Legendary Passages #0042 - High King of Athens -
Theseus' return from the Labyrinth, from Plutarch's Lives.
Last time Theseus abandoned Ariadne on Naxos. This time Theseus makes the long voyage home, loses his father, and becomes High King of Athens.
When the ship of Theseus neared the tip of Attica, called Sounion, King Aegeus spotted it. But since Theseus had forgotten to change the sails, his father thought him eaten by the Minotaur, and jumped to his death. The city was elated at the victory of Theseus, but his coronation was bittersweet.
Several festivals and traditions were started to commemorate the victory against Crete. The Ship of Theseus was preserved for centuries by replacing old wood with new, and philosophers debate whether it was the same ship or not.
Theseus consolidated the citizens of Attica and moved everyone into Athens proper. He also welcomed immigration and instituted democratic reforms. Coins were stamped with a bull, representing the Marathon Bull, the Minotaur, or Taurus, general of Minos.
This is the last episode for now focusing specifically on Theseus. Eventually he joins the Argonauts, gets left behind with Hercules, and falls in love with an Amazon princess...
http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html
High King of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from Plutarch's Life of Theseus,
translated by Bernadotte Perrin.
XXI. - XXV.
On his voyage from Crete, Theseus put in at Delos, and having sacrificed to the god and dedicated in his temple the image of Aphrodite which he had received from Ariadne, he danced with his youths a dance which they say is still performed by the Delians, being an imitation of the circling passages in the Labyrinth, and consisting of certain rhythmic involutions and evolutions.
This kind of dance, as Dicaearchus tells us, is called by the Delians The Crane, and Theseus danced it round the altar called Keraton, which is constructed of horns (kerata) taken entirely from the left side of the head. They say that he also instituted athletic contests in Delos, and that the custom was then begun by him of giving a palm to the victors.
It is said, moreover, that as they drew nigh the coast of Attica, Theseus himself forgot, and his pilot forgot, such was their joy and exultation, to hoist the sail which was to have been the token of their safety to Aegeus, who therefore, in despair, threw himself down from the rock and was dashed in pieces. But Theseus, putting in to shore, sacrificed in person the sacrifices which he had vowed to the gods at Phalerum when he set sail, and then dispatched a herald to the city to announce his safe return.
The messenger found many of the people bewailing the death of their king, and others full of joy at his tidings, as was natural, and eager to welcome him and crown him with garlands for his good news. The garlands, then, he accepted, and twined them about his herald's staff and on returning to the sea-shore, finding that Theseus had not yet made his libations to the gods, remained outside the sacred precincts, not wishing to disturb the sacrifice.
But when the libations were made, he announced the death of Aegeus. Thereupon, with tumultuous lamentation, they went up in haste to the city. Whence it is, they say, that to this day, at the festival of the Oschophoria, it is not the herald that is crowned, but his herald's staff, and those who are present at the libations cry out: “Eleleu! Iou! Iou!” the first of which cries is the exclamation of eager haste and triumph, the second of consternation and confusion.
After burying his father, Theseus paid his vows to Apollo on the seventh day of the month Pyanepsion; for on that day they had come back to the city in safety. Now the custom of boiling all sorts of pulse on that day is said to have arisen from the fact that the youths who were brought safely back by Theseus put what was left of their provisions into one mess, boiled it in one common pot, feasted upon it, and ate it all up together.
At that feast they also carry the so-called eiresione, which is a bough of olive wreathed with wool, such as Theseus used at the time of his supplication, and laden with all sorts of fruit-offerings, to signify that scarcity was at an end, and as they go they sing: --
Eiresione for us brings figs
and bread of the richest,
brings us honey in pots
and oil to rub off from the body,
strong wine too in a beaker,
that one may go to bed mellow.
Some writers, however, say that these rites are in memory of the Heracleidae, who were maintained in this manner by the Athenians; but most put the matter as I have done.
The ship on which Theseus sailed with the youths and returned in safety, the thirty-oared galley, was preserved by the Athenians down to the time of Demetrius Phalereus. They took away the old timbers from time to time, and put new and sound ones in their places, so that the vessel became a standing illustration for the philosophers in the mooted question of growth, some declaring that it remained the same, others that it was not the same vessel.
It was Theseus who instituted also the Athenian festival of the Oschophoria. For it is said that he did not take away with him all the maidens on whom the lot fell at that time, but picked out two young men of his acquaintance who had fresh and girlish faces, but eager and manly spirits, and changed their outward appearance almost entirely by giving them warn baths and keeping them out of the sun, by arranging their hair, and by smoothing their skin and beautifying their complexions with unguents; he also taught them to imitate maidens as closely as possible in their speech, their dress, and their gait, and to leave no difference that could be observed, and then enrolled them among the maidens who were going to Crete, and was undiscovered by any.
And when he was come back, he himself and these two young men headed a procession, arrayed as those are now arrayed who carry the vine-branches. They carry these in honor of Dionysus and Ariadne, and because of their part in the story; or rather, because they came back home at the time of the vintage.
And the women called Deipnophoroi, or supper-carriers, take part in the procession and share in the sacrifice, in imitation of the mothers of the young men and maidens on whom the lot fell, for these kept coming with bread and meat for their children. And tales are told at this festival, because these mothers, for the sake of comforting and encouraging their children, spun out tales for them. At any rate, these details are to be found in the history of Demon. Furthermore, a sacred precinct was also set apart for Theseus, and he ordered the members of the families which had furnished the tribute to the Minotaur to make contributions towards a sacrifice to himself. This sacrifice was superintended by the Phytalidae, and Theseus thus repaid them for their hospitality.
After the death of Aegeus, Theseus conceived a wonderful design, and settled all the residents of Attica in one city, thus making one people of one city out of those who up to that time had been scattered about and were not easily called together for the common interests of all, nay, they sometimes actually quarrelled and fought with each other.
He visited them, then, and tried to win them over to his project township by township and clan by clan. The common folk and the poor quickly answered to his summons; to the powerful he promised government without a king and a democracy, in which he should only be commander in war and guardian of the laws, while in all else everyone should be on an equal footing.
Some he readily persuaded to this course, and others, fearing his power, which was already great, and his boldness, chose to be persuaded rather than forced to agree to it. Accordingly, after doing away with the townhalls and council-chambers and magistracies in the several communities, and after building a common town-hall and council-chamber for all on the ground where the upper town of the present day stands, he named the city Athens, and instituted a Panathenaic festival.
He instituted also the Metoecia, or Festival of Settlement, on the sixteenth day of the month Hecatombaeon, and this is still celebrated. Then, laying aside the royal power, as he had agreed, he proceeded to arrange the government, and that too with the sanction of the gods. For an oracle came to him from Delphi, in answer to his enquiries about the city, as follows: --
Theseus, offspring of Aegeus,
son of the daughter of Pittheus,
Many indeed the cities
to which my father has given
Bounds and future fates
within your citadel's confines.
Therefore be not dismayed,
but with firm and confident spirit
Counsel only; the bladder
will traverse the sea and its surges.
And this oracle they say the Sibyl afterwards repeated to the city, when she cried: --
Bladder may be submerged;
but its sinking will not be permitted.
Desiring still further to enlarge the city, he invited all men thither on equal terms, and the phrase "Come hither all ye people,” they say was a proclamation of Theseus when he established a people, as it were, of all sorts and conditions. However, he did not suffer his democracy to become disordered or confused from an indiscriminate multitude streaming into it, but was the first to separate the people into noblemen and husbandmen and handicraftsmen. To the noblemen he committed the care of religious rites, the supply of magistrates, the teaching of the laws, and the interpretation of the will of Heaven, and for the rest of the citizens he established a balance of privilege, the noblemen being thought to excel in dignity, the husbandmen in usefulness, and the handicraftsmen in numbers. And that he was the first to show a leaning towards the multitude, as Aristotle says, and gave up his absolute rule, seems to be the testimony of Homer also, in the Catalogue of Ships, where he speaks of the Athenians alone as a "people.”
He also coined money, and stamped it with the effigy of an ox, either in remembrance of the Marathonian bull, or of Taurus, the general of Minos, or because he would invite the citizens to agriculture. From this coinage, they say, “ten oxen” and “a hundred oxen” came to be used as terms of valuation.
Having attached the territory of Megara securely to Attica, he set up that famous pillar on the Isthmus, and carved upon it the inscription giving the territorial boundaries. It consisted of two trimeters, of which the one towards the east declared: --
“Here is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia;”
and the one towards the west: --
Here is the Peloponnesus, not Ionia.
He also instituted the games here, in emulation of Heracles, being ambitious that as the Hellenes, by that hero's appointment, celebrated Olympian games in honor of Zeus, so by his own appointment they should celebrate Isthmian games in honor of Poseidon. For the games already instituted there in honor of Melicertes were celebrated in the night, and had the form of a religious rite rather than of a spectacle and public assembly. But some say that the Isthmian games were instituted in memory of Sciron, and that Theseus thus made expiation for his murder, because of the relationship between them; for Sciron was a son of Canethus and Henioche, who was the daughter of Pittheus. And others have it that Sinis, not Sciron, was their son, and that it was in his honor rather that the games were instituted by Theseus. However that may be, Theseus made a formal agreement with the Corinthians that they should furnish Athenian visitors to the Isthmian games with a place of honor as large as could be covered by the sail of the state galley which brought them thither, when it was stretched to its full extent. So Hellanicus and Andron of Halicarnassus tell us.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html
Greek and Roman mythology from the original sources, from Atlantis to Hercules to the Trojan War. Email: LegendaryPassages@gmail.com
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
LP0041 - The Queen of Athens - Ariadne's abandonment, from The Poems of Catullus
Legendary Passages #0041 - The Queen of Athens -
Ariadne's abandonment, from The Poems of Catullus.
Last time we heard about how Theseus obtained Ariadne's Crown. This time we shall hear a bit more about the story of Ariadne.
She stands on the shores of Naxos, as Theseus sails away. Ariadne is unkempt, having just awoken alone and abandoned.
Catullus retells the story of the tribute of youths bound for the Minotaur for which Theseus had volunteered. When Ariadne first saw the prince she was overwhelmed with desire, shot with Cupid's Bow. She gave him the thread and prayed fervently that he would kill the Minotaur and find his way out of the Labyrinth.
After forsaking her own family and leaving with Theseus, she was to have been his wife and Queen of Athens. Instead she is abandoned. So she calls on the Furies to curse him with complete and utter rage.
Meanwhile, Theseus is sailing home to his father. Aegeus had told him explicitly that he wished that his son would not leave him. Above all, on his return to change the sails on the mast, so that he would know that his son yet lived. But after leaving Ariadne, Theseus had forgotten his pledge. Thinking his son dead, his father jumped to his own death, Ariadne's curse fulfilled.
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.htm#anchor_Toc531846789
The Queen of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Poems of Catullus,
translated by A. S. Kline.
64. Of the Argonauts and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis
Here are seen the wave-echoing shores of Naxos,
Theseus, aboard his ship, vanishing swiftly, watched
by Ariadne, ungovernable passion in her heart,
not yet believing that she sees what she does see,
still only just awoken from deceptive sleep,
finding herself abandoned wretchedly to empty sands.
But uncaring the hero fleeing strikes the deep with his oars,
casting his vain promises to the stormy winds.
The Minoan girl goes on gazing at the distance,
with mournful eyes, like the statue of a Bacchante,
gazes, alas, and swells with great waves of sorrow,
no longer does the fine turban remain on her golden hair,
no longer is she hidden by her lightly-concealing dress,
no longer does the shapely band hold her milk-white breasts
all of it scattered, slipping entirely from her body,
plays about her feet in the salt flood.
But, not caring now for turban or flowing dress, the lost girl
gazed towards you, Theseus, with all her heart, spirit, mind.
Wretched thing, for whom bright Venus reserved the thorny
cares of constant mourning in your heart,
from that time when it suited warlike Theseus,
leaving the curving shores of Piraeus,
to reach the Cretan regions of the unbending king.
For then forced by cruel plague, they say,
as punishment, to absolve the murder of Androgeos
ten chosen young men of Athens and ten unmarried girls
used to be given together as sacrifice to the Minotaur.
With which evil the narrow walls were troubled until
Theseus chose to offer himself for his dear Athens
rather than such Athenian dead be carried un-dead to Crete.
And so in a swift ship and with gentle breezes
he came to great Minos and his proud halls.
As soon as the royal girl cast her eye on him with desire,
she whom the chaste bed nourished, breathing
sweet perfumes in her mother’s gentle embrace,
even as Eurotas’s streams surround a myrtle
that sheds its varied colours on the spring breeze,
she did not turn her blazing eyes away from him,
till she conceived a flame through her whole body
that burned utterly to the depths of her bones.
Ah sadly the Boy incites inexorable passion
in chaste hearts, he who mixes joy and pains for mortals,
and she who rules Golgos and leafy Idalia,
even she, who shakes the mind of a smitten girl,
often sighing for a blonde-haired stranger!
How many fears the girl suffers in her weak heart!
How often she grows pallid: more so than pale gold.
As Theseus went off eager to fight the savage monster
either death approached or fame’s reward!
Promising small gifts, not unwelcome or in vain,
she made her prayers to the gods with closed lips.
Now as a storm uproots a quivering branch of oak,
or a cone-bearing pine with resinous bark, on the heights
of Mount Taurus, twisting its unconquered strength
in the wind (it falls headlong, far off, plucked out
by the roots, shattering anything and everything in its way)
so Theseus upended the conquered body of the beast
its useless horns overthrown, emptied of breath.
Then he turned back, unharmed, to great glory,
guided by the wandering track of fine thread,
so that his exit from the fickle labyrinth of the palace
would not be prevented by some unnoticed error.
But what should I relate, digressing further
from my poem’s theme: the girl, abandoning
her father’s sight, her sisters’ embraces, and lastly
her mother’s, she wretched at her lost daughter’s joy
in preferring the sweet love of Theseus to all this:
or her being carried by ship to Naxos’s foaming shore,
or her consort with uncaring heart vanishing,
she conquered, her eyes softening in sleep?
Often loud shrieks cried the frenzy in her ardent heart
poured out from the depths of her breast,
and then she would climb the steep cliffs in her grief,
where the vast sea-surge stretches out to the view,
then run against the waves into the salt tremor
holding her soft clothes above her naked calves,
and call out mournfully this last complaint,
a frozen sob issuing from her wet face:
-
‘False Theseus, is this why you take me from my father’s land,
faithless man, to abandon me on a desert shore?
Is this how you vanish, heedless of the god’s power,
ah, uncaring, bearing home your accursed perjuries?
Nothing could alter the measure of your cruel mind?
