What ancient Greek stories of humans transformed into plants can teach us about fragility and resilience

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Marie-Claire Beaulieu, Tufts University

(THE CONVERSATION) For me, gardening is the most joyful summer activity, when I can see my hard work rewarded with colorful blooms and lush greenery. Science explains this feeling by recognizing the deep bond between humans and plants. Being in a nurturing relationship with nature supports our physical and mental health.

At the same time, as a scholar of Greek mythology, I also see the close relationship between humans and plants reflected in ancient stories. In fact, Greek literature and poetry often represent human life as plant life.

Just like plant life, human life follows the course of the seasons. Our youth is brief and beautiful like the spring, followed by the full bloom of adulthood in summer and the maturity of middle age, which yields bounty and prosperity like the fall harvest. Finally, in the winter of our life, we wither and die, to be replaced by a new generation, as famously described in the Greek epic “The Iliad”: “Like the generations of leaves are those of men. The wind blows and one year’s leaves are scattered on the ground, but the trees bud and...