cult. He was always accosted by them. He felt the same way about men but they knew to leave him alone and weren't flirting with him.

During the festival, the old women begged Aphrodite to make him fall for one of the island girls as he was the only (rich) bachelor. So she went over to see what was wrong with him. He was so stunned by her beauty he begged her to be his model, she made him promise to marry in exchange for her help and he readily agreed. After several visits and hundreds of clay figure prototypes, he made Galatea out of stone. He then became an even bigger homebody obsessing over the statue that perfectly captured the loveliness of the goddess of beauty herself. Going so far as to forget about his work which was the only thing he cared about. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep, he didn't do anything but obsess over the statue growing pale and lethargic in the process, lamenting how cold the stone was. When the women of the town complained loudly to Aphrodite about this she came back to see why he wasn't keeping up his side of the bargain.

So in love with his figure he begged her to turn him to stone to be with the figure as no one could possibly compare to her, he would rather die than leave her side. He jumped up onto the pedestal, put his arms around the form and waited for her to change/kill him. Aphrodite was moved by his love towards the figure. In large due to her own vanity, and partially blaming herself for agreeing to be the model knowing the power of her appearance, she turned the girl human instead. She also felt it would teach the old women of the island to keep their noses out of other people's business.

In his gratitude, Pygmalion gave all the clay statues to Aprodites temple as offerings and the busybody women of the island were even angrier, never being able to get that sweet dowry cash-money.
The two were happy and rather than pester him Galatea helped him around the shop, modelled for him and helped by dealing with customers so he could continue to be reclusive and obsess over his work.

This is one of the more popular translations as I've seen it come up in the Greek mythos often. I put more stock in this version being closer to the original because 1 old greek and roman stories OFTEN made women the villains (which were the old women in this story and they even made aprodite angry with their pestering) and because a man married to his work is usually looked up to in greek lore. romantic love was romanticised but only so far as finding the perfect submisive woman. That's why eros isn't one of the big 12 and his mom representing feminine beauty is (women are to be seen not heard). A story of a man being so in love with his work and being rewarded by the gods is much more likely given the old greek mythos. 2 They never delved into men hating women because women weren't worth the effort or time to hate. if that was the case it's more likely he would have found a wife and sent her away so he never had to see her to get the island girls off his back.

[asalways]

I've read some versions Pygmalion asked Aphrodite if she could turn him into stone so he could truly be with Galatea, but instead, the goddess told Pygmalion to go home and there he would find a new wife, and you know what happens next. I guess the story I read could be interpreted as Pygmalion's loneliness finally getting the better of him by realizing that he truly wanted to be loved in return, and Aphrodite up to that point thought his whole ordeal was hilarious, until he made his request and took pity on him.