BaucisPhilemon

Baucis & Philemon


This story is about the love between Philemon and Bacis and how the two wished to die together so that neither of them would live alone. This story also includes Jupiter (Zeus) and Mercury (Hermes) who seek to find how people would welcome poor strangers from out of town. Only Baucis and philemon welcomed the two without knowing that they were the two gods.

In this story the gods Jupiter (Zeus) and Mercury (Hermes) enter a town to see how well the people show hospitallity twords strangers to the town. The two took the form of beggers and they asked the people to give them shelter but all of the people they went to turned the two away. With those people turning them away they turned their houses into a swamp. They went to another house to see if they would get a good welcome. The people in the house were Philemon and his wife Baucis. The two gave Jupiter and Mercury a very warm welcome and so the two gods gave them one wish and even turned their house into a temple. The two mortals wished to live as the temple guardians and to die together so that none of them would live without the other. The two were turned into a lime and an oak tree that shared the same trunk. People through festivals for the faithful pair.

The conclusion is that Baucis and Philemon loved each other with a great passion that when given one wish from the gods Jupiter (Zeus) and Mercury (Hermes) they wished to live together and die together so that they would not have to live without the other.

Questions to Know
1. Who were the two gods in the story by their Greek names?

2. Why did Philemon and Baucis not know that Jupiter (Zeus) and Mercury (Hermes) were who they were?

I received my information from the following sites Editor: M.F. Lindemans http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/europe/greek/articles.html date updated: October 9 2006 I found this site on November 30 creater: bladesmaster http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/olympians.html#gods date updated: unknown I found this site on November 30 Hamilton, Edith. __Mythology__. New York, NY: Little, Brown Co., 1942

this wiki was written by: Kael S