Mythology
Eternal youth is a characteristic of the inhabitants of Paradise in Abrahamic religion.
The Hindus believe that the Vedic and the post-Vedic rishis have attained immortality, which implies the ability to change one's body's age or even shape at will. These are some of the siddhas in Yoga. Markandeya is said to always stay at the age of 16.
The difference between eternal life and the more specific eternal youth is a recurrent theme in Greek and Roman mythology. The mytheme of requesting the boon of immortality from a god, but forgetting to ask for eternal youth appears in the story of Tithonus. A similar theme is found in Ovid regarding the Cumaean Sibyl.
In Norse mythology, Iðunn is described as providing the gods apples that grant them eternal youthfulness in the 13th century Prose Edda.
Read more about this topic: Eternal Youth
Famous quotes containing the word mythology:
“Love, love, love—all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“One memorable addition to the old mythology is due to this era,—the Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, and blood these centuries have woven this and added it to the mythology of mankind! The new Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency has this mythus been stamped on the memory of the race! It would seem as if it were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in his stead.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)