January 19: Blue Monday

Young Hymnus was a sheperd boy, and spent most of his time alone. In the depth of winter, loneliness set in, all the more because it would dawn on him – again – that his luck in love wouldn’t change this year either. It was the nymph Nikaia who had stolen his heart, and in springtime and summer, he would observe her – nicely put – when she strolled through the woods, practised her hunting skills or – highlight of the week – bathed in a river. Unfortunately, Nikaia had devoted her life to Artemis, virgin goddess of the hunt, and in winter, she seemed more out of reach than ever. One day, a few weeks after the beginning of the new year, and after another failed attempt to win her over, he reached his breaking point. “Put me out of my misery, then. An arrow through my heart couldn’t be more painful than this continuous rejection…” Nikaia, at her wits’ end by the endless harassment, and thus at breaking point too, took the shot. Scholars are debating ever since if she did or did not deserve the harsh punishment she got for it.