No mercy was near to you, inexorable man,
that you might take pity on my heart?
Yet once you made promises to me in that flattering voice,
you told me to hope, not for this misery
but for joyful marriage, the longed-for wedding songs,
all in vain, dispersed on the airy breezes.
Now, no woman should believe a man’s pledges,
or believe there’s any truth in a man’s words:
when their minds are intent on their desire,
they have no fear of oaths, don’t spare their promises:
but as soon as the lust of their eager mind is slaked
they fear no words, they care nothing for perjury.
Surely I rescued you from the midst of the tempest
of fate, and more, I gave up my half-brother,
whom I abandoned to you with treachery at the end.
For that I’m left to be torn apart by beasts, and a prey
to sea-birds, unburied, when dead, in the scattered earth.
What lioness whelped you under a desert rock,
what sea conceived and spat you from foaming waves,
what Syrtis, what fierce Scylla, what vast Charybdis,
you who return me this, for the gift of your sweet life?
If marriage with me was not in your heart,
because you feared your old father’s cruel precepts,
you could still have led me back to your house,
where I would have served you, a slave happy in her task,
washing your beautiful feet in clear water,
covering your bed with the purple fabric.
But why complain to the uncaring wind in vain?
It is beyond evil, and without senses, unable
to hear what is said, without voice to reply.
It is already turning now towards mid-ocean,
and nothing human appears in this waste of weed.
So cruel chance taunts me in my last moments,
even depriving my ears of my own lament.
All-powerful Jupiter, if only the Athenian ships
had not touched the shores of Cnossos, from the start,
carrying their fatal cargo for the ungovernable bull,
a faithless captain mooring his ropes to Crete,
an evil guest, hiding a cruel purpose under a handsome
appearance, finding rest in our halls!
Now where can I return? What desperate hope
depend on? Shall I seek out the slopes of Ida?
But the cruel sea with its divisive depths
of water separates me from them.
Or shall I hope for my father’s help? Did I not leave him,
to follow a man stained with my brother’s blood?
Or should I trust in a husband’s love to console me?
Who hardly bends slow oars in running from me?
More, I’m alive on a lonely island without shelter,
and no escape seen from the encircling ocean waves.
No way to fly, no hope: all is mute,
all is deserted, all speaks of ruin.
Yet still my eyes do not droop in death,
not till my senses have left my weary body,
till true justice is handed down by the gods,
and the divine help I pray for in my last hour.
So you Eumenides who punish by avenging
the crimes of men, your foreheads crowned
with snaky hair, bearing anger in your breath,
here, here, come to me, listen to my complaints,
that I, wretched alas, force, weakened, burning,
out of the marrow of my bones, blind with mad rage.
Since these truths are born in the depths of my breast,
you won’t allow my lament to pass you by,
but as Theseus left me alone, through his intent,
goddesses, by that will, pursue him and his with murder.’
-
When these words had poured from her sad breast,
the troubled girl praying for cruel actions,
the chief of the gods nodded with unconquerable will:
at which the earth and the cruel sea trembled
and the glittering stars shook in the heavens.
Now Theseus’s mind was filled with a dark mist
and all the instructions he had held fixed in memory
before this, were erased from his thoughts,
failing to raise the sweet signal to his mourning father,
when the harbour of Athens safely came in sight.
For they say that when Aegeus parted from his son,
as the goddess’s ship left the city, he yielded him
to the wind’s embrace with these words:
-
‘Son, more dear to me than my long life,
son, whom I abandoned through chance uncertainty,
lately returned to me in the last days of my old age,
since my fate and your fierce virtue tear you away
from me, against my will, whose failing eyes
are not yet sated with my dear son’s face,
I don’t send you off happily with joyful heart,
or allow you to carry flags of good fortune,
but start with the many sorrows in my mind,
marring my white hairs with earth and sprinkled ashes,
then hang unfinished canvas from the wandering mast,
so the darkened sail of gloomy Spanish flax
might speak the grief and passion in my mind.
But if the one who dwells in sacred Iton, who promised
to defend the people and city of Erectheus, allows you
to wet your hand with the blood of the bull,
then make sure this command is done, buried in your
remembering heart, not to be erased by time:
that as soon as you set eyes on our hills,
strip the dark fabric fully from the yards,
and hoist white sails with your twisted ropes,
so that seeing them from the first, I’ll know joy
in my glad heart, when a happy time reveals your return.’
-
These words to Theseus, once held constantly in mind,
vanished like clouds of snow struck by a blast of wind
on the summits of high mountains.
But when his father, searching the view from the citadel’s height,
endless tears flooding his anxious eyes,
first saw the sails of dark fabric,
he threw himself head first from the height of the cliff,
believing Theseus lost to inexorable fate.
So fierce Theseus entered the palace in mourning
for his father’s death, and knew the same grief of mind
that he had caused neglected Ariadne,
she who was gazing then where his ship had vanished
pondering the many cares in her wounded heart.
But bright Bacchus hurries from elsewhere
with his chorus of Satyrs and Silenes from Nysa,
seeking you, Ariadne, burning with love for you.
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.htm#anchor_Toc531846789
Ariadne's abandonment, from The Poems of Catullus.
Last time we heard about how Theseus obtained Ariadne's Crown. This time we shall hear a bit more about the story of Ariadne.
She stands on the shores of Naxos, as Theseus sails away. Ariadne is unkempt, having just awoken alone and abandoned.
Catullus retells the story of the tribute of youths bound for the Minotaur for which Theseus had volunteered. When Ariadne first saw the prince she was overwhelmed with desire, shot with Cupid's Bow. She gave him the thread and prayed fervently that he would kill the Minotaur and find his way out of the Labyrinth.
After forsaking her own family and leaving with Theseus, she was to have been his wife and Queen of Athens. Instead she is abandoned. So she calls on the Furies to curse him with complete and utter rage.
Meanwhile, Theseus is sailing home to his father. Aegeus had told him explicitly that he wished that his son would not leave him. Above all, on his return to change the sails on the mast, so that he would know that his son yet lived. But after leaving Ariadne, Theseus had forgotten his pledge. Thinking his son dead, his father jumped to his own death, Ariadne's curse fulfilled.
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.htm#anchor_Toc531846789
The Queen of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Poems of Catullus,
translated by A. S. Kline.
64. Of the Argonauts and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis
Here are seen the wave-echoing shores of Naxos,
Theseus, aboard his ship, vanishing swiftly, watched
by Ariadne, ungovernable passion in her heart,
not yet believing that she sees what she does see,
still only just awoken from deceptive sleep,
finding herself abandoned wretchedly to empty sands.
But uncaring the hero fleeing strikes the deep with his oars,
casting his vain promises to the stormy winds.
The Minoan girl goes on gazing at the distance,
with mournful eyes, like the statue of a Bacchante,
gazes, alas, and swells with great waves of sorrow,
no longer does the fine turban remain on her golden hair,
no longer is she hidden by her lightly-concealing dress,
no longer does the shapely band hold her milk-white breasts
all of it scattered, slipping entirely from her body,
plays about her feet in the salt flood.
But, not caring now for turban or flowing dress, the lost girl
gazed towards you, Theseus, with all her heart, spirit, mind.
Wretched thing, for whom bright Venus reserved the thorny
cares of constant mourning in your heart,
from that time when it suited warlike Theseus,
leaving the curving shores of Piraeus,
to reach the Cretan regions of the unbending king.
For then forced by cruel plague, they say,
as punishment, to absolve the murder of Androgeos
ten chosen young men of Athens and ten unmarried girls
used to be given together as sacrifice to the Minotaur.
With which evil the narrow walls were troubled until
Theseus chose to offer himself for his dear Athens
rather than such Athenian dead be carried un-dead to Crete.
And so in a swift ship and with gentle breezes
he came to great Minos and his proud halls.
As soon as the royal girl cast her eye on him with desire,
she whom the chaste bed nourished, breathing
sweet perfumes in her mother’s gentle embrace,
even as Eurotas’s streams surround a myrtle
that sheds its varied colours on the spring breeze,
she did not turn her blazing eyes away from him,
till she conceived a flame through her whole body
that burned utterly to the depths of her bones.
Ah sadly the Boy incites inexorable passion
in chaste hearts, he who mixes joy and pains for mortals,
and she who rules Golgos and leafy Idalia,
even she, who shakes the mind of a smitten girl,
often sighing for a blonde-haired stranger!
How many fears the girl suffers in her weak heart!
How often she grows pallid: more so than pale gold.
As Theseus went off eager to fight the savage monster
either death approached or fame’s reward!
Promising small gifts, not unwelcome or in vain,
she made her prayers to the gods with closed lips.
Now as a storm uproots a quivering branch of oak,
or a cone-bearing pine with resinous bark, on the heights
of Mount Taurus, twisting its unconquered strength
in the wind (it falls headlong, far off, plucked out
by the roots, shattering anything and everything in its way)
so Theseus upended the conquered body of the beast
its useless horns overthrown, emptied of breath.
Then he turned back, unharmed, to great glory,
guided by the wandering track of fine thread,
so that his exit from the fickle labyrinth of the palace
would not be prevented by some unnoticed error.
But what should I relate, digressing further
from my poem’s theme: the girl, abandoning
her father’s sight, her sisters’ embraces, and lastly
her mother’s, she wretched at her lost daughter’s joy
in preferring the sweet love of Theseus to all this:
or her being carried by ship to Naxos’s foaming shore,
or her consort with uncaring heart vanishing,
she conquered, her eyes softening in sleep?
Often loud shrieks cried the frenzy in her ardent heart
poured out from the depths of her breast,
and then she would climb the steep cliffs in her grief,
where the vast sea-surge stretches out to the view,
then run against the waves into the salt tremor
holding her soft clothes above her naked calves,
and call out mournfully this last complaint,
a frozen sob issuing from her wet face:
-
‘False Theseus, is this why you take me from my father’s land,
faithless man, to abandon me on a desert shore?
Is this how you vanish, heedless of the god’s power,
ah, uncaring, bearing home your accursed perjuries?
Nothing could alter the measure of your cruel mind?
No mercy was near to you, inexorable man,
that you might take pity on my heart?
Yet once you made promises to me in that flattering voice,
you told me to hope, not for this misery
but for joyful marriage, the longed-for wedding songs,
all in vain, dispersed on the airy breezes.
Now, no woman should believe a man’s pledges,
or believe there’s any truth in a man’s words:
when their minds are intent on their desire,
they have no fear of oaths, don’t spare their promises:
but as soon as the lust of their eager mind is slaked
they fear no words, they care nothing for perjury.
Surely I rescued you from the midst of the tempest
of fate, and more, I gave up my half-brother,
whom I abandoned to you with treachery at the end.
For that I’m left to be torn apart by beasts, and a prey
to sea-birds, unburied, when dead, in the scattered earth.
What lioness whelped you under a desert rock,
what sea conceived and spat you from foaming waves,
what Syrtis, what fierce Scylla, what vast Charybdis,
you who return me this, for the gift of your sweet life?
If marriage with me was not in your heart,
because you feared your old father’s cruel precepts,
you could still have led me back to your house,
where I would have served you, a slave happy in her task,
washing your beautiful feet in clear water,
covering your bed with the purple fabric.
But why complain to the uncaring wind in vain?
It is beyond evil, and without senses, unable
to hear what is said, without voice to reply.
It is already turning now towards mid-ocean,
and nothing human appears in this waste of weed.
So cruel chance taunts me in my last moments,
even depriving my ears of my own lament.
All-powerful Jupiter, if only the Athenian ships
had not touched the shores of Cnossos, from the start,
carrying their fatal cargo for the ungovernable bull,
a faithless captain mooring his ropes to Crete,
an evil guest, hiding a cruel purpose under a handsome
appearance, finding rest in our halls!
Now where can I return? What desperate hope
depend on? Shall I seek out the slopes of Ida?
But the cruel sea with its divisive depths
of water separates me from them.
Or shall I hope for my father’s help? Did I not leave him,
to follow a man stained with my brother’s blood?
Or should I trust in a husband’s love to console me?
Who hardly bends slow oars in running from me?
More, I’m alive on a lonely island without shelter,
and no escape seen from the encircling ocean waves.
No way to fly, no hope: all is mute,
all is deserted, all speaks of ruin.
Yet still my eyes do not droop in death,
not till my senses have left my weary body,
till true justice is handed down by the gods,
and the divine help I pray for in my last hour.
So you Eumenides who punish by avenging
the crimes of men, your foreheads crowned
with snaky hair, bearing anger in your breath,
here, here, come to me, listen to my complaints,
that I, wretched alas, force, weakened, burning,
out of the marrow of my bones, blind with mad rage.
Since these truths are born in the depths of my breast,
you won’t allow my lament to pass you by,
but as Theseus left me alone, through his intent,
goddesses, by that will, pursue him and his with murder.’
-
When these words had poured from her sad breast,
the troubled girl praying for cruel actions,
the chief of the gods nodded with unconquerable will:
at which the earth and the cruel sea trembled
and the glittering stars shook in the heavens.
Now Theseus’s mind was filled with a dark mist
and all the instructions he had held fixed in memory
before this, were erased from his thoughts,
failing to raise the sweet signal to his mourning father,
when the harbour of Athens safely came in sight.
For they say that when Aegeus parted from his son,
as the goddess’s ship left the city, he yielded him
to the wind’s embrace with these words:
-
‘Son, more dear to me than my long life,
son, whom I abandoned through chance uncertainty,
lately returned to me in the last days of my old age,
since my fate and your fierce virtue tear you away
from me, against my will, whose failing eyes
are not yet sated with my dear son’s face,
I don’t send you off happily with joyful heart,
or allow you to carry flags of good fortune,
but start with the many sorrows in my mind,
marring my white hairs with earth and sprinkled ashes,
then hang unfinished canvas from the wandering mast,
so the darkened sail of gloomy Spanish flax
might speak the grief and passion in my mind.
But if the one who dwells in sacred Iton, who promised
to defend the people and city of Erectheus, allows you
to wet your hand with the blood of the bull,
then make sure this command is done, buried in your
remembering heart, not to be erased by time:
that as soon as you set eyes on our hills,
strip the dark fabric fully from the yards,
and hoist white sails with your twisted ropes,
so that seeing them from the first, I’ll know joy
in my glad heart, when a happy time reveals your return.’
-
These words to Theseus, once held constantly in mind,
vanished like clouds of snow struck by a blast of wind
on the summits of high mountains.
But when his father, searching the view from the citadel’s height,
endless tears flooding his anxious eyes,
first saw the sails of dark fabric,
he threw himself head first from the height of the cliff,
believing Theseus lost to inexorable fate.
