THE FOUNTAIN OF SALMACIS
Hermaphrodite: a flower containing both male and female organs; a person or animal of both sexes. The child Hermaphroditus was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, the result of a secret love affair. For this reason he was entrusted to the nymphs of the isolated Mount Ida, who allowed him to grow up as a wild creature of the woods. After his encounter with the water-nymph Salmacis, he laid a curse upon the water. According to fable, all persons who bathed in the water became hermaphrodites. [from Nursery Cryme (the album this somg was on, 1971) sleeve]
"How the Fountain of Salmacis aquired its illrepute and why its evervating waters weaken and soften the limbs they touch."
A son born to Mercury and Venus was brought up by niads in Ida's caves. His name was Hermaphroditus. At 15 he left Ida and visited remote places just for fun. He saw a pool of water where Salmacis lived, the only nymph not known to Diana. She wouldn't hunt with the other nymphs, or do much of anything. She gathered flowers, and saw Hermaphroditus whom she longed to posess at first sight. She made herself beautiful, went to him, and asked to be his lover, and to marry him if he wasn't already. Hermaphroditus didn't even know what love was. Salmacis threw herself at him. She goes away and he goes swimming in the pool. When he is in the pool, Salmacis says "I have won! He is mine!" and jumps in after him. They have sex -- an are permanently joined together into a single form. Hermaphroditus grows weak and enfeebled. He asks his father to curse the pool, so that "if any man enter this pool, may he depart hence no more than half a man, amy he suddenly grow weak and effeminate at the touch of these waters." Both parents went along with this and cursed the pool.