LP0118 philE2A2 Centaurs & Hippolytus

 Legendary Passages #0118,
Philostratus the Elder, 
Imagines Book 2,
Image 2,
Centaurs & Hippolytus.

Previously, Theseus fought a war against the centaurs, and cursed his son Hippolytus to an early death. In this passage, we hear descriptions of the education of Achilles by the centaur Chiron, female centaurs and their foals, and the tragic fate of Hippolytus. 

The first image is that of the boy Achilles, fated to fight and die in the Trojan War. He is an athletic boy being trained by the centaur Chiron, like many heroes before him. Chiron lets the boy ride on his back to teach him horse-riding, and rewards his efforts with apples and honey.

The second image is of pretty centaur mares, their beauty comparable to Naiad mermaids or the horse-riding amazons. Their babies are born fairly human, eventually sprouting manes and their feet becoming tender hooves, turning wild at a young age.

The last image shows the end of Hippolytus, the son of Theseus and the amazon Antiope. Theseus eventually married the sister of Ariadne, Phaedra, and when Hippolytus spurned her advances, she accused him instead. Theseus cursed his own son; and while Hippolytus rode his chariot along the shoreline, a white bull emerged from the waters, terrified his horses, and the chariot crashed. The very landscape of the painting mourns the passing of the mangled youth, handsome even in the throws of death.

Centaurs & Hippolytus,
a Legendary Passage from,
Arthur Fairbanks translating,
Philostratus the Elder,
Imagines Book 2,
Images 2-4.

https://www.theoi.com/Text/PhilostratusElder2A.html#2

2.2. THE EDUCATION OF ACHILLES

A fawn and a hare – these are the spoils of hunting of Achilles as he is now, the Achilles who at Ilium will capture cities and horses and the ranks of men, and rivers will do battle with him when he refuses to let them flow, and as reward of those exploits he will bear away Briseïs and the seven maidens from Lesbos and gold and tripods and authority over the Achaeans; but the exploits here depicted, done at Cheiron’s home, seem to deserve apples and honey as rewards, and you are content with small gifts, Achilles, you who one day will disdain whole cities and marriage with Agamemnon’s daughter. Nay, the Achilles who fights at the trench, who puts the Trojans to rout merely by his shouting, and who slays men right and left, and reddens the water of the Scamander, and also his immortal horses, and his dragging of Hector’s body around the walls, and his lamentation on the breast of Patroclus – all this has been depicted by Homer, and he depicts him also as singing and praying and receiving Priam under his roof.

This Achilles, however, a child not yet conscious of valour, whom Cheiron still nourishes upon milk and marrow and honey, he has offered to the painter as a delicate, sport-loving child and already light of foot. For the boy’s leg is straight and his arms come down to his knees (for such arms are excellent assistants in the race); his hair is charming and loose; for Zephyrus in sport seems to shift it about, so that as it falls, now here, now there, the boy’s appearance may be changed. Already the boy has a frowning brow and an air of spirited haughtiness, but these are made gentle by a guileless look and by gracious cheeks that send for a tender smile. The cloak he wears is probably his mother’s gift; for it is beautiful and its colour is sea-purple with red glints shading into a dark blue. Cheiron flatters him by saying that he catches hares like a lion and vies with fawns in running; at any rate, he has just caught a fawn and comes to Cheiron to claim his reward, and Cheiron, delighting to be asked, stands with fore-legs bent so as to be on a level with the boy and offers him apples fair and fragrant from the fold of his garment – for their very fragrance seems to be depicted – and with his hand he offers him a honeycomb dripping with honey, thanks to the diligent foraging of the bees. For when bees find good meadows and become big with honey, the combs get filled to overflowing and their cells pour it forth. 

Now Cheiron is painted in every aspect like a centaur; yet to combine a horse and human body is no wondrous deed, but to gloss over the juncture and make the two into one whole and, by Zeus, cause one to end and the other to begin in such wise as to elude the eye of the observer who should try to detect where the human body ends, this seems to me to demand an excellent painter. That the expression seen in the eye of Cheiron is gentle is the result of his justice, but the lyre also does its part, through whose music he has become cultured; but now there is also something of cozening in his look, no doubt because Cheiron knows that this soothes children and nurtures them better than milk.