So fierce Theseus entered the palace in mourning
for his father’s death, and knew the same grief of mind
that he had caused neglected Ariadne,
she who was gazing then where his ship had vanished
pondering the many cares in her wounded heart.
But bright Bacchus hurries from elsewhere
with his chorus of Satyrs and Silenes from Nysa,
seeking you, Ariadne, burning with love for you.
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.htm#anchor_Toc531846789
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
LP0040 - The Stars of Athens - Corona Borealis, Hercules, Lyra & Cygnus, from Hyginus' Astronomica
Legendary Passages #0040 - The Stars of Athens -
Corona Borealis, Hercules, Lyra & Cygnus, from Hyginus' Astronomica.
Last time we heard how Theseus dove into the sea and was given a golden crown. Many constellations have a mythic origins, including that very crown.
Just above and to the left of Boötes is an arc of bright stars, here called The Crown, or Corona Borealis. This is Ariadne's Crown, though just how she got it is in dispute. Perhaps Liber, also known as Dionysus, gave it to her on Naxos or Crete. One story is that Liber received it from Venus, and when he went to the underworld to rescue his mother, he left it at the entrance and used its glow to find his way back.
The most common story is that she was given that crown by Theseus. When sailing to Crete with the tribute of boys and girls, King Minos lusted after the maid Eriboea. Theseus stopped him, so Minos dared him to get a ring he tossed overboard. Jumping in, Theseus was taken by the dolphins to the Nereids. There he received the crown from Thetis, wife of Peleus; or from Amphitrite, wife of Neptune. Either way, the crown was placed in the stars by Liber.
To the left of Ursa Major, Boötes, and Corona Borealis is The Kneeler, known to us as Hercules. Or perhaps it is Theseus, lifting the boulder that hides his father's sword and sandals.
Nearby is the constellation Lyra. This is the same instrument that was played by Orpheus, the famous musician and Argonaut. His wife was bitten by a snake and died, so he went to the underworld to retrieve her- but failed. Heartbroken, he would love no other woman; so Thracian women or priestesses of Bacchus tore him to pieces.
Beside Lyra is Cygnus the Swan, the northern cross. Jupiter, in the form of a swan, fathered Helen of Troy, whom Theseus would later abduct. Here, Helen's mother is given to be Nemesis, goddess of retribution; and merely raised by Leda, daughter of Thestius and Queen of Sparta.
Next time we shall hear more of Ariadne, she who would have been Queen of Athens.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusAstronomica.html#5
The Stars of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from Hyginus' Astronomica,
translated by Mary Grant.
II.5 CROWN
This is thought to be Ariadne’s crown, placed by Father Liber among the constellations. For they say that when Ariadne wed Liber on the island of Dia, and all the gods gave her wedding gifts, she first received this crown as a gift from Venus and the Hours. But, as the author of the Cretica says, at the time when Liber came to Minos with the hope of lying with Ariadne, he gave her this crown as a present. Delighted with it, she did not refuse the terms. It is said, too, to have been made of gold and Indian gems, and by its aid Theseus is thought to have come from the gloom of the labyrinth to the day, for the gold and gems made a glow of light in the darkness.
But those who wrote the Argolica give the following reason. When Liber received permission from his father to bring back his mother Semele from the Lower World, and in seeking a place of descent had come to the land of the Argives, a certain Hyplipnus met him, a man worthy of that generation, who was to show the entrance to Liber in answer to his request. However, when Hypolipnus saw him, a mere boy in years, excelling all others in remarkable beauty of form, he asked from him the reward that could be given without loss. Liber, however, eager for his mother, swore that if he brought her back, he would do as he wished, on terms, though, that a god could swear to a shameless man. At this, Hypolipnus showed the entrance. So then, when Liber came to that place and was about to descend, he left the crown, which he had received as a gift from Venus, at that place which in consequence is called Stephanos, for he was unwilling to take it with him for fear the immortal gift of the gods would be contaminated by contact with the dead. When he brought his mother back unharmed, he is said to have placed the crown in the stars as an everlasting memorial.
Others say that this is the crown of Theseus, and for the following reason placed near him, for the constellation called the Kneeler is thought to be Theseus. We shall speak later about him. It is said that when Theseus came to Crete to Minos with seven maidens and six youths, Minos, inflamed by the beauty of one of the maidens, Eriboea by name, wished to lie with her. Theseus, as was fitting for a son of Neptune, and one able to strive against a tyrant for a girl’s safety, refused to allow this. So when the dispute became one not about the girl but about the parentage of Theseus, whether he was the son of Neptune or not, Minos is said to have drawn a gold ring from his finger and cast it into the sea. He bade Theseus bring it back, if he wanted him to believe he was a son of Neptune; as for himself, he could easily show he was a son of Jove. So, invoking his father, he asked for some sign to prove he was his son, and straightway thunder and lightning gave token of assent. For a similar reason, Theseus, without any invoking of his father or obligation of an oath, cast himself into the sea. And at once a great swarm of dolphins, tumbling forward over the sea, led him through gently swelling waves to the Nereids. From them he brought back the ring of Minos and a crown, bright with many gems, from Thetis, which she had received at her wedding as a gift from Venus. Others say that the crown came from the wife of Neptune, and Theseus is said to have given it to Ariadne as a gift, when on account of his valor and courage she was given to him in marriage. After Ariadne’s death, Liber placed it among the constellations.
II.6 THE KNEELER
Eratosthenes says he is Hercules, placed above the dragon we have already mentioned, and prepared to fight, with his left hand holding his lion skin, and his right the club. He is trying to kill the dragon of the Hesperides, which, it is thought, never was overcome by sleep or closed its eyes, thus offering more proof it was placed there as a guard. Panyassis in the Heraclea says of the sign that Jupiter, in admiration of their struggle, placed it among the stars; for the dragon has its head erect, and Hercules, resting on his right knee, tires to crush the right side of its head with his left foot. His right hand is up and striking, his left extended with the lion skin, and he appears to be fighting with all his strength. Although Aratus says no one can prove who he is, nevertheless we shall try to show that we can say something reasonable.
Araethus, as we said before, calls this figure Ceteus, son of Lycaon, and father of Megisto. He seems to be lamenting the change of his daughter to bear form, kneeling on one knee, and holding up outstretched hands to heaven, asking for the gods to restore her to him.
Hegesianax, however, says that he is Theseus, who seems to be lifting the stone at Troezene. Aegeus is thought to have put [sandals] and a sword under it, and warned Aethra, the mother, not to send him to Athens until he could lift the stone by his own strength and bring the sword to his father. And so he seems to try to lift the stone as high as he can. In this connection, too, some have said that the Lyre, placed nearest this sign, is the lyre of Theseus, for he was skilful in all the arts and seems to have learned the lyre as well. This, too, Anacreon says: Near Theseus, son of Aegeus, is the Lyre.
Others call him Thamyris, blinded by the Muses, kneeling as a suppliant; others, Orpheus, killed by the Thacian women because he looked on the rites of Father Liber.
But Aeschylus, in the play entitled Prometheus lyomenos, says that he is Hercules, fighting not with the dragon, but with the Ligurians. For he says that at the time Hercules was driving away the cattle of Geryon, he journeyed through the territory of the Ligurians. They joined forces in trying to take the herd from him, and pierced many of the beasts [?] with arrows. But after Hercules’ weapons failed, worn out by the number of the barbarians and lack of arms, he fell to his knees, already suffering from many wounds. Jove, however, out of pity for his son, provided that there should be a great supply of stones around him. With these Hercules defended himself and put the enemy to flight. And so Jove put he image of his fighting form among the constellations.
Again, some have said that he is Ixion with his arms bound, because he tried to attack Juno. Others say he is Prometheus, bound on Mt. Caucasus.
II.7 LYRE
The Lyre was put among the constellations for the following reason, as Eratosthenes says. Made at first by Mercury from a tortoise shell, it was given to Orpheus, son of Calliope and Oeagrus, who was passionately devoted to music. It is thought that by his skill he could charm even wild beasts to listen.
When, grieving for his wife Eurydice, he descended to the Lower World, he praised the children of the gods in his song, all except Father Liber; him he overlooked and forgot, as Oeneus did Diana in sacrifice. Afterwards, then, when Orpheus was taking delight in song, seated, as many say, on Mt. Olympus, which separates Macedonia from Thrace, or on Pangaeum, as Eratosthenes says, Liber is said to have roused the Bacchanals against him. They slew him and dismembered his body. But others say that this happened because he had looked on the rites of Liber. The Muses gathered the scattered limbs and gave them burial, and as the greatest favour they could confer, they put as a memorial his lyre, pictured with stars, among the constellations. Apollo and Jove consented, for Orpheus had praised Apollo highly, and Jupiter granted this favour to his daughter.
Others say that when Mercury first made the lyre on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, he made it with seven strings to correspond to the number of Atlantides, since Maia, his mother, was of their company. Later, when he had driven away the cattle of Apollo and had been caught in the act, to win pardon more easily, at Apollo’s request he gave him permission to claim the invention of the lyre, and received from him a certain staff as reward. When Mercury, holding it in his hand, was journeying to Arcadia and saw two snakes with bodies intertwined, apparently fighting, he put down the staff between them. They separated then, and so he said that the staff had been appointed to bring peace. Some, in making caducei, put two snakes intertwined on the rod, because this seemed to Mercury a bringer of peace. Following his example, they use the staff in athletic contests and other contests of this kind.
But to return to the subject at hand. Apollo took the lyre, and is said to have taught Orpheus on it, and after he himself had invented the cithara, he gave the lyre to Orpheus.
Some also have said that Venus and Proserpina came to Jove for his decision, asking him to which of them he would grant Adonis. Calliope, the judge appointed by Jove, decided that each should posses him half of the year. But Venus, angry because she had not been granted what she thought was her right, stirred the women in Thrace by love, each to seek Orpheus for herself, so that they tore him limb from limb. His head, carried down from the mountain into the sea, was cast by the waves upon the island of Lesbos. It was taken up and buried by the people of Lesbos, and in return for this kindness, they have the reputation of being exceedingly skilled in the art of music. The lyre, as we have said, was put by the Muses among the stars.
Some say that because Orpheus first favored love for youths, he seemed to insult women, and for this reason they killed him.
II.8 SWAN
The sign the Greeks call the Swan, but others, out of ignorance of the story, have called it ornis, the general term for bird. This reason for the name has been handed down: When Jupiter, moved by desire, had begun to love Nemesis, and couldn’t persuade her to lie with him, he relieved his passion by the following plan.
He bade Venus, in the form of an eagle, pursue him; he, changed to a swan, as if in flight from the eagle, took refuge with Nemesis and lighted in her lap. Nemesis did not thrust him away, but holding him in her arms, fell into a deep sleep.
While she slept, Jupiter embraced her, and then flew away. Because he was seen by men flying high in the sky, they said he was put in the stars. To make this really true, Jupiter put the swan flying and the eagle pursuing in the sky.
But Nemesis, as if wedded to the tribe of birds, when her months were ended, bore an egg. Mercury took it away and carried it to Sparta and threw it in Leda’s lap. From it sprang Helen, who excelled all other girls in beauty. Leda called her her own daughter. Others say that Jove, in the form of a swan, lay with Leda. We shall leave the matter undecided.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusAstronomica.html#5
Corona Borealis, Hercules, Lyra & Cygnus, from Hyginus' Astronomica.
Last time we heard how Theseus dove into the sea and was given a golden crown. Many constellations have a mythic origins, including that very crown.
Just above and to the left of Boötes is an arc of bright stars, here called The Crown, or Corona Borealis. This is Ariadne's Crown, though just how she got it is in dispute. Perhaps Liber, also known as Dionysus, gave it to her on Naxos or Crete. One story is that Liber received it from Venus, and when he went to the underworld to rescue his mother, he left it at the entrance and used its glow to find his way back.
The most common story is that she was given that crown by Theseus. When sailing to Crete with the tribute of boys and girls, King Minos lusted after the maid Eriboea. Theseus stopped him, so Minos dared him to get a ring he tossed overboard. Jumping in, Theseus was taken by the dolphins to the Nereids. There he received the crown from Thetis, wife of Peleus; or from Amphitrite, wife of Neptune. Either way, the crown was placed in the stars by Liber.
To the left of Ursa Major, Boötes, and Corona Borealis is The Kneeler, known to us as Hercules. Or perhaps it is Theseus, lifting the boulder that hides his father's sword and sandals.
Nearby is the constellation Lyra. This is the same instrument that was played by Orpheus, the famous musician and Argonaut. His wife was bitten by a snake and died, so he went to the underworld to retrieve her- but failed. Heartbroken, he would love no other woman; so Thracian women or priestesses of Bacchus tore him to pieces.
Beside Lyra is Cygnus the Swan, the northern cross. Jupiter, in the form of a swan, fathered Helen of Troy, whom Theseus would later abduct. Here, Helen's mother is given to be Nemesis, goddess of retribution; and merely raised by Leda, daughter of Thestius and Queen of Sparta.
Next time we shall hear more of Ariadne, she who would have been Queen of Athens.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusAstronomica.html#5
The Stars of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from Hyginus' Astronomica,
translated by Mary Grant.
II.5 CROWN
This is thought to be Ariadne’s crown, placed by Father Liber among the constellations. For they say that when Ariadne wed Liber on the island of Dia, and all the gods gave her wedding gifts, she first received this crown as a gift from Venus and the Hours. But, as the author of the Cretica says, at the time when Liber came to Minos with the hope of lying with Ariadne, he gave her this crown as a present. Delighted with it, she did not refuse the terms. It is said, too, to have been made of gold and Indian gems, and by its aid Theseus is thought to have come from the gloom of the labyrinth to the day, for the gold and gems made a glow of light in the darkness.
But those who wrote the Argolica give the following reason. When Liber received permission from his father to bring back his mother Semele from the Lower World, and in seeking a place of descent had come to the land of the Argives, a certain Hyplipnus met him, a man worthy of that generation, who was to show the entrance to Liber in answer to his request. However, when Hypolipnus saw him, a mere boy in years, excelling all others in remarkable beauty of form, he asked from him the reward that could be given without loss. Liber, however, eager for his mother, swore that if he brought her back, he would do as he wished, on terms, though, that a god could swear to a shameless man. At this, Hypolipnus showed the entrance. So then, when Liber came to that place and was about to descend, he left the crown, which he had received as a gift from Venus, at that place which in consequence is called Stephanos, for he was unwilling to take it with him for fear the immortal gift of the gods would be contaminated by contact with the dead. When he brought his mother back unharmed, he is said to have placed the crown in the stars as an everlasting memorial.
