I am Cyparissus, I was a boy beloved by Apollo or in some versions by other deities. In the best-known version of the story, the favorite companion of mine was a tamed stag, which I accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. My grief was such that it transformed me into a cypress tree, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii. No Greek hero cult devoted to me has been identified.