Melos

Melos has a name that (as melon) can mean both 'apple' and 'sheep'. These two meanings are woven into the story that is told about him. He was a young man of Delos who went to Cyprus. There he married Pelia, a relative of king Cinyras.

From this marriage was born a son, also named Melos. When Adonis, the son of king Cinyras and a close friend of Melos, was killed by a boar, Melos (the father) hanged himself in grief from a tree, which there-upon took the name melos and became an apple-tree.

Aphrodite, pitying him, turned Melos into an apple and Pelia into a dove. Meanwhile young Melos the son founded the town of Melos and became the first man to weave wool into clothes. He did this so expertly that sheep took a new name - melon.