Others say that this is the crown of Theseus, and for the following reason placed near him, for the constellation called the Kneeler is thought to be Theseus. We shall speak later about him. It is said that when Theseus came to Crete to Minos with seven maidens and six youths, Minos, inflamed by the beauty of one of the maidens, Eriboea by name, wished to lie with her. Theseus, as was fitting for a son of Neptune, and one able to strive against a tyrant for a girl’s safety, refused to allow this. So when the dispute became one not about the girl but about the parentage of Theseus, whether he was the son of Neptune or not, Minos is said to have drawn a gold ring from his finger and cast it into the sea. He bade Theseus bring it back, if he wanted him to believe he was a son of Neptune; as for himself, he could easily show he was a son of Jove. So, invoking his father, he asked for some sign to prove he was his son, and straightway thunder and lightning gave token of assent. For a similar reason, Theseus, without any invoking of his father or obligation of an oath, cast himself into the sea. And at once a great swarm of dolphins, tumbling forward over the sea, led him through gently swelling waves to the Nereids. From them he brought back the ring of Minos and a crown, bright with many gems, from Thetis, which she had received at her wedding as a gift from Venus. Others say that the crown came from the wife of Neptune, and Theseus is said to have given it to Ariadne as a gift, when on account of his valor and courage she was given to him in marriage. After Ariadne’s death, Liber placed it among the constellations.
II.6 THE KNEELER
Eratosthenes says he is Hercules, placed above the dragon we have already mentioned, and prepared to fight, with his left hand holding his lion skin, and his right the club. He is trying to kill the dragon of the Hesperides, which, it is thought, never was overcome by sleep or closed its eyes, thus offering more proof it was placed there as a guard. Panyassis in the Heraclea says of the sign that Jupiter, in admiration of their struggle, placed it among the stars; for the dragon has its head erect, and Hercules, resting on his right knee, tires to crush the right side of its head with his left foot. His right hand is up and striking, his left extended with the lion skin, and he appears to be fighting with all his strength. Although Aratus says no one can prove who he is, nevertheless we shall try to show that we can say something reasonable.
Araethus, as we said before, calls this figure Ceteus, son of Lycaon, and father of Megisto. He seems to be lamenting the change of his daughter to bear form, kneeling on one knee, and holding up outstretched hands to heaven, asking for the gods to restore her to him.
Hegesianax, however, says that he is Theseus, who seems to be lifting the stone at Troezene. Aegeus is thought to have put [sandals] and a sword under it, and warned Aethra, the mother, not to send him to Athens until he could lift the stone by his own strength and bring the sword to his father. And so he seems to try to lift the stone as high as he can. In this connection, too, some have said that the Lyre, placed nearest this sign, is the lyre of Theseus, for he was skilful in all the arts and seems to have learned the lyre as well. This, too, Anacreon says: Near Theseus, son of Aegeus, is the Lyre.
Others call him Thamyris, blinded by the Muses, kneeling as a suppliant; others, Orpheus, killed by the Thacian women because he looked on the rites of Father Liber.
But Aeschylus, in the play entitled Prometheus lyomenos, says that he is Hercules, fighting not with the dragon, but with the Ligurians. For he says that at the time Hercules was driving away the cattle of Geryon, he journeyed through the territory of the Ligurians. They joined forces in trying to take the herd from him, and pierced many of the beasts [?] with arrows. But after Hercules’ weapons failed, worn out by the number of the barbarians and lack of arms, he fell to his knees, already suffering from many wounds. Jove, however, out of pity for his son, provided that there should be a great supply of stones around him. With these Hercules defended himself and put the enemy to flight. And so Jove put he image of his fighting form among the constellations.
Again, some have said that he is Ixion with his arms bound, because he tried to attack Juno. Others say he is Prometheus, bound on Mt. Caucasus.
II.7 LYRE
The Lyre was put among the constellations for the following reason, as Eratosthenes says. Made at first by Mercury from a tortoise shell, it was given to Orpheus, son of Calliope and Oeagrus, who was passionately devoted to music. It is thought that by his skill he could charm even wild beasts to listen.
When, grieving for his wife Eurydice, he descended to the Lower World, he praised the children of the gods in his song, all except Father Liber; him he overlooked and forgot, as Oeneus did Diana in sacrifice. Afterwards, then, when Orpheus was taking delight in song, seated, as many say, on Mt. Olympus, which separates Macedonia from Thrace, or on Pangaeum, as Eratosthenes says, Liber is said to have roused the Bacchanals against him. They slew him and dismembered his body. But others say that this happened because he had looked on the rites of Liber. The Muses gathered the scattered limbs and gave them burial, and as the greatest favour they could confer, they put as a memorial his lyre, pictured with stars, among the constellations. Apollo and Jove consented, for Orpheus had praised Apollo highly, and Jupiter granted this favour to his daughter.
Others say that when Mercury first made the lyre on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, he made it with seven strings to correspond to the number of Atlantides, since Maia, his mother, was of their company. Later, when he had driven away the cattle of Apollo and had been caught in the act, to win pardon more easily, at Apollo’s request he gave him permission to claim the invention of the lyre, and received from him a certain staff as reward. When Mercury, holding it in his hand, was journeying to Arcadia and saw two snakes with bodies intertwined, apparently fighting, he put down the staff between them. They separated then, and so he said that the staff had been appointed to bring peace. Some, in making caducei, put two snakes intertwined on the rod, because this seemed to Mercury a bringer of peace. Following his example, they use the staff in athletic contests and other contests of this kind.
But to return to the subject at hand. Apollo took the lyre, and is said to have taught Orpheus on it, and after he himself had invented the cithara, he gave the lyre to Orpheus.
Some also have said that Venus and Proserpina came to Jove for his decision, asking him to which of them he would grant Adonis. Calliope, the judge appointed by Jove, decided that each should posses him half of the year. But Venus, angry because she had not been granted what she thought was her right, stirred the women in Thrace by love, each to seek Orpheus for herself, so that they tore him limb from limb. His head, carried down from the mountain into the sea, was cast by the waves upon the island of Lesbos. It was taken up and buried by the people of Lesbos, and in return for this kindness, they have the reputation of being exceedingly skilled in the art of music. The lyre, as we have said, was put by the Muses among the stars.
Some say that because Orpheus first favored love for youths, he seemed to insult women, and for this reason they killed him.
II.8 SWAN
The sign the Greeks call the Swan, but others, out of ignorance of the story, have called it ornis, the general term for bird. This reason for the name has been handed down: When Jupiter, moved by desire, had begun to love Nemesis, and couldn’t persuade her to lie with him, he relieved his passion by the following plan.
He bade Venus, in the form of an eagle, pursue him; he, changed to a swan, as if in flight from the eagle, took refuge with Nemesis and lighted in her lap. Nemesis did not thrust him away, but holding him in her arms, fell into a deep sleep.
While she slept, Jupiter embraced her, and then flew away. Because he was seen by men flying high in the sky, they said he was put in the stars. To make this really true, Jupiter put the swan flying and the eagle pursuing in the sky.
But Nemesis, as if wedded to the tribe of birds, when her months were ended, bore an egg. Mercury took it away and carried it to Sparta and threw it in Leda’s lap. From it sprang Helen, who excelled all other girls in beauty. Leda called her her own daughter. Others say that Jove, in the form of a swan, lay with Leda. We shall leave the matter undecided.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusAstronomica.html#5
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
LP0039 - The Odes of Athens - Athenian Youths and Maidens, from The Odes of Bacchylides
Legendary Passages #0039 - The Odes of Athens -
Athenian youths & maidens, from The Odes of Bacchylides.
Last time we heard briefly how Theseus got the Crown of Amphitrite. This time we expand on that story, how Aegeus first hears of his son, and a fragment of the story of Io.
The first Ode begins as the ship carrying the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens was on its way to Crete. King Minos desires the young Eriboea, daughter of Alcathous, but she rejects him loudly. Theseus confronts the King, who mocks the boy's parentage and challenges him to retrieve a gold ring he drops overboard. Theseus dives in, and dolphins take him to the Halls of the Nerieds, and he meets the goddess Amphitrite, who gives him purple robes and a rosy crown. Theseus returns to the ship, with ring and godly gifts, and the youths cheer him on.
The second Ode is more like a classic Greek play, with a chorus and King Aegeus talking to each other about rumors of young Theseus heading for Athens. First the chorus asks why King Aegeus is preparing for an enemy. Aegeus heard from a herald who said a man of might approaches, and recounted his deeds. The chorus is intrigued, and asks if he leads an army. No, says the King, only two others, describes his weapons and his looks, and notes that the warrior is on his way there.
The last Ode is a fragment entitled Io, for the maiden who was loved by Zeus and turned into a cow. She was held prisoner by Argus Panoptes, a giant with a hundred eyes, the perfect watchman. Zeus sent Hermes, messenger of the gods, to kill the watcher and free the maiden. Io eventually comes to Egypt, and gave birth to Epaphus, father of Libya, father of Agenor, father of Cadmus and Europa. From Cacmus came Semele, mother of Dionysus, and here the fragment ends, the ending lost to history.
Next time we shall hear still more of Ariadne's Crown, and the other Stars of Athens.
https://archive.org/stream/bacchylidespoems00bacciala/bacchylidespoems00bacciala_djvu.txt
The Odes of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Odes of Bacchylides,
translated by Sir Richard C. Jebb.
Ode XVI. [XVII.]
Theseus, Or the Athenian Youths and Maidens.
A dark-prowed ship was cleaving the Cretan sea, bearing
Theseus, steadfast in the battle din, with seven goodly youths
and seven maidens of Athens; for northern breezes fell on
the far-gleaming sail, by grace of glorious Athena with warlike
Aegis.
And the heart of Minos was stung by the baneful gifts of
the Cyprian goddess with lovely diadem; he could no longer
restrain his hand from a maiden, but touched her fair cheeks.
Then Eriboca cried aloud to Pandio's grandson with breastplate
of bronze; Theseus saw, and wildly rolled his dark eyes beneath
his brows, and cruel pain pricked his heart as he spake:-
'O son of peerles Zeus, the spirit in they breast no longer
obeys righteous control; withhold, hero, thy presumptuous force.
'Whatever the restless doom given by the gods has decreed
for us, and the scale of Justice inclines to ordain, that appointed
fate we will fulfill when it comes. But do thou forgear thy
grievous purpose. If the noble daughter of Phoenix, the maiden
of gracious fame, taken to the bed of Zeus beneath the brow
of Ida, bare thee, peerless among men;
yet I, too, was borne by the daughter of wealthy Pittheus, in
wedlock with the sea-god Poseidon, and the violet-crowned
Nereids gave her a golden veil.
'Therefore, O war-lord of Cnosus, I bid thee restrain thy
wantonness, fraught with woe; for I should not care to look
on the fair light of divine Eos, after thou hadst done violence
to one of this youthful company: before that, we will come
to a trial of strength, and Destiny shall decide the sequel.'
Thus far the hero valiant with the spear: but the seafarers
were amazed at the youth's lofty boldness; and he whose bride
was daughter of the Sun-god felt anger at his heart; he wove
a new device in his mind, and said: —
'O Zeus, my sire of great might, hear me! If the white-armed
daughter of Phoenix indeed bare me to thee, now send forth from
heaven a swift flash of streaming fire, a sign for all to know.
And thou, if Troezenian Aethra was thy mother by earth-shaking
Poseidon, cast thyself boldly down to the abode of thy sire,
and bring from the deep this ring of gold that glitters on my
hand. But thou shalt see whether my prayer is heard
by the son of Cronus, the all-ruling lord of thunder.'
Mighty Zeus heard the unmeasured prayer, and ordained a
surpassing honour for Minos, willing to make it seen of all men,
for the sake of his well-loved son. He sent the lightning. But
the steadfast warrior, when he saw that welcome portent, stretched
his hands towards the glorious ether, and said:
'Theseus, there thou beholdest the clear sign given by Zeus.
And now do thou spring into the deep-sounding sea; and the
son of Cronus, king Poseidon, thy sire, will assure thee supreme
renown throughout the well-wooded earth.'
So spake he : and the spirit of Theseus recoiled not;
he took his place on the well-built stern, and sprang thence,
and the domain of the deep received him in kindness.
The son of Zeus felt a secret awe in his heart, and gave
command to keep the cunningly-wrought ship before the wind;
but Fate was preparing a different issue.
So the bark sped fast on its journey, and the northern breeze,
blowing astern, urged it forward. But all the Athenian youths and
maidens shuddered when the hero sprang into the deep; and
tears fell from their bright young eyes, in prospect of their
grievous doom.
Meanwhile dolphins, dwellers in the sea, were swiftly bearing
mighty Theseus to the abode of his sire, lord of steeds; and he
came unto the hall of the gods. There beheld he the glorious
daughters of blest Nereus, and was awe-struck; for a splendour
as of fire shone from their radiant forms; fillets inwoven with
gold encircled their hair; and they were delighting their hearts
by dancing with lissom feet
And in that beautiful abode he saw his father's well-loved
wife, the stately, ox-eyed Amphitrite; who clad him in gleaming purple,
and set on his thick hair a choice wreath, dark with roses, given
to her of yore at her marriage by wily Aphrodite.
Nothing that the gods may ordain is past belief to men of a
sound mind. Theseus appeared by the ship with slender stern.
Ah, in what thoughts did he check the war-lord of Cnosus,
when he came unwetted from the sea, a wonder to all, his form
resplendent with the gifts of the gods! The bright-throned
Nereids cried aloud with new-born gladness;
the deep resounded ; while the youths and maidens hard by
raised a paean with their lovely voices.
God of Delos, may the choruses of the Ceans be pleasing to
thy soul; and mayest thou give us blessings for our portion,
wafted by thy power divine!
XVII. [XVIII.]
Theseus.
Chorus.
King of sacred Athens, lord of the delicately
living lonians, why has the trumpet lately sounded a war-note
from its bell of bronze?
Is the leader of a hostile army besetting the borders of our
land? Or are robbers, devisers of evil, driving off our flocks of
sheep perforce, in despite of the shepherds? Or what is the
care that gnaws thy heart? Speak; for thou, methinks, if any
mortal, hast the aid of valiant youth at hand, O son of Pandion
and Creusa.
Aegeus.
A herald has lately come, whose feet have traversed
the long road from the Isthmus ; and he tells of prodigious deeds
by a man of might.
That man has slain the tremendous Sinis, who was foremost
of mortals in strength, offspring of the Earth-shaker, the Lytaean
son of Cronus. He has laid low the man-killing sow in Crem-
myon's woods, and the wicked Sciron.
He has closed the wrestling-school of Cercyon. The mighty
hammer of Polypemon has dropped from the hand of the
Maimer, who has met with a stronger than himself I fear how
these things are to end.
Ch.
