Gygēsʹ Ring

rendered the wearer invisible. Gygēs, the Lydian, is the person to whom Candauʹlēs showed his wife naked. According to Plato, Gygēs descended into a chasm of the earth, where he found a brazen horse; opening the sides of the animal, he found the carcase of a man, from whose finger he drew off a brazen ring which rendered him invisible, and by means of this ring he entered into the king’s chamber and murdered him.

“Why, did you think that you had Gygēs ring,

Or the herb that gives invisibility [fern-seed]?”

Beaumont and Fletcher: Fair Maid of the Inn, i. 1.

The wealth of Gygēs. Gygēs was a Lydian king, who married Nyssia, the young widow of Candaulēs, and reigned thirty-eight years. He amassed such wealth that his name became proverbial. (Reigned B.C. 716–678.)

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Gygēsʹ Ring

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