Cyparissus. Marta Sanmamed

      Marta Sanmamed

      Sonja Wimmer

      Text © Marta Sanmamed

      Illustrations © Sonja Wimmer

      This edition © 2014 Cuento de Luz SL

      Calle Claveles 10 | Urb Monteclaro | Pozuelo de Alarcón | 28223 | Madrid | Spain

      www.cuentodeluz.comTitle in Spanish: CiparisoEnglish translation by Jon Brokenbrow

      ISBN: 978-84-16147-11-3

      All rights reserved

      To all of the friends who hug cypresses.

      - Marta Sanmamed -

      Marta Sanmamed & Sonja Wimmer

      Once upon a time, there was a young man named Cyparissus. He was happy and generous, and the thing he loved more than anything else in the world was the nymphs’ sacred deer, which had golden antlers.

       They would walk through the meadows together, and quietly spend their days in the garden of Olympus.

       But one day, everything changed…

      It was midday, and so hot that the deer was dozing in the shade. Cyparissus, who was practicing with his hunting spear, accidentally hit the animal. He ran towards his friend, and seeing that he was in pain, wished that he could die together with him.

       The god Apollo heard him crying and tried to comfort the boy, but Cyparissus begged to be with the deer for all eternity. So Apollo, in his deep, booming voice, said, “You will be remembered by all of us. You will always be with your friend, and with all of those who suffer.”

       Cyparissus cried and cried, until his arms turned into branches covered with green leaves, and his legs joined together to form a trunk that sank deep into the earth. He was turning into a cypress tree!

      If you look closely at a cypress, you will see that when its resin drips down the trunk, it looks like tears.

       They are the tears of Cyparissus, who weeps for all of us.