And who and whence is this man said to be, and how
equipped? Is he leading a great host in warlike array? Or
travelling with his servants only, like a wayfarer who wanders
forth to a strange folk, — this man so vigorous, so valiant, and so
bold, who has quelled the stubborn strength of such foes ? Verily
a god is speeding him, so that he shall bring a rightful doom on
the unrighteous ; for it is not easy to achieve deed after deed
without chancing upon evil.
In the long course of time all things find their end.
Aeg.
Only two men attend him, says the herald. He
has a sword, with ivory hilt, slung from his bright shoulders : he
carries in his hands a couple of polished javelins; a well-wrought
Laconian bonnet covers his ruddy locks ; around his breast he
wears a purple tunic and a thick Thessalian mantle. A fiery
light, as of the Lemnian flame, flashes from his eyes: a youth
he is in earliest manhood, intent on the pastimes of Ares,
-on warfare and the clangour of battle; and he seeks brilliant Athens.
VIII. [XIX.]
Io. (For the Athenians.)
A thousand paths of poesy divine are open to him who has
received gifts from the Muses of Pieria, and whose songs have
been clothed with worship by the dark-eyed Graces who bring
the wreath.
Weave, then, some glorious lay in Athens, the lovely and the
blest, thou Cean fantasy of fair renown. A choice strain should
be thine, since Calliope has given thee a meed of signal honour.
There was a time when, by the counsels of wide-ruling Zeus
most high, the heifer precious in his sight, — the rosy-fingered
maid born to Inachus, — was flying from Argos nurse of steeds:
when Argus, looking every way with tireless eyes, had been
charged by the great queen, Hera of golden robe, to keep
unresting, sleepless ward o'er that creature with the goodly horns.
Nor could Maia's son elude him in the sun-lit days or in the holy
nights.
Did it befall then that the
swift messenger of Zeus slew huge Argus, Earth's fierce offspring,
[in combat]? Or did the watcher's unending cares [close his dread
eyes;] or was he lulled to rest from weary troubles by the sweet
melody of the Pierian sisters?
For me, at least, the surest path of song [is that which leads
me to the end]; when lo, driven by the gadfly, reached the flowery
banks of Nile, bearing in her womb Epaphus, child of Zeus.
There she brought him forth, to be glorious lord of the linen-
robed folk, a prince flourishing in transcendent honour; and
there she founded the mightiest race among men. From that
race sprang Cadmus, son of Agenor, who in Thebes of the seven
gates became father of Semele. And her son was Dionysus,
inspirer of Bacchants, [king of joyous revels] and of choruses
that wear the wreath...
https://archive.org/stream/bacchylidespoems00bacciala/bacchylidespoems00bacciala_djvu.txt
Athenian youths & maidens, from The Odes of Bacchylides.
Last time we heard briefly how Theseus got the Crown of Amphitrite. This time we expand on that story, how Aegeus first hears of his son, and a fragment of the story of Io.
The first Ode begins as the ship carrying the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens was on its way to Crete. King Minos desires the young Eriboea, daughter of Alcathous, but she rejects him loudly. Theseus confronts the King, who mocks the boy's parentage and challenges him to retrieve a gold ring he drops overboard. Theseus dives in, and dolphins take him to the Halls of the Nerieds, and he meets the goddess Amphitrite, who gives him purple robes and a rosy crown. Theseus returns to the ship, with ring and godly gifts, and the youths cheer him on.
The second Ode is more like a classic Greek play, with a chorus and King Aegeus talking to each other about rumors of young Theseus heading for Athens. First the chorus asks why King Aegeus is preparing for an enemy. Aegeus heard from a herald who said a man of might approaches, and recounted his deeds. The chorus is intrigued, and asks if he leads an army. No, says the King, only two others, describes his weapons and his looks, and notes that the warrior is on his way there.
The last Ode is a fragment entitled Io, for the maiden who was loved by Zeus and turned into a cow. She was held prisoner by Argus Panoptes, a giant with a hundred eyes, the perfect watchman. Zeus sent Hermes, messenger of the gods, to kill the watcher and free the maiden. Io eventually comes to Egypt, and gave birth to Epaphus, father of Libya, father of Agenor, father of Cadmus and Europa. From Cacmus came Semele, mother of Dionysus, and here the fragment ends, the ending lost to history.
Next time we shall hear still more of Ariadne's Crown, and the other Stars of Athens.
https://archive.org/stream/bacchylidespoems00bacciala/bacchylidespoems00bacciala_djvu.txt
The Odes of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Odes of Bacchylides,
translated by Sir Richard C. Jebb.
Ode XVI. [XVII.]
Theseus, Or the Athenian Youths and Maidens.
A dark-prowed ship was cleaving the Cretan sea, bearing
Theseus, steadfast in the battle din, with seven goodly youths
and seven maidens of Athens; for northern breezes fell on
the far-gleaming sail, by grace of glorious Athena with warlike
Aegis.
And the heart of Minos was stung by the baneful gifts of
the Cyprian goddess with lovely diadem; he could no longer
restrain his hand from a maiden, but touched her fair cheeks.
Then Eriboca cried aloud to Pandio's grandson with breastplate
of bronze; Theseus saw, and wildly rolled his dark eyes beneath
his brows, and cruel pain pricked his heart as he spake:-
'O son of peerles Zeus, the spirit in they breast no longer
obeys righteous control; withhold, hero, thy presumptuous force.
'Whatever the restless doom given by the gods has decreed
for us, and the scale of Justice inclines to ordain, that appointed
fate we will fulfill when it comes. But do thou forgear thy
grievous purpose. If the noble daughter of Phoenix, the maiden
of gracious fame, taken to the bed of Zeus beneath the brow
of Ida, bare thee, peerless among men;
yet I, too, was borne by the daughter of wealthy Pittheus, in
wedlock with the sea-god Poseidon, and the violet-crowned
Nereids gave her a golden veil.
'Therefore, O war-lord of Cnosus, I bid thee restrain thy
wantonness, fraught with woe; for I should not care to look
on the fair light of divine Eos, after thou hadst done violence
to one of this youthful company: before that, we will come
to a trial of strength, and Destiny shall decide the sequel.'
Thus far the hero valiant with the spear: but the seafarers
were amazed at the youth's lofty boldness; and he whose bride
was daughter of the Sun-god felt anger at his heart; he wove
a new device in his mind, and said: —
'O Zeus, my sire of great might, hear me! If the white-armed
daughter of Phoenix indeed bare me to thee, now send forth from
heaven a swift flash of streaming fire, a sign for all to know.
And thou, if Troezenian Aethra was thy mother by earth-shaking
Poseidon, cast thyself boldly down to the abode of thy sire,
and bring from the deep this ring of gold that glitters on my
hand. But thou shalt see whether my prayer is heard
by the son of Cronus, the all-ruling lord of thunder.'
Mighty Zeus heard the unmeasured prayer, and ordained a
surpassing honour for Minos, willing to make it seen of all men,
for the sake of his well-loved son. He sent the lightning. But
the steadfast warrior, when he saw that welcome portent, stretched
his hands towards the glorious ether, and said:
'Theseus, there thou beholdest the clear sign given by Zeus.
And now do thou spring into the deep-sounding sea; and the
son of Cronus, king Poseidon, thy sire, will assure thee supreme
renown throughout the well-wooded earth.'
So spake he : and the spirit of Theseus recoiled not;
he took his place on the well-built stern, and sprang thence,
and the domain of the deep received him in kindness.
The son of Zeus felt a secret awe in his heart, and gave
command to keep the cunningly-wrought ship before the wind;
but Fate was preparing a different issue.
So the bark sped fast on its journey, and the northern breeze,
blowing astern, urged it forward. But all the Athenian youths and
maidens shuddered when the hero sprang into the deep; and
tears fell from their bright young eyes, in prospect of their
grievous doom.
Meanwhile dolphins, dwellers in the sea, were swiftly bearing
mighty Theseus to the abode of his sire, lord of steeds; and he
came unto the hall of the gods. There beheld he the glorious
daughters of blest Nereus, and was awe-struck; for a splendour
as of fire shone from their radiant forms; fillets inwoven with
gold encircled their hair; and they were delighting their hearts
by dancing with lissom feet
And in that beautiful abode he saw his father's well-loved
wife, the stately, ox-eyed Amphitrite; who clad him in gleaming purple,
and set on his thick hair a choice wreath, dark with roses, given
to her of yore at her marriage by wily Aphrodite.
Nothing that the gods may ordain is past belief to men of a
sound mind. Theseus appeared by the ship with slender stern.
Ah, in what thoughts did he check the war-lord of Cnosus,
when he came unwetted from the sea, a wonder to all, his form
resplendent with the gifts of the gods! The bright-throned
Nereids cried aloud with new-born gladness;
the deep resounded ; while the youths and maidens hard by
raised a paean with their lovely voices.
God of Delos, may the choruses of the Ceans be pleasing to
thy soul; and mayest thou give us blessings for our portion,
wafted by thy power divine!
XVII. [XVIII.]
Theseus.
Chorus.
King of sacred Athens, lord of the delicately
living lonians, why has the trumpet lately sounded a war-note
from its bell of bronze?
Is the leader of a hostile army besetting the borders of our
land? Or are robbers, devisers of evil, driving off our flocks of
sheep perforce, in despite of the shepherds? Or what is the
care that gnaws thy heart? Speak; for thou, methinks, if any
mortal, hast the aid of valiant youth at hand, O son of Pandion
and Creusa.
Aegeus.
A herald has lately come, whose feet have traversed
the long road from the Isthmus ; and he tells of prodigious deeds
by a man of might.
That man has slain the tremendous Sinis, who was foremost
of mortals in strength, offspring of the Earth-shaker, the Lytaean
son of Cronus. He has laid low the man-killing sow in Crem-
myon's woods, and the wicked Sciron.
He has closed the wrestling-school of Cercyon. The mighty
hammer of Polypemon has dropped from the hand of the
Maimer, who has met with a stronger than himself I fear how
these things are to end.
Ch.
And who and whence is this man said to be, and how
equipped? Is he leading a great host in warlike array? Or
travelling with his servants only, like a wayfarer who wanders
forth to a strange folk, — this man so vigorous, so valiant, and so
bold, who has quelled the stubborn strength of such foes ? Verily
a god is speeding him, so that he shall bring a rightful doom on
the unrighteous ; for it is not easy to achieve deed after deed
without chancing upon evil.
In the long course of time all things find their end.
Aeg.
Only two men attend him, says the herald. He
has a sword, with ivory hilt, slung from his bright shoulders : he
carries in his hands a couple of polished javelins; a well-wrought
Laconian bonnet covers his ruddy locks ; around his breast he
wears a purple tunic and a thick Thessalian mantle. A fiery
light, as of the Lemnian flame, flashes from his eyes: a youth
he is in earliest manhood, intent on the pastimes of Ares,
-on warfare and the clangour of battle; and he seeks brilliant Athens.
VIII. [XIX.]
Io. (For the Athenians.)
A thousand paths of poesy divine are open to him who has
received gifts from the Muses of Pieria, and whose songs have
been clothed with worship by the dark-eyed Graces who bring
the wreath.
Weave, then, some glorious lay in Athens, the lovely and the
blest, thou Cean fantasy of fair renown. A choice strain should
be thine, since Calliope has given thee a meed of signal honour.
There was a time when, by the counsels of wide-ruling Zeus
most high, the heifer precious in his sight, — the rosy-fingered
maid born to Inachus, — was flying from Argos nurse of steeds:
when Argus, looking every way with tireless eyes, had been
charged by the great queen, Hera of golden robe, to keep
unresting, sleepless ward o'er that creature with the goodly horns.
Nor could Maia's son elude him in the sun-lit days or in the holy
nights.
Did it befall then that the
swift messenger of Zeus slew huge Argus, Earth's fierce offspring,
[in combat]? Or did the watcher's unending cares [close his dread
eyes;] or was he lulled to rest from weary troubles by the sweet
melody of the Pierian sisters?
For me, at least, the surest path of song [is that which leads
me to the end]; when lo, driven by the gadfly, reached the flowery
banks of Nile, bearing in her womb Epaphus, child of Zeus.
There she brought him forth, to be glorious lord of the linen-
robed folk, a prince flourishing in transcendent honour; and
there she founded the mightiest race among men. From that
race sprang Cadmus, son of Agenor, who in Thebes of the seven
gates became father of Semele. And her son was Dionysus,
inspirer of Bacchants, [king of joyous revels] and of choruses
that wear the wreath...
https://archive.org/stream/bacchylidespoems00bacciala/bacchylidespoems00bacciala_djvu.txt
Thursday, September 3, 2015
LP0038 - Descriptions of Athens - The Sanctuary of Theseus from Pausanias' Description of Greece
Legendary Passages #0038 - Descriptions of Athens -
The Sanctuary of Theseus from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
Last time we heard about the founding of city of Athens, and many of its early kings. This time we get a tour of Athens and its many temples and sanctuaries.
First is the Odeum of Athens and the Fountain of Nine Jets. Nearby is a statue of Triptolemus, the first to plant and grow crops. There are many shrines and monuments honoring those who fought against the Persians. A portico has depictions of battles fought with Spartans, and on the next wall Heracles and Theseus fighting with Amazons. Then the author gives a short history of Selucus of Antioch, a General under Alexander the Great.
Lastly, near the market-place and Ptolemy's Gymnasium is the Sancutary of Theseus. The first painting is the battle of Centaurs and the Laphiths, in which Theseus took part. Next is the Ship of Theseus sailing for Crete, where Minos challenged Theseus to retrieve a ring thrown overboard. Then Theseus and his friend are held prisoner in Theresprotia; or Hades, according to mythic sources. Theseus is killed by Lycomedes, but is avenged at long last and his bones returned to Athens.
Next time we shall hear more of the Crown of Amphitrite in the Odes of Athens.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias1A.html
Descriptions of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[1.14.1] - [1.17.6]
When you have entered the Odeum at Athens you meet, among other objects, a figure of Dionysus worth seeing. Hard by is a spring called Enneacrunos (Nine Jets), embellished as you see it by Peisistratus. There are cisterns all over the city, but this is the only fountain. Above the spring are two temples, one to Demeter and the Maid, while in that of Triptolemus is a statue of him. The accounts given of Triptolemus I shall write, omitting from the story as much as relates to Deiope.
The Greeks who dispute most the Athenian claim to antiquity and the gifts they say they have received from the gods are the Argives, just as among those who are not Greeks the Egyptians compete with the Phrygians. It is said, then, that when Demeter came to Argos she was received by Pelasgus into his home, and that Chrysanthis, knowing about the rape of the Maid, related the story to her. Afterwards Trochilus, the priest of the mysteries, fled, they say, from Argos because of the enmity of Agenor, came to Attica and married a woman of Eleusis, by whom he had two children, Eubuleus and Triptolemus. That is the account given by the Argives. But the Athenians and those who with them . . . know that Triptolemus, son of Celeus, was the first to sow seed for cultivation.