This is the scene at the entrance of the cave; and the boy out on the plain, the one who is sporting on the back of the centaur as if it were a horse, is still the same boy; for Cheiron is teaching Achilles to ride horseback and to use him exactly as a horse, and he measures his gait to what the boy can endure, and turning around he smiles at the boy when he laughs aloud with enjoyment, and all but says to him, “Lo, my hoofs paw the ground for you without use of spur; lo, I even urge you on; the horse is indeed a spirited animal and gives no ground for laughter. For although you have been taught by me thus gently the art of horsemanship, divine boy, and are suited to such a horse as I, some day you shall ride on Xanthos and Balios; and you shall take many cities and slay many men, you merely running and they trying to escape you.” Such is Cheiron’s prophecy for the boy, a prophecy fair and auspicious and quite unlike that of Xanthos.

2.3. FEMALE CENTAURS

You used to think that the race of centaurs sprang from trees and rocks or, by Zeus, just from mares – the mares which, men say, the son of Ixion coveted, the man by whom the centaurs though single creatures came to have their double nature. But after all they had, as we see, mothers of the same stock and wives next and colts as their offspring and a most delightful home; for I think you would not grow weary of Pelion and the life there and its wind-nurtured growth of ash which furnishes spear-shafts that are straight and at the same time do not break at the spearhead. And its caves are most beautiful and the springs and the female centaurs beside them, like Naïads if we overlook the horse part of them, or like Amazons if we consider them along with their horse bodies; for the delicacy of their female form gains in strength when the horse is seen in union with it. 

Of the baby centaurs here some lie wrapped in swaddling clothes, some have discarded their swaddling clothes, some seem to be crying, some are happy and smile as they suck flowing breasts, some gambol beneath their mothers while others embrace them when they kneel down, and one is throwing a stone at his mother, for already he grows wanton. The bodies of the infants have not yet taken on their definite shape, seeing that abundant milk is still their nourishment, but some that already are leaping about show a little shagginess, and have sprouted mane and hoofs, though these are still tender.

How beautiful the female centaurs are, even where they are horses; for some grow out of white mares, others are attached to chestnut mares, and the coat’s of others are dappled, but they glisten like those of horses that are well cared for. There is also a white female centaur that grows out of a black mare, and the very opposition of the colours helps to produce the united beauty of the whole.

2.4. HIPPOLYTUS

The wild beast is the curse of Theseus; swift as dolphins it has rushed at the horses of Hippolytus in the form of a white bull, and it has come from the sea against the youth quite unjustly. For his stepmother Phaedra concocted a story against him that was not true, to the effect that Hippolytus loved her, - but it was really herself that was in love with the youth – and Theseus, deceived by the tale, calls down upon his son the curse which we see here depicted.

The horses, as you see, scorning the yoke toss their manes unchecked, not stamping their feet like well bred and intelligent creatures, but overcome with panic and terror, and spattering the plain with foam, one while fleeing has turned its head toward the beast, another has leaped up at it, another looks at it askance, while the onrush of the fourth carries him into the sea as though he had forgotten both himself and dry land; and with erect nostrils they neigh shrilly, unless you fail to hear the painting. Of the wheels of the chariot one has been torn from its spokes as the chariot has tipped over upon it, the other has left its axle and goes rolling off by itself, its momentum still turning it. The horses of the attendants also are frightened and in some cases throw off their riders, while as for those who grasp them firmly about the neck, to what goal are they now carrying them?

And thou, O youth that lovest chastity, thou hast suffered injustice at the hands of thy step-mother, and worse injustice at the hands of thy father, so that the painting itself mourns thee, having composed a sort of poetic lament in thine honour. Indeed yon mountain-peaks over which thou didst hunt with Artemis take the form of mourning women that tear their cheeks, and the meadows in the form of beautiful youths, meadows which thou didst call “undefiled,”  cause their flowers to wither for thee, and nymphs thy nurses emerging from yonder springs tear their hair and pour streams of water from their bosoms. 

Neither did thy courage protect thee nor yet thy strong arm, but of thy members some have been torn off and others crushed, and thy hair has been defiled with dirt; they breast is still breathing as though it would not let go of the soul, and thine eye gazes at all thy wounds. Ah, thy beauty! How proof it is against wounds no one would have dreamed. For not even now does it quit the body; nay, a charm lingers even on thy wounds.

https://www.theoi.com/Text/PhilostratusElder2A.html#4

This passage continues with Rhodogoune, but in our next episode we read a letter from Phaedra to Hippolytus.

LP0117 plLoT26 Antiope & Pirithous

Legendary Passages #0117,

Plutarch's Life of Theseus,

Section [XXVI.],

Antiope & Pirithous.

