Amalthea // Ἀμάλθεια
α- στερητικό (Privative a) + μάλθος (Malthus) [= lack, deprivation],
the original meaning of the word Amalthea was non deprivation and therefore generosity.
Amalthea was the foster-mother of Greek god Zeus, sometimes represented as the divine goat who suckled the god in a cave in Cretan Mount Aigaion [Goat], when he was still an infant.
In other traditions, Amalthea was a nymph who nourished Zeus with honey and the milk of her goat.
Out of gratitude Zeus turned one of the goat's horns into the Cornucopia [Horn of Plenty] which was always filled with whatever its possessor wished.
Ovid, Fasti 5. 111 ff
(Translation Boyle, Roman poetry c.1st B.C. to c.1st A.D.):
(Translation Boyle, Roman poetry c.1st B.C. to c.1st A.D.):
On the first night I can see the star that serviced Jupiter’s [Zeus’] cradle. The rainy sign of Olenian Capella is born. Heaven is her reward for giving milk. Naiad Amalthea, famous on Cretan Ida, hid Jupiter, it is said, in the forest. She possessed the lovely mother of two young goats, a glorious sight among Dicte’s flocks, with soaring horns curled round her back and an udder suitable for the nurse of Jupiter. She gave the god milk, but snapped her horn on a tree and was severed from half her loveliness. The Nymphae picked the horn up, ringed it with fresh herbs, and took it fruit-filled to Jupiter’s lips. When he controlled the sky and sat on his father’s throne and nothing surpasses unconquered Jove, he made stars of the nurse and the nurse’s fruitful horn, which bears even now its mistress’ name.