Some extant verses of Musaeus, if indeed they are to be included among his works, say that Triptolemus was the son of Oceanus and Earth; while those ascribed to Orpheus (though in my opinion the received authorship is again incorrect) say that Eubuleus and Triptolemus were sons of Dysaules, and that because they gave Demeter information about her daughter the sowing of seed was her reward to them. But Choerilus, an Athenian, who wrote a play called Alope, says that Cercyon and Triptolemus were brothers, that their mother was the daughter of Amphictyon, while the father of Triptolemus was Rarus, of Cercyon, Poseidon. After I had intended to go further into this story, and to describe the contents of the sanctuary at Athens, called the Eleusinium, I was stayed by a vision in a dream. I shall therefore turn to those things it is lawful to write of to all men.
In front of this temple, where is also the statue of Triptolemus, is a bronze bull being led as it were to sacrifice, and there is a sitting figure of Epimenides of Cnossus, who they say entered a cave in the country and slept. And the sleep did not leave him before the fortieth year, and afterwards he wrote verses and purified Athens and other cities. But Thales who stayed the plague for the Lacedaemonians was not related to Epimenides in any way, and belonged to a different city. The latter was from Cnossus, but Thales was from Gortyn, according to Polymnastus of Colophon, who com posed a poem about him for the Lacedaemonians.
Still farther of is a temple to Glory, this too being a thank-offering for the victory over the Persians, who had landed at Marathon. This is the victory of which I am of opinion the Athenians were proudest; while Aeschylus, who had won such renown for his poetry and for his share in the naval battles before Artemisium and at Salamis, recorded at the prospect of death nothing else, and merely wrote his name, his father's name, and the name of his city, and added that he had witnesses to his valor in the grove at Marathon and in the Persians who landed there.
Above the Cerameicus and the portico called the King's Portico is a temple of Hephaestus. I was not surprised that by it stands a statue of Athena, be cause I knew the story about Erichthonius. But when I saw that the statue of Athena had blue eyes I found out that the legend about them is Libyan. For the Libyans have a saying that the Goddess is the daughter of Poseidon and Lake Tritonis, and for this reason has blue eyes like Poseidon.
Hard by is a sanctuary of the Heavenly Aphrodite; the first men to establish her cult were the Assyrians, after the Assyrians the Paphians of Cyprus and the Phoenicians who live at Ascalon in Palestine; the Phoenicians taught her worship to the people of Cythera. Among the Athenians the cult was established by Aegeus, who thought that he was childless (he had, in fact, no children at the time) and that his sisters had suffered their misfortune because of the wrath of Heavenly Aphrodite. The statue still extant is of Parian marble and is the work of Pheidias. One of the Athenian parishes is that of the Athmoneis, who say that Porphyrion, an earlier king than Actaeus, founded their sanctuary of the Heavenly One. But the traditions current among the Parishes often differ altogether from those of the city.
-
As you go to the portico which they call painted, because of its pictures, there is a bronze statue of Hermes of the Market-place, and near it a gate. On it is a trophy erected by the Athenians, who in a cavalry action overcame Pleistarchus, to whose command his brother Cassander had entrusted his cavalry and mercenaries. This portico contains, first, the Athenians arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Oenoe in the Argive territory. What is depicted is not the crisis of the battle nor when the action had advanced as far as the display of deeds of valor, but the beginning of the fight when the combatants were about to close.
On the middle wall are the Athenians and Theseus fighting with the Amazons. So, it seems, only the women did not lose through their defeats their reckless courage in the face of danger; Themiscyra was taken by Heracles, and afterwards the army which they dispatched to Athens was destroyed, but nevertheless they came to Troy to fight all the Greeks as well as the Athenians them selves. After the Amazons come the Greeks when they have taken Troy, and the kings assembled on account of the outrage committed by Ajax against Cassandra. The picture includes Ajax himself, Cassandra and other captive women.
At the end of the painting are those who fought at Marathon; the Boeotians of Plataea and the Attic contingent are coming to blows with the foreigners. In this place neither side has the better, but the center of the fighting shows the foreigners in flight and pushing one another into the morass, while at the end of the painting are the Phoenician ships, and the Greeks killing the foreigners who are scrambling into them. Here is also a portrait of the hero Marathon, after whom the plain is named, of Theseus represented as coming up from the under-world, of Athena and of Heracles. The Marathonians, according to their own account, were the first to regard Heracles as a god. Of the fighters the most conspicuous figures in the painting are Callimachus, who had been elected commander-in-chief by the Athenians, Miltiades, one of the generals, and a hero called Echetlus, of whom I shall make mention later.
Here are dedicated brazen shields, and some have an inscription that they are taken from the Scioneans and their allies, while others, smeared with pitch lest they should be worn by age and rust, are said to be those of the Lacedaemonians who were taken prisoners in the island of Sphacteria.
Here are placed bronze statues, one, in front of the portico, of Solon, who composed the laws for the Athenians, and, a little farther away, one of Seleucus, whose future prosperity was foreshadowed by unmistakable signs. When he was about to set forth from Macedonia with Alexander, and was sacrificing at Pella to Zeus, the wood that lay on the altar advanced of its own accord to the image and caught fire without the application of a light.
SELEUCUS OF ANTIOCH, HISTORY
On the death of Alexander, Seleucus, in fear of Antigonus, who had arrived at Babylon, fled to Ptolemy, son of Lagus, and then returned again to Babylon. On his return he overcame the army of Antigonus and killed Antigonus himself, afterwards capturing Demetrius, son of Antigonus, who had advanced with an army.
After these successes, which were shortly followed by the fall of Lysimachus, he entrusted to his son Antiochus all his empire in Asia, and himself proceeded rapidly towards Macedonia, having with him an army both of Greeks and of foreigners. But Ptolemy, brother of Lysandra, had taken refuge with him from Lysimachus; this man, an adventurous character named for this reason the Thunderbolt, when the army of Seleucus had advanced as far as Lysimachea, assassinated Seleucus, allowed the kings to seize his wealth, and ruled over Macedonia until, being the first of the kings to my knowledge to dare to meet the Gauls in battle, he was killed by the foreigners. The empire was recovered by Antigonus, son of Demetrius.
I am persuaded that Seleucus was the most righteous, and in particular the most religious of the kings. Firstly, it was Seleucus who sent back to Branchidae for the Milesians the bronze Apollo that had been carried by Xerxes to Ecbatana in Persia. Secondly, when he founded Seleucea on the river Tigris and brought to it Babylonian colonists; he spared the wall of Babylon as well as the sanctuary of Bel, near which he permitted the Chaldeans to live.
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In the Athenian market-place among the objects not generally known is an altar to Mercy, of all divinities the most useful in the life of mortals and in the vicissitudes of fortune, but honored by the Athenians alone among the Greeks. And they are conspicuous not only for their humanity but also for their devotion to religion. They have an altar to Shamefastness, one to Rumour and one to Effort. It is quite obvious that those who excel in piety are correspondingly rewarded by good fortune.
In the gymnasium not far from the market-place, called Ptolemy's from the founder, are stone Hermae well worth seeing and a likeness in bronze of Ptolemy. Here also is Juba the Libyan and Chrysippus of Soli. Hard by the gymnasium is a sanctuary of Theseus, where are pictures of Athenians fighting Amazons. This war they have also represented on the shield of their Athena and upon the pedestal of the Olympian Zeus. In the sanctuary of Theseus is also a painting of the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapithae. Theseus has already killed a Centaur, but elsewhere the fighting is still undecided.
The painting on the third wall is not intelligible to those unfamiliar with the traditions, partly through age and partly because Micon has not represented in the picture the whole of the legend. When Minos was taking Theseus and the rest of the company of young folk to Crete he fell in love with Periboea, and on meeting with determined opposition from Theseus, hurled insults at him and denied that he was a son of Poseidon, since he could not recover for him the signet-ring, which he happened to be wearing, if he threw it into the sea. With these words Minos is said to have thrown the ring, but they say that Theseus came up from the sea with that ring and also with a gold crown that Amphitrite gave him.
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The accounts of the end of Theseus are many and inconsistent. They say he was kept a prisoner until Heracles restored him to the light of day, but the most plausible account I have heard is this. Theseus invaded Thesprotia to carry off the wife of the Thesprotian king, and in this way lost the greater part of his army, and both he and Peirithous (he too was taking part in the expedition, being eager for the marriage) were taken captive. The Thesprotian king kept them prisoners at Cichyrus.
Among the sights of Thesprotia are a sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona and an oak sacred to the god. Near Cichyrus is a lake called Acherusia, and a river called Acheron. There is also Cocytus, a most unlovely stream. I believe it was because Homer had seen these places that he made bold to describe in his poems the regions of Hades, and gave to the rivers there the names of those in Thesprotia. While Theseus was thus kept in bonds, the sons of Tyndareus marched against Aphidna, captured it and restored Menestheus to the kingdom.
Now Menestheus took no account of the children of Theseus, who had secretly withdrawn to Elephenor in Euboea, but he was aware that Theseus, if ever he returned from Thesprotia, would be a doughty antagonist, and so curried favour with his subjects that Theseus on recovering afterwards his liberty was expelled.
So Theseus set out to Deucalion in Crete. Being carried out of his course by winds to the island of Scyros he was treated with marked honor by the inhabitants, both for the fame of his family and for the reputation of his own achievements. Accordingly Lycomedes contrived his death.
His close was built at Athens after the Persians landed at Marathon, when Cimon, son of Miltiades, ravaged Scyros, thus avenging Theseus' death, and carried his bones to Athens.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias1A.html
The Sanctuary of Theseus from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
Last time we heard about the founding of city of Athens, and many of its early kings. This time we get a tour of Athens and its many temples and sanctuaries.
First is the Odeum of Athens and the Fountain of Nine Jets. Nearby is a statue of Triptolemus, the first to plant and grow crops. There are many shrines and monuments honoring those who fought against the Persians. A portico has depictions of battles fought with Spartans, and on the next wall Heracles and Theseus fighting with Amazons. Then the author gives a short history of Selucus of Antioch, a General under Alexander the Great.
Lastly, near the market-place and Ptolemy's Gymnasium is the Sancutary of Theseus. The first painting is the battle of Centaurs and the Laphiths, in which Theseus took part. Next is the Ship of Theseus sailing for Crete, where Minos challenged Theseus to retrieve a ring thrown overboard. Then Theseus and his friend are held prisoner in Theresprotia; or Hades, according to mythic sources. Theseus is killed by Lycomedes, but is avenged at long last and his bones returned to Athens.
Next time we shall hear more of the Crown of Amphitrite in the Odes of Athens.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias1A.html
Descriptions of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[1.14.1] - [1.17.6]
When you have entered the Odeum at Athens you meet, among other objects, a figure of Dionysus worth seeing. Hard by is a spring called Enneacrunos (Nine Jets), embellished as you see it by Peisistratus. There are cisterns all over the city, but this is the only fountain. Above the spring are two temples, one to Demeter and the Maid, while in that of Triptolemus is a statue of him. The accounts given of Triptolemus I shall write, omitting from the story as much as relates to Deiope.
The Greeks who dispute most the Athenian claim to antiquity and the gifts they say they have received from the gods are the Argives, just as among those who are not Greeks the Egyptians compete with the Phrygians. It is said, then, that when Demeter came to Argos she was received by Pelasgus into his home, and that Chrysanthis, knowing about the rape of the Maid, related the story to her. Afterwards Trochilus, the priest of the mysteries, fled, they say, from Argos because of the enmity of Agenor, came to Attica and married a woman of Eleusis, by whom he had two children, Eubuleus and Triptolemus. That is the account given by the Argives. But the Athenians and those who with them . . . know that Triptolemus, son of Celeus, was the first to sow seed for cultivation.
Some extant verses of Musaeus, if indeed they are to be included among his works, say that Triptolemus was the son of Oceanus and Earth; while those ascribed to Orpheus (though in my opinion the received authorship is again incorrect) say that Eubuleus and Triptolemus were sons of Dysaules, and that because they gave Demeter information about her daughter the sowing of seed was her reward to them. But Choerilus, an Athenian, who wrote a play called Alope, says that Cercyon and Triptolemus were brothers, that their mother was the daughter of Amphictyon, while the father of Triptolemus was Rarus, of Cercyon, Poseidon. After I had intended to go further into this story, and to describe the contents of the sanctuary at Athens, called the Eleusinium, I was stayed by a vision in a dream. I shall therefore turn to those things it is lawful to write of to all men.
In front of this temple, where is also the statue of Triptolemus, is a bronze bull being led as it were to sacrifice, and there is a sitting figure of Epimenides of Cnossus, who they say entered a cave in the country and slept. And the sleep did not leave him before the fortieth year, and afterwards he wrote verses and purified Athens and other cities. But Thales who stayed the plague for the Lacedaemonians was not related to Epimenides in any way, and belonged to a different city. The latter was from Cnossus, but Thales was from Gortyn, according to Polymnastus of Colophon, who com posed a poem about him for the Lacedaemonians.
Still farther of is a temple to Glory, this too being a thank-offering for the victory over the Persians, who had landed at Marathon. This is the victory of which I am of opinion the Athenians were proudest; while Aeschylus, who had won such renown for his poetry and for his share in the naval battles before Artemisium and at Salamis, recorded at the prospect of death nothing else, and merely wrote his name, his father's name, and the name of his city, and added that he had witnesses to his valor in the grove at Marathon and in the Persians who landed there.
Above the Cerameicus and the portico called the King's Portico is a temple of Hephaestus. I was not surprised that by it stands a statue of Athena, be cause I knew the story about Erichthonius. But when I saw that the statue of Athena had blue eyes I found out that the legend about them is Libyan. For the Libyans have a saying that the Goddess is the daughter of Poseidon and Lake Tritonis, and for this reason has blue eyes like Poseidon.
Hard by is a sanctuary of the Heavenly Aphrodite; the first men to establish her cult were the Assyrians, after the Assyrians the Paphians of Cyprus and the Phoenicians who live at Ascalon in Palestine; the Phoenicians taught her worship to the people of Cythera. Among the Athenians the cult was established by Aegeus, who thought that he was childless (he had, in fact, no children at the time) and that his sisters had suffered their misfortune because of the wrath of Heavenly Aphrodite. The statue still extant is of Parian marble and is the work of Pheidias. One of the Athenian parishes is that of the Athmoneis, who say that Porphyrion, an earlier king than Actaeus, founded their sanctuary of the Heavenly One. But the traditions current among the Parishes often differ altogether from those of the city.