Previously, Theseus was crowned king of Athens after returning from the labyrinth without Ariadne. In this passage he loved and lost the amazon princess known as Antiope; and befriended Pirithous, whom he would follow into the depths of Hades itself.

Antiope & Pirithous,

a Legendary Passage from,

Bernadotte Perrin translating,

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus,

Life of Theseus,

Sections [XXVI.] - [XXX.]

http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html

He also made a voyage into the Euxine Sea, as Philochorus and sundry others say, on a campaign with Heracles against the Amazons, and received Antiope as a reward of his valor; but the majority of writers, including Pherecydes, Hellanicus, and Herodorus, say that Theseus made this voyage on his own account, after the time of Heracles, and took the Amazon captive; and this is the more probable story. For it is not recorded that any one else among those who shared his expedition took an Amazon captive.  And Bion says that even this Amazon he took and carried off by means of a stratagem. The Amazons, he says, were naturally friendly to men, and did not fly from Theseus when he touched upon their coasts, but actually sent him presents, and he invited the one who brought them to come on board his ship; she came on board, and he put out to sea.

And a certain Menecrates, who published a history of the Bithynian city of Nicaea, says that Theseus, with Antiope on board his ship, spent some time in those parts, and that there chanced to be with him on this expedition three young men of Athens who were brothers, Euneos, Thoas, and Solois. This last, he says, fell in love with Antiope unbeknown to the rest, and revealed his secret to one of his intimate friends. That friend made overtures to Antiope, who positively repulsed the attempt upon her, but treated the matter with discretion and gentleness, and made no denunciation to Theseus.

Then Solois, in despair, threw himself into a river and drowned himself, and Theseus, when he learned the fate of the young man, and what had caused it, was grievously disturbed, and in his distress called to mind a certain oracle which he had once received at Delphi. For it had there been enjoined upon him by the Pythian priestess that when, in a strange land, he should be sorest vexed and full of sorrow, he should found a city there, and leave some of his followers to govern it.  For this cause he founded a city there, and called it, from the Pythian god, Pythopolis, and the adjacent river, Solois, in honor of the young man. And he left there the brothers of Solois, to be the city's presidents and law-givers, and with them Hermus, one of the noblemen of Athens. From him also the Pythopolitans call a place in the city the House of Hermes, incorrectly changing the second syllable, and transferring the honor from a hero to a god.

Well, then, such were the grounds for the war of the Amazons, which seems to have been no trivial nor womanish enterprise for Theseus. For they would not have pitched their camp within the city, nor fought hand to hand battles in the neighborhood of the Pnyx and the Museum, had they not mastered the surrounding country and approached the city with impunity.  Whether, now, as Hellanicus writes, they came round by the Cimmerian Bosporus, which they crossed on the ice, may be doubted; but the fact that they encamped almost in the heart of the city is attested both by the names of the localities there and by the graves of those who fell in battle.

Now for a long time there was hesitation and delay on both sides in making the attack, but finally Theseus, after sacrificing to Fear, in obedience to an oracle, joined battle with the women.  This battle, then, was fought on the day of the month Boedromion on which, down to the present time, the Athenians celebrate the Boedromia.

Cleidemus, who wishes to be minute, writes that the left wing of the Amazons extended to what is now called the Amazoneum, and that with their right they touched the Pnyx at Chrysa; that with this left wing the Athenians fought, engaging the Amazons from the Museum, and that the graves of those who fell are on either side of the street which leads to the gate by the chapel of Chalcodon, which is now called the Peiraic gate.  Here, he says, the Athenians were routed and driven back by the women as far as the shrine of the Eumenides, but those who attacked the invaders from the Palladium and Ardettus and the Lyceum, drove their right wing back as far as to their camp, and slew many of them. And after three months, he says, a treaty of peace was made through the agency of Hippolyta; for Hippolyta is the name which Cleidemus gives to the Amazon whom Theseus married, not Antiope.

But some say that the woman was slain with a javelin by Molpadia, while fighting at Theseus's side, and that the pillar which stands by the sanctuary of Olympian Earth was set up in her memory.  And it is not astonishing that history, when dealing with events of such great antiquity, should wander in uncertainty, indeed, we are also told that the wounded Amazons were secretly sent away to Chalcis by Antiope, and were nursed there, and some were buried there, near what is now called the Amazoneum. But that the war ended in a solemn treaty is attested not only by the naming of the place adjoining the Theseum