Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Ovid recounts that Jupiter and Mercury (Zeus and Hermes), disguised as mortals, sought lodging in a Phrygian neighborhood. A thousand houses refused them; only a poor thatched cottage took them in. There lived Baucis and Philemon, an aged couple who shared love and poverty equally. They set out their humble best—cabbage, bacon, olives, cheese, fruit, wine—and the mixing-bowl, miraculously, never emptied. The gods revealed themselves, led the couple onto a hill, and flooded the inhospitable land; only the cottage remained, transformed into a temple. Granted a wish, Baucis and Philemon asked to serve as priests of that shrine and to die in the same hour. Years later, as they stood before the temple recalling the past, each saw the other sprouting leaves: they became an oak and a linden growing from one trunk, honored thereafter with garlands. The story is the classic theoxeny of rewarded piety and punished inhospitality, preserved in Latin dress for a Phrygian setting.