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As you go to the portico which they call painted, because of its pictures, there is a bronze statue of Hermes of the Market-place, and near it a gate. On it is a trophy erected by the Athenians, who in a cavalry action overcame Pleistarchus, to whose command his brother Cassander had entrusted his cavalry and mercenaries. This portico contains, first, the Athenians arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Oenoe in the Argive territory. What is depicted is not the crisis of the battle nor when the action had advanced as far as the display of deeds of valor, but the beginning of the fight when the combatants were about to close.
On the middle wall are the Athenians and Theseus fighting with the Amazons. So, it seems, only the women did not lose through their defeats their reckless courage in the face of danger; Themiscyra was taken by Heracles, and afterwards the army which they dispatched to Athens was destroyed, but nevertheless they came to Troy to fight all the Greeks as well as the Athenians them selves. After the Amazons come the Greeks when they have taken Troy, and the kings assembled on account of the outrage committed by Ajax against Cassandra. The picture includes Ajax himself, Cassandra and other captive women.
At the end of the painting are those who fought at Marathon; the Boeotians of Plataea and the Attic contingent are coming to blows with the foreigners. In this place neither side has the better, but the center of the fighting shows the foreigners in flight and pushing one another into the morass, while at the end of the painting are the Phoenician ships, and the Greeks killing the foreigners who are scrambling into them. Here is also a portrait of the hero Marathon, after whom the plain is named, of Theseus represented as coming up from the under-world, of Athena and of Heracles. The Marathonians, according to their own account, were the first to regard Heracles as a god. Of the fighters the most conspicuous figures in the painting are Callimachus, who had been elected commander-in-chief by the Athenians, Miltiades, one of the generals, and a hero called Echetlus, of whom I shall make mention later.
Here are dedicated brazen shields, and some have an inscription that they are taken from the Scioneans and their allies, while others, smeared with pitch lest they should be worn by age and rust, are said to be those of the Lacedaemonians who were taken prisoners in the island of Sphacteria.
Here are placed bronze statues, one, in front of the portico, of Solon, who composed the laws for the Athenians, and, a little farther away, one of Seleucus, whose future prosperity was foreshadowed by unmistakable signs. When he was about to set forth from Macedonia with Alexander, and was sacrificing at Pella to Zeus, the wood that lay on the altar advanced of its own accord to the image and caught fire without the application of a light.
SELEUCUS OF ANTIOCH, HISTORY
On the death of Alexander, Seleucus, in fear of Antigonus, who had arrived at Babylon, fled to Ptolemy, son of Lagus, and then returned again to Babylon. On his return he overcame the army of Antigonus and killed Antigonus himself, afterwards capturing Demetrius, son of Antigonus, who had advanced with an army.
After these successes, which were shortly followed by the fall of Lysimachus, he entrusted to his son Antiochus all his empire in Asia, and himself proceeded rapidly towards Macedonia, having with him an army both of Greeks and of foreigners. But Ptolemy, brother of Lysandra, had taken refuge with him from Lysimachus; this man, an adventurous character named for this reason the Thunderbolt, when the army of Seleucus had advanced as far as Lysimachea, assassinated Seleucus, allowed the kings to seize his wealth, and ruled over Macedonia until, being the first of the kings to my knowledge to dare to meet the Gauls in battle, he was killed by the foreigners. The empire was recovered by Antigonus, son of Demetrius.
I am persuaded that Seleucus was the most righteous, and in particular the most religious of the kings. Firstly, it was Seleucus who sent back to Branchidae for the Milesians the bronze Apollo that had been carried by Xerxes to Ecbatana in Persia. Secondly, when he founded Seleucea on the river Tigris and brought to it Babylonian colonists; he spared the wall of Babylon as well as the sanctuary of Bel, near which he permitted the Chaldeans to live.
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In the Athenian market-place among the objects not generally known is an altar to Mercy, of all divinities the most useful in the life of mortals and in the vicissitudes of fortune, but honored by the Athenians alone among the Greeks. And they are conspicuous not only for their humanity but also for their devotion to religion. They have an altar to Shamefastness, one to Rumour and one to Effort. It is quite obvious that those who excel in piety are correspondingly rewarded by good fortune.
In the gymnasium not far from the market-place, called Ptolemy's from the founder, are stone Hermae well worth seeing and a likeness in bronze of Ptolemy. Here also is Juba the Libyan and Chrysippus of Soli. Hard by the gymnasium is a sanctuary of Theseus, where are pictures of Athenians fighting Amazons. This war they have also represented on the shield of their Athena and upon the pedestal of the Olympian Zeus. In the sanctuary of Theseus is also a painting of the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapithae. Theseus has already killed a Centaur, but elsewhere the fighting is still undecided.
The painting on the third wall is not intelligible to those unfamiliar with the traditions, partly through age and partly because Micon has not represented in the picture the whole of the legend. When Minos was taking Theseus and the rest of the company of young folk to Crete he fell in love with Periboea, and on meeting with determined opposition from Theseus, hurled insults at him and denied that he was a son of Poseidon, since he could not recover for him the signet-ring, which he happened to be wearing, if he threw it into the sea. With these words Minos is said to have thrown the ring, but they say that Theseus came up from the sea with that ring and also with a gold crown that Amphitrite gave him.
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The accounts of the end of Theseus are many and inconsistent. They say he was kept a prisoner until Heracles restored him to the light of day, but the most plausible account I have heard is this. Theseus invaded Thesprotia to carry off the wife of the Thesprotian king, and in this way lost the greater part of his army, and both he and Peirithous (he too was taking part in the expedition, being eager for the marriage) were taken captive. The Thesprotian king kept them prisoners at Cichyrus.
Among the sights of Thesprotia are a sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona and an oak sacred to the god. Near Cichyrus is a lake called Acherusia, and a river called Acheron. There is also Cocytus, a most unlovely stream. I believe it was because Homer had seen these places that he made bold to describe in his poems the regions of Hades, and gave to the rivers there the names of those in Thesprotia. While Theseus was thus kept in bonds, the sons of Tyndareus marched against Aphidna, captured it and restored Menestheus to the kingdom.
Now Menestheus took no account of the children of Theseus, who had secretly withdrawn to Elephenor in Euboea, but he was aware that Theseus, if ever he returned from Thesprotia, would be a doughty antagonist, and so curried favour with his subjects that Theseus on recovering afterwards his liberty was expelled.
So Theseus set out to Deucalion in Crete. Being carried out of his course by winds to the island of Scyros he was treated with marked honor by the inhabitants, both for the fame of his family and for the reputation of his own achievements. Accordingly Lycomedes contrived his death.
His close was built at Athens after the Persians landed at Marathon, when Cimon, son of Miltiades, ravaged Scyros, thus avenging Theseus' death, and carried his bones to Athens.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias1A.html
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
LP0037 - The Kings of Athens - Cecrops to Erichthonius to Pandion, from the Library of Apollodorus
Legendary Passages #0037 - The Kings of Athens -
Cecrops to Erichthonius to Pandion, from the Library of Apollodorus.
The next six episodes focus on Theseus and his ancestors. This passage covers the early kings all the way to Pandion, father of Aegeus and grandfather of Theseus.
The first King of Attica was Cecrops, whom Athena gave an olive tree. For her the city of Athens was so named.
After Cecrops, Cranaus became king, around the time of Deucalion's Flood. And after him was Ericthonius, son of Hephaestus. Ericthonius married the nymph Praxithea, and they had a son Pandion.
King Pandion had two daughters, Procne and Philomena. Procne married Tereus, but Tereus seduced Philomena and cut out her tongue. In revenge, Procne killed her son and served him to his father for dinner.
The sons of Pandion were Erectheus and Butes. Erectheus became King, and had a daughter Procris who married Cephalus. Another daughter was Orithyia, who had sons Zetes and Calais, both twins and Argonauts, and daughters Celopatra and Chione, who had a son Eumolpus.
Now Eumolpus had misadventures in Ethiopia and Thrace, before coming to Eleusis. He went to war with his grandfather Erectheus, and many died, including both Kings.
Cecrops the second then become king, being the eldest son of Erectheus. Cecrops son was also named Pandion, and his son was Aegeus, and his son was Theseus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#14
The Kings of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from the Library of Apollodorus,
translated by J. G. Frazer.
[3.14.1] - [3.15.5]
Cecrops, a son of the soil, with a body compounded of man and serpent, was the first king of Attica, and the country which was formerly called Acte he named Cecropia after himself. In his time, they say, the gods resolved to take possession of cities in which each of them should receive his own peculiar worship.
So Poseidon was the first that came to Attica, and with a blow of his trident on the middle of the acropolis, he produced a sea which they now call Erechtheis. After him came Athena, and, having called on Cecrops to witness her act of taking possession, she planted an olive tree, which is still shown in the Pandrosium. But when the two strove for possession of the country, Zeus parted them and appointed arbiters, not, as some have affirmed, Cecrops and Cranaus, nor yet Erysichthon, but the twelve gods. And in accordance with their verdict the country was adjudged to Athena, because Cecrops bore witness that she had been the first to plant the olive. Athena, therefore, called the city Athens after herself, and Poseidon in hot anger flooded the Thriasian plain and laid Attica under the sea.
Cecrops married Agraulus, daughter of Actaeus, and had a son Erysichthon, who departed this life childless; and Cecrops had daughters, Agraulus, Herse, and Pandrosus. Agraulus had a daughter Alcippe by Ares. In attempting to violate Alcippe, Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon and a nymph Euryte, was detected and killed by Ares. Impeached by Poseidon, Ares was tried in the Areopagus before the twelve gods, and was acquitted.
Herse had by Hermes a son Cephalus, whom Dawn loved and carried off, and consorting with him in Syria bore a son Tithonus, who had a son Phaethon, who had a son Astynous, who had a son Sandocus, who passed from Syria to Cilicia and founded a city Celenderis, and having married Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, begat Cinyras. This Cinyras in Cyprus, whither he had come with some people, founded Paphos; and having there married Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, he begat Oxyporus and Adonis, and besides them daughters, Orsedice, Laogore, and Braesia. These by reason of the wrath of Aphrodite cohabited with foreigners, and ended their life in Egypt.
And Adonis, while still a boy, was wounded and killed in hunting by a boar through the anger of Artemis. Hesiod, however, affirms that he was a son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea; and Panyasis says that he was a son of Thias, king of Assyria, who had a daughter Smyrna. In consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, for she did not honor the goddess, this Smyrna conceived a passion for her father, and with the complicity of her nurse she shared her father's bed without his knowledge for twelve nights. But when he was aware of it, he drew his sword and pursued her, and being overtaken she prayed to the gods that she might be invisible; so the gods in compassion turned her into the tree which they call smyrna (myrrh). Ten months afterwards the tree burst and Adonis, as he is called, was born, whom for the sake of his beauty, while he was still an infant, Aphrodite hid in a chest unknown to the gods and entrusted to Persephone. But when Persephone beheld him, she would not give him back. The case being tried before Zeus, the year was divided into three parts, and the god ordained that Adonis should stay by himself for one part of the year, with Persephone for one part, and with Aphrodite for the remainder. However Adonis made over to Aphrodite his own share in addition; but afterwards in hunting he was gored and killed by a boar.
When Cecrops died, Cranaus came to the throne; he was a son of the soil, and it was in his time that the flood in the age of Deucalion is said to have taken place. He married a Lacedaemonian wife, Pedias, daughter of Mynes, and begat Cranae, Menaechme, and Atthis; and when Atthis died a maid, Cranaus called the country Atthis.
Cranaus was expelled by Amphictyon, who reigned in his stead; some say that Amphictyon was a son of Deucalion, others that he was a son of the soil; and when he had reigned twelve years he was expelled by Erichthonius. Some say that this Erichthonius was a son of Hephaestus and Atthis, daughter of Cranaus, and some that he was a son of Hephaestus and Athena, as follows: Athena came to Hephaestus, desirous of fashioning arms. But he, being forsaken by Aphrodite, fell in love with Athena, and began to pursue her; but she fled. When he got near her with much ado (for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her; but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he dropped his seed on the leg of the goddess. In disgust, she wiped off the seed with wool and threw it on the ground; and as she fled and the seed fell on the ground, Erichthonius was produced. Him Athena brought up unknown to the other gods, wishing to make him immortal; and having put him in a chest, she committed it to Pandrosus, daughter of Cecrops, forbidding her to open the chest. But the sisters of Pandrosus opened it out of curiosity, and beheld a serpent coiled about the babe; and, as some say, they were destroyed by the serpent, but according to others they were driven mad by reason of the anger of Athena and threw themselves down from the acropolis. Having been brought up by Athena herself in the precinct, Erichthonius expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens; and he set up the wooden image of Athena in the acropolis, and instituted the festival of the Panathenaea, and married Praxithea, a Naiad nymph, by whom he had a son Pandion.
When Erichthonius died and was buried in the same precinct of Athena, Pandion became king, in whose time Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica. But Demeter was welcomed by Celeus at Eleusis, and Dionysus by Icarius, who received from him a branch of a vine and learned the process of making wine. And wishing to bestow the god's boons on men, Icarius went to some shepherds, who, having tasted the beverage and quaffed it copiously without water for the pleasure of it, imagined that they were bewitched and killed him; but by day they understood how it was and buried him. When his daughter Erigone was searching for her father, a domestic dog, named Maera, which had attended Icarius, discovered his dead body to her, and she bewailed her father and hanged herself.
Pandion married Zeuxippe, his mother's sister, and begat two daughters, Procne and Philomela, and twin sons, Erechtheus and Butes. But war having broken out with Labdacus on a question of boundaries, he called in the help of Tereus, son of Ares, from Thrace, and having with his help brought the war to a successful close, he gave Tereus his own daughter Procne in marriage. Tereus had by her a son Itys, and having fallen in love with Philomela, he seduced her also saying that Procne was dead, for he concealed her in the country. Afterwards he married Philomela and bedded with her, and cut out her tongue. But by weaving characters in a robe she revealed thereby to Procne her own sorrows. And having sought out her sister, Procne killed her son Itys, boiled him, served him up for supper to the unwitting Tereus, and fled with her sister in haste. When Tereus was aware of what had happened, he snatched up an axe and pursued them. And being overtaken at Daulia in Phocis, they prayed the gods to be turned into birds, and Procne became a nightingale, and Philomela a swallow. And Tereus also was changed into a bird and became a hoopoe.
