MYTHOLOGY
Who was Endymion? In Greek mythology, he was the most handsome of men, the god of eternal youth and fertility. Some versions describe him as king, others as a shepherd. The moon goddess Selene was so smitten with Endymion's beauty that she put him into a perpetual sleep so that she could kiss him whenever she wished.
In literature, Endymion has been the subject of some on the world's most noted authors. In 1593, Thomas Drayton wrote "Endymion and Phoebe." John Keats composed, in 1818, an allegory entitled "Endymion". Oscar Wilde, in a poem, refers to John Keats himself as Endymion. The Elizabethan playwright, John Lyly, penned a play entitled "Endymion, the Man in the Moone." Benjamin Disraeli, in a political novel, named his hero Endymion Farras.
None of these great authors had a New Orleans Carnival krewe in mind when their works were authored, yet a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow entitled "Endymion" almost seems to hint at things to come in the Crescent City:
Silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When sleeping in the grove
He dreamed . . .