High on the slopes of Mount Latmus in ancient Caria, where the morning mist clung to pine trees and the evening shadows stretched long across the meadows, there lived a young shepherd whose beauty was so extraordinary that it seemed to eclipse the very stars themselves. This was Endymion, and his story would become one of the most poignant tales of love and sacrifice ever told.

Endymion was no ordinary mortal, though he lived the simple life of a shepherd, tending his flocks on the mountainside and sleeping beneath the open sky. His father was either Aethlius, a king of Elis, or according to some tales, Zeus himself, which would explain the divine radiance that seemed to emanate from the young man’s very being.

From the first light of dawn to the last gleam of twilight, Endymion moved through his pastoral world with a grace that made even the wild creatures of the mountain pause to watch him pass. His hair was golden as wheat in summer sunlight, his eyes were the deep blue of mountain lakes, and his features were so perfectly formed that sculptors would have wept to capture even a shadow of his beauty.

But it was not only his physical perfection that made Endymion remarkable. He possessed a gentle soul that seemed to be in perfect harmony with the natural world around him. The sheep followed him not out of mere animal instinct, but with a devotion that spoke of deeper understanding. Birds would alight on his shoulders as he walked, and even the shyest woodland creatures would emerge from their hiding places to graze peacefully near him.

Each night, when his work was done and his flocks were safely settled, Endymion would climb to a high cave on Mount Latmus, a place where he could see across the entire valley spread out below him like a tapestry woven from silver threads and deep shadows. There he would rest on a bed of soft moss and fragrant herbs, gazing up through the cave’s opening at the stars wheeling slowly across the heavens.

It was on one such night, when the air was especially clear and the stars seemed to hang like jewels against the velvet darkness, that Endymion’s fate was sealed. For high above in her silver chariot, Selene, the goddess of the moon, was making her nightly journey across the sky when her divine eyes fell upon the sleeping shepherd.

Selene had driven her moon-chariot across the heavens for countless ages, bringing gentle light to the darkness and watching over the dreams of mortals below. She had seen kings and heroes, poets and philosophers, but never had she encountered such perfect beauty in a mortal form.

As her silver horses carried her closer to the mountain, Selene found herself slowing their pace, unable to tear her gaze away from the young shepherd. The moonlight streaming from her chariot fell full upon Endymion’s face, revealing every perfect feature, and the goddess felt her immortal heart stirring with an emotion she had never experienced before.

“What manner of mortal is this?” she whispered to herself, her voice like silver bells chiming in a gentle breeze. “How can earthly clay be shaped into such divine perfection?”

Night after night, Selene found herself drawn to Mount Latmus, altering her celestial course to pass over the cave where Endymion slept. She would hover in the sky above him, bathing him in her softest, most tender light, drinking in his beauty like ambrosia.

The goddess tried to resist the powerful attraction she felt, knowing that love between immortals and mortals was fraught with tragedy and complications. But with each passing night, her devotion only grew stronger, until she could think of nothing but the beautiful shepherd who slept beneath her light.

Finally, unable to bear the distance between them any longer, Selene descended from her chariot one night and entered the cave where Endymion lay sleeping. She knelt beside him, her divine radiance filling the small space with soft, pearl-like light, and gazed upon his face with wonder and adoration.

“Beautiful mortal,” she whispered, her voice no louder than the sighing of wind through pine branches, “you have captured the heart of the moon herself. What am I to do with this love that burns within me like starfire?”

As if drawn by her voice, Endymion stirred in his sleep and opened his eyes. For a moment, he thought he must be dreaming, for before him knelt a woman of such ethereal beauty that she seemed to be made of moonlight itself. Her hair was silver as starshine, her skin glowed with inner radiance, and her eyes held the deep mystery of the night sky.

“Are you a dream?” Endymion asked softly, his voice filled with wonder. “Or are you perhaps one of the immortal goddesses come down from Olympus?”

Selene smiled, and her smile was like the moment when the full moon breaks free from behind clouds. “I am Selene, goddess of the moon, and I have been watching you, beautiful shepherd. Your beauty has pierced my immortal heart, and I find myself drawn to you as the tides are drawn to my silver light.”

Endymion sat up slowly, still not entirely certain that this was not some incredibly vivid dream. “Great goddess, I am honored beyond measure by your presence. But I am only a simple shepherd, a mortal man who will age and die while you remain eternally young and beautiful. What could one such as I offer to the goddess of the moon?”

Selene reached out and gently touched his cheek, her fingers cool and soft as moonbeams. “You offer me something I have never had before, dear Endymion—the gift of love. In all my immortal existence, driving my chariot across the heavens night after night, I have never known the joy that fills my heart when I look upon your face.”

From that night forward, Selene would visit Endymion in his cave, spending the hours of darkness in his company before she had to resume her celestial duties. They would talk of many things—he would tell her of his life among the flocks, of the changing seasons on the mountain, of the simple joys and sorrows of mortal existence. She would share with him the secrets of the night sky, the stories written in the constellations, the ancient wisdom of the immortal realms.

Their love was pure and deep, but it was also shadowed by the inevitable sorrow that comes with the love between mortal and immortal. Selene was eternally young and beautiful, unchanging as the moon itself, while Endymion was subject to the passage of time that claims all mortal beings.

As the months passed, this reality began to weigh heavily on both their hearts. Endymion, though still young and beautiful, could feel the subtle changes that time brings—a line here, a shadow there, the first hints that his perfect beauty would not last forever.