When Pandion died, his sons divided their father's inheritance between them, and Erechtheus got the kingdom, and Butes got the priesthood of Athena and Poseidon Erechtheus. Erechtheus married Praxithea, daughter of Phrasimus by Diogenia, daughter of Cephisus, and had sons, to wit, Cecrops, Pandorus, and Metion; and daughters, to wit, Procris, Creusa, Chthonia, and Orithyia, who was carried off by Boreas.
Chthonia was married to Butes, Creusa to Xuthus, and Procris to Cephalus, son of Deion. Bribed by a golden crown, Procris admitted Pteleon to her bed, and being detected by Cephalus she fled to Minos. But he fell in love with her and tried to seduce her. Now if any woman had intercourse with Minos, it was impossible for her to escape with life; for because Minos cohabited with many women, Pasiphae bewitched him, and whenever he took another woman to his bed, he discharged wild beasts at her joints, and so the women perished. But Minos had a swift dog and a dart that flew straight; and in return for these gifts Procris shared his bed, having first given him the Circaean root to drink that he might not harm her. But afterwards, fearing the wife of Minos, she came to Athens and being reconciled to Cephalus she went forth with him to the chase; for she was fond of hunting. As she was in pursuit of game in the thicket, Cephalus, not knowing she was there, threw a dart, hit and killed Procris, and, being tried in the Areopagus, was condemned to perpetual banishment.
While Orithyia was playing by the Ilissus river, Boreas carried her off and had intercourse with her; and she bore daughters, Cleopatra and Chione, and winged sons, Zetes and Calais. These sons sailed with Jason and met their end in chasing the Harpies; but according to Acusilaus, they were killed by Hercules in Tenos.
Cleopatra was married to Phineus, who had by her two sons, Plexippus and Pandion. When he had these sons by Cleopatra, he married Idaea, daughter of Dardanus. She falsely accused her stepsons to Phineus of corrupting her virtue, and Phineus, believing her, blinded them both. But when the Argonauts sailed past with Boreas, they punished him.
Chione had connexion with Poseidon, and having given birth to Eumolpus unknown to her father, in order not to be detected, she flung the child into the deep. But Poseidon picked him up and conveyed him to Ethiopia, and gave him to Benthesicyme (a daughter of his own by Amphitrite) to bring up. When he was full grown, Benthesicyme's husband gave him one of his two daughters. But he tried to force his wife's sister, and being banished on that account, he went with his son Ismarus to Tegyrius, king of Thrace, who gave his daughter in marriage to Eumolpus's son. But being afterwards detected in a plot against Tegyrius, he fled to the Eleusinians and made friends with them. Later, on the death of Ismarus, he was sent for by Tegyrius and went, composed his old feud with him, and succeeded to the kingdom. And war having broken out between the Athenians and the Eleusinians, he was called in by the Eleusinians and fought on their side with a large force of Thracians. When Erechtheus inquired of the oracle how the Athenians might be victorious, the god answered that they would win the war if he would slaughter one of his daughters; and when he slaughtered his youngest, the others also slaughtered themselves; for, as some said, they had taken an oath among themselves to perish together. In the battle which took place after the slaughter, Erechtheus killed Eumolpus.
But Poseidon having destroyed Erechtheus and his house, Cecrops, the eldest of the sons of Erechtheus, succeeded to the throne. He married Metiadusa, daughter of Eupalamus, and begat Pandion. This Pandion, reigning after Cecrops, was expelled by the sons of Metion in a sedition, and going to Pylas at Megara married his daughter Pylia. And at a later time he was even appointed king of the city; for Pylas slew his father's brother Bias and gave the kingdom to Pandion, while he himself repaired to Peloponnese with a body of people and founded the city of Pylus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#14
Cecrops to Erichthonius to Pandion, from the Library of Apollodorus.
The next six episodes focus on Theseus and his ancestors. This passage covers the early kings all the way to Pandion, father of Aegeus and grandfather of Theseus.
The first King of Attica was Cecrops, whom Athena gave an olive tree. For her the city of Athens was so named.
After Cecrops, Cranaus became king, around the time of Deucalion's Flood. And after him was Ericthonius, son of Hephaestus. Ericthonius married the nymph Praxithea, and they had a son Pandion.
King Pandion had two daughters, Procne and Philomena. Procne married Tereus, but Tereus seduced Philomena and cut out her tongue. In revenge, Procne killed her son and served him to his father for dinner.
The sons of Pandion were Erectheus and Butes. Erectheus became King, and had a daughter Procris who married Cephalus. Another daughter was Orithyia, who had sons Zetes and Calais, both twins and Argonauts, and daughters Celopatra and Chione, who had a son Eumolpus.
Now Eumolpus had misadventures in Ethiopia and Thrace, before coming to Eleusis. He went to war with his grandfather Erectheus, and many died, including both Kings.
Cecrops the second then become king, being the eldest son of Erectheus. Cecrops son was also named Pandion, and his son was Aegeus, and his son was Theseus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#14
The Kings of Athens,
a Legendary Passage,
from the Library of Apollodorus,
translated by J. G. Frazer.
[3.14.1] - [3.15.5]
Cecrops, a son of the soil, with a body compounded of man and serpent, was the first king of Attica, and the country which was formerly called Acte he named Cecropia after himself. In his time, they say, the gods resolved to take possession of cities in which each of them should receive his own peculiar worship.
So Poseidon was the first that came to Attica, and with a blow of his trident on the middle of the acropolis, he produced a sea which they now call Erechtheis. After him came Athena, and, having called on Cecrops to witness her act of taking possession, she planted an olive tree, which is still shown in the Pandrosium. But when the two strove for possession of the country, Zeus parted them and appointed arbiters, not, as some have affirmed, Cecrops and Cranaus, nor yet Erysichthon, but the twelve gods. And in accordance with their verdict the country was adjudged to Athena, because Cecrops bore witness that she had been the first to plant the olive. Athena, therefore, called the city Athens after herself, and Poseidon in hot anger flooded the Thriasian plain and laid Attica under the sea.
Cecrops married Agraulus, daughter of Actaeus, and had a son Erysichthon, who departed this life childless; and Cecrops had daughters, Agraulus, Herse, and Pandrosus. Agraulus had a daughter Alcippe by Ares. In attempting to violate Alcippe, Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon and a nymph Euryte, was detected and killed by Ares. Impeached by Poseidon, Ares was tried in the Areopagus before the twelve gods, and was acquitted.
Herse had by Hermes a son Cephalus, whom Dawn loved and carried off, and consorting with him in Syria bore a son Tithonus, who had a son Phaethon, who had a son Astynous, who had a son Sandocus, who passed from Syria to Cilicia and founded a city Celenderis, and having married Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, begat Cinyras. This Cinyras in Cyprus, whither he had come with some people, founded Paphos; and having there married Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, he begat Oxyporus and Adonis, and besides them daughters, Orsedice, Laogore, and Braesia. These by reason of the wrath of Aphrodite cohabited with foreigners, and ended their life in Egypt.
And Adonis, while still a boy, was wounded and killed in hunting by a boar through the anger of Artemis. Hesiod, however, affirms that he was a son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea; and Panyasis says that he was a son of Thias, king of Assyria, who had a daughter Smyrna. In consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, for she did not honor the goddess, this Smyrna conceived a passion for her father, and with the complicity of her nurse she shared her father's bed without his knowledge for twelve nights. But when he was aware of it, he drew his sword and pursued her, and being overtaken she prayed to the gods that she might be invisible; so the gods in compassion turned her into the tree which they call smyrna (myrrh). Ten months afterwards the tree burst and Adonis, as he is called, was born, whom for the sake of his beauty, while he was still an infant, Aphrodite hid in a chest unknown to the gods and entrusted to Persephone. But when Persephone beheld him, she would not give him back. The case being tried before Zeus, the year was divided into three parts, and the god ordained that Adonis should stay by himself for one part of the year, with Persephone for one part, and with Aphrodite for the remainder. However Adonis made over to Aphrodite his own share in addition; but afterwards in hunting he was gored and killed by a boar.
When Cecrops died, Cranaus came to the throne; he was a son of the soil, and it was in his time that the flood in the age of Deucalion is said to have taken place. He married a Lacedaemonian wife, Pedias, daughter of Mynes, and begat Cranae, Menaechme, and Atthis; and when Atthis died a maid, Cranaus called the country Atthis.
Cranaus was expelled by Amphictyon, who reigned in his stead; some say that Amphictyon was a son of Deucalion, others that he was a son of the soil; and when he had reigned twelve years he was expelled by Erichthonius. Some say that this Erichthonius was a son of Hephaestus and Atthis, daughter of Cranaus, and some that he was a son of Hephaestus and Athena, as follows: Athena came to Hephaestus, desirous of fashioning arms. But he, being forsaken by Aphrodite, fell in love with Athena, and began to pursue her; but she fled. When he got near her with much ado (for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her; but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he dropped his seed on the leg of the goddess. In disgust, she wiped off the seed with wool and threw it on the ground; and as she fled and the seed fell on the ground, Erichthonius was produced. Him Athena brought up unknown to the other gods, wishing to make him immortal; and having put him in a chest, she committed it to Pandrosus, daughter of Cecrops, forbidding her to open the chest. But the sisters of Pandrosus opened it out of curiosity, and beheld a serpent coiled about the babe; and, as some say, they were destroyed by the serpent, but according to others they were driven mad by reason of the anger of Athena and threw themselves down from the acropolis. Having been brought up by Athena herself in the precinct, Erichthonius expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens; and he set up the wooden image of Athena in the acropolis, and instituted the festival of the Panathenaea, and married Praxithea, a Naiad nymph, by whom he had a son Pandion.
When Erichthonius died and was buried in the same precinct of Athena, Pandion became king, in whose time Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica. But Demeter was welcomed by Celeus at Eleusis, and Dionysus by Icarius, who received from him a branch of a vine and learned the process of making wine. And wishing to bestow the god's boons on men, Icarius went to some shepherds, who, having tasted the beverage and quaffed it copiously without water for the pleasure of it, imagined that they were bewitched and killed him; but by day they understood how it was and buried him. When his daughter Erigone was searching for her father, a domestic dog, named Maera, which had attended Icarius, discovered his dead body to her, and she bewailed her father and hanged herself.
Pandion married Zeuxippe, his mother's sister, and begat two daughters, Procne and Philomela, and twin sons, Erechtheus and Butes. But war having broken out with Labdacus on a question of boundaries, he called in the help of Tereus, son of Ares, from Thrace, and having with his help brought the war to a successful close, he gave Tereus his own daughter Procne in marriage. Tereus had by her a son Itys, and having fallen in love with Philomela, he seduced her also saying that Procne was dead, for he concealed her in the country. Afterwards he married Philomela and bedded with her, and cut out her tongue. But by weaving characters in a robe she revealed thereby to Procne her own sorrows. And having sought out her sister, Procne killed her son Itys, boiled him, served him up for supper to the unwitting Tereus, and fled with her sister in haste. When Tereus was aware of what had happened, he snatched up an axe and pursued them. And being overtaken at Daulia in Phocis, they prayed the gods to be turned into birds, and Procne became a nightingale, and Philomela a swallow. And Tereus also was changed into a bird and became a hoopoe.
When Pandion died, his sons divided their father's inheritance between them, and Erechtheus got the kingdom, and Butes got the priesthood of Athena and Poseidon Erechtheus. Erechtheus married Praxithea, daughter of Phrasimus by Diogenia, daughter of Cephisus, and had sons, to wit, Cecrops, Pandorus, and Metion; and daughters, to wit, Procris, Creusa, Chthonia, and Orithyia, who was carried off by Boreas.
Chthonia was married to Butes, Creusa to Xuthus, and Procris to Cephalus, son of Deion. Bribed by a golden crown, Procris admitted Pteleon to her bed, and being detected by Cephalus she fled to Minos. But he fell in love with her and tried to seduce her. Now if any woman had intercourse with Minos, it was impossible for her to escape with life; for because Minos cohabited with many women, Pasiphae bewitched him, and whenever he took another woman to his bed, he discharged wild beasts at her joints, and so the women perished. But Minos had a swift dog and a dart that flew straight; and in return for these gifts Procris shared his bed, having first given him the Circaean root to drink that he might not harm her. But afterwards, fearing the wife of Minos, she came to Athens and being reconciled to Cephalus she went forth with him to the chase; for she was fond of hunting. As she was in pursuit of game in the thicket, Cephalus, not knowing she was there, threw a dart, hit and killed Procris, and, being tried in the Areopagus, was condemned to perpetual banishment.
While Orithyia was playing by the Ilissus river, Boreas carried her off and had intercourse with her; and she bore daughters, Cleopatra and Chione, and winged sons, Zetes and Calais. These sons sailed with Jason and met their end in chasing the Harpies; but according to Acusilaus, they were killed by Hercules in Tenos.
Cleopatra was married to Phineus, who had by her two sons, Plexippus and Pandion. When he had these sons by Cleopatra, he married Idaea, daughter of Dardanus. She falsely accused her stepsons to Phineus of corrupting her virtue, and Phineus, believing her, blinded them both. But when the Argonauts sailed past with Boreas, they punished him.
Chione had connexion with Poseidon, and having given birth to Eumolpus unknown to her father, in order not to be detected, she flung the child into the deep. But Poseidon picked him up and conveyed him to Ethiopia, and gave him to Benthesicyme (a daughter of his own by Amphitrite) to bring up. When he was full grown, Benthesicyme's husband gave him one of his two daughters. But he tried to force his wife's sister, and being banished on that account, he went with his son Ismarus to Tegyrius, king of Thrace, who gave his daughter in marriage to Eumolpus's son. But being afterwards detected in a plot against Tegyrius, he fled to the Eleusinians and made friends with them. Later, on the death of Ismarus, he was sent for by Tegyrius and went, composed his old feud with him, and succeeded to the kingdom. And war having broken out between the Athenians and the Eleusinians, he was called in by the Eleusinians and fought on their side with a large force of Thracians. When Erechtheus inquired of the oracle how the Athenians might be victorious, the god answered that they would win the war if he would slaughter one of his daughters; and when he slaughtered his youngest, the others also slaughtered themselves; for, as some said, they had taken an oath among themselves to perish together. In the battle which took place after the slaughter, Erechtheus killed Eumolpus.
But Poseidon having destroyed Erechtheus and his house, Cecrops, the eldest of the sons of Erechtheus, succeeded to the throne. He married Metiadusa, daughter of Eupalamus, and begat Pandion. This Pandion, reigning after Cecrops, was expelled by the sons of Metion in a sedition, and going to Pylas at Megara married his daughter Pylia. And at a later time he was even appointed king of the city; for Pylas slew his father's brother Bias and gave the kingdom to Pandion, while he himself repaired to Peloponnese with a body of people and founded the city of Pylus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#14
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