The apple is perhaps the most symbol-laden fruit in the European imagination. It appears in Greek myths, Norse sagas, Arthurian legends, fairy tales and the Christian tradition. It is by turns prize, temptation, cause of discord, promise of eternal youth. Following its paths means crossing some of the founding tales of Western culture.
The golden apples of the Hesperides
In Greek myth, when Zeus and Hera married, Earth gave the goddess a tree that bore golden apples. The tree was planted in a garden at the far west of the world, guarded by the Hesperides, nymphs of the evening, and by a dragon that never slept.
One of the labours of Heracles was precisely to obtain these fruits. According to a widespread version, the hero enlisted the help of the Titan Atlas, who held up the vault of heaven: Heracles took his place for a while, as Atlas went to gather the apples.
The garden of the Hesperides lies in the west, where the sun sets. The golden apple is therefore tied to the edges of the world, to the place where day ends and the divine touches the earth.
The apple of discord
The second great Greek myth is that of the apple of Eris, goddess of discord. Excluded from the banquet for the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Eris tossed among the guests a golden apple inscribed "to the fairest". Hera, Athena and Aphrodite contended for it, and Zeus entrusted the judgement to the young Trojan prince Paris.
Each goddess offered a gift: power, wisdom in war, the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris chose Aphrodite, who promised him Helen. From that choice came the Trojan War. Here the apple becomes the symbol of a desire that divides and of a choice that decides destiny.
Atalanta and the apples of the race
Ovid tells in the Metamorphoses the story of Atalanta, a swift huntress who challenged her suitors to a race: whoever lost died. Hippomenes received three golden apples from Venus and, during the race, let them fall one after another. Atalanta stopped to pick them up, and Hippomenes won. Once again the apple is the instrument of love and distraction.
The apples of Idunn
Norse mythology also knows extraordinary apples. The goddess Idunn kept the apples the gods had to eat in order not to grow old. When, through a trick of Loki, Idunn was carried off by a giant, the gods began to age rapidly, until Loki was forced to bring her back. Here the apple is the symbol of perpetual youth and of the divine order that depends on it.
Avalon, the isle of apples
In the Arthurian tradition, the wounded King Arthur is carried to Avalon, a mysterious island where he will be kept. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the Vita Merlini, calls it the "isle of apples", a fertile land that bears fruit of its own accord. The name itself has been linked to a Celtic word for "apple".
Avalon, like the garden of the Hesperides, is a place beyond, suspended between life and death, where time does not flow as in the ordinary world.
The apple of Eden
The book of Genesis does not say what the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was. Its identification with the apple took hold above all in the Latin West, perhaps helped by the similarity between malum, "apple", and malum, "evil". From then on the apple became in art the fruit of temptation and the Fall.
The orb of sovereigns
Curiously, the same shape also carried a meaning of power. The orb topped by a cross, carried by emperors and kings, is called in German the "imperial apple". The fruit of the Fall became the symbol of the world redeemed and governed.
The secret of the star
Cutting an apple horizontally reveals that the seeds are arranged to form a five-pointed star. This natural feature has fascinated many readers of symbols: inside the everyday fruit hides an ancient geometric figure, the pentagram.
Studio Esoterico Cornelio sees the apple as a fruit of the threshold: it stands at the edges of the world, marks decisive choices, opens onto immortality or the Fall.
| Tale | Apple | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Hesperides | Golden apples in the far west | Border, divine gift |
| Eris and Paris | Apple "to the fairest" | Desire, choice, discord |
| Atalanta | Apples of Venus | Love, distraction |
| Idunn | Apples of the gods | Perpetual youth |
| Avalon | Isle of apples | Otherworld, awaiting return |
| Eden | Fruit of knowledge | Temptation, consciousness |
In short
- The golden apples of the Hesperides grew at the western edges of the world.
- Eris's apple led to the judgement of Paris and the Trojan War.
- In Norse mythology Idunn's apples kept the gods young.
- Avalon, where Arthur was taken, is the "isle of apples".
- The identification with the fruit of Eden was helped by the pun between malum and malum.