“My beloved Selene,” he said one night as they sat together at the mouth of the cave, her silver light illuminating the valley below, “each day I grow older, while you remain as beautiful as the first night I saw you. Soon I will be old and gray, and then I will die, leaving you to continue your eternal journey alone. How can we bear such a fate?”

Selene took his hands in hers, her heart breaking at the truth of his words. She had wrestled with this same problem night after night, knowing that their love, beautiful as it was, was doomed by the very nature of their different beings.

“There might be a way,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “But the price would be great, and the choice must be yours alone to make.”

“Tell me,” Endymion said urgently. “Any price would be worth paying if it means we need never be parted.”

Selene was silent for a long moment, struggling with what she was about to propose. “I could go to Zeus, king of the gods, and ask him to grant you immortality. But there is only one form of immortality that might be granted to a mortal in your circumstances—eternal sleep. You would never age, never die, never lose your beauty, but you would also never truly wake again. You would exist in dreams, forever young and perfect, and I could visit you throughout all eternity.”

Endymion felt his heart skip a beat as he contemplated this offer. To be immortal, to be with Selene forever, but to give up the waking world, to live only in dreams—it was a choice that would mean abandoning everything he had ever known except her love.

“But would we truly be together?” he asked. “Would you still love me if I were forever sleeping, forever dreaming?”

Selene cupped his face in her hands, her eyes shining with tears that looked like dewdrops caught in moonlight. “My dearest love, I would love you if you were a star in the sky, a stone on the ground, or a whisper in the wind. Your essence, your soul, your beautiful spirit—these are what I love, not merely your waking form. In dreams, we could be together in ways that the waking world could never allow.”

Endymion closed his eyes and thought of all he would be giving up—the feel of morning sunshine on his face, the satisfaction of guiding his flocks, the simple pleasures of food and drink and conversation with other mortals. But when he opened his eyes and saw Selene’s beautiful face, radiant with love and hope and sorrow all mingled together, he knew his choice was already made.

“My beloved goddess,” he said softly, “I choose eternal love over mortal life. If sleeping forever is the price of being with you always, then let me sleep.”

Selene wept then, tears of silver light that fell like shooting stars. She held him close and covered his face with kisses as gentle as moonbeams on still water.

“Then I will go to Zeus immediately,” she whispered. “And when you next close your eyes, it will be for the last time as a waking mortal, and the first moment of our eternal love.”

True to her word, Selene flew to Mount Olympus, where she knelt before the throne of Zeus and pleaded for her beloved’s immortality. The king of the gods, moved by her devotion and perhaps remembering his own mortal loves, granted her request.

“Let the shepherd Endymion be granted eternal youth and eternal sleep,” Zeus declared. “He shall never age, never die, but shall remain forever in the realm of dreams, as beautiful as he is now, until the end of time itself.”

When Selene returned to Mount Latmus, she found Endymion still awake, waiting for her in their cave. They spent one last night together in full waking consciousness, talking and laughing and holding each other close, memorizing every moment before the spell took effect.

As the first light of dawn began to touch the eastern sky, Endymion felt the divine sleep beginning to claim him. His eyelids grew heavy, and a sense of infinite peace settled over him like a soft blanket.

“I love you, my moon goddess,” he whispered as his eyes closed for the final time.

“And I love you, my beautiful shepherd,” Selene replied, her voice following him into the realm of eternal dreams. “Sleep now, and dream of our love.”

From that night forward, Endymion slept in his cave on Mount Latmus, his body preserved in the perfect beauty of youth, never aging, never changing. And every night, Selene would visit him, bending low from her silver chariot to gaze upon his sleeping face and whisper words of love.

In his dreams, Endymion lived a life of perfect happiness with his goddess. They walked together through meadows of asphodel, sailed across seas of liquid silver, and danced among the stars themselves. Their dream-love was more real and more beautiful than any waking existence could have been.

Some say that from their union in the realm of dreams, Selene bore fifty daughters, the Menae, who represented the fifty lunar months of the Olympiad. Others say she bore him just one daughter, Narcissus, whose beauty rivaled that of her divine mother and mortal father.

The cave where Endymion sleeps became a place of pilgrimage for lovers throughout the ancient world. They would climb the slopes of Mount Latmus to gaze upon the sleeping shepherd, marveling at his preserved beauty and the power of love that had transcended the boundaries between mortal and divine.

Poets and storytellers would visit the cave for inspiration, and many claimed that they could hear the whispered conversations between Selene and her beloved, carried on the night wind like fragments of the most beautiful songs ever composed.

Shepherds in the region would tell their children that if they were very good and very quiet, they might sometimes see Selene’s silver chariot hovering over the mountain, and if they listened carefully, they could hear the gentle laughter of the goddess as she shared some private joy with her eternally sleeping beloved.

The myth of Endymion and Selene became one of the most beloved stories of the ancient world, symbolizing the power of love to transcend even death, the beauty of sacrifice made for love’s sake, and the bittersweet nature of perfect devotion. It reminded mortals that sometimes the greatest love stories are not those that end in simple happiness, but those that transform the very nature of existence itself.

And so Endymion sleeps still, eternal and beautiful, while Selene continues her nightly journey across the sky. Their love story is written in the phases of the moon itself—in her gentle light that caresses the sleeping earth, in the way she seems to linger over certain mountain peaks, and in the dreams that come to lovers who sleep beneath her silver radiance.

For those who understand the true nature of love, the story of Endymion teaches that perfect devotion can indeed conquer time and death, creating a form of immortality that transcends the merely physical and touches the eternal realm of the soul, where true lovers meet and part no more.