Small Galatea

The story of the love between Acis and the sea-nymph Galatea appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses; theirs is a story of love and destructive jealousy. The jealous Cyclops Polyphemus, who also loves Galatea, finds them embracing and crushes Acis with a boulder. Galatea saves Acis by changing him into an immortal river spirit. This story has inspired many works of art through the centuries, namely the operatic contata, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (1708), by George Frideric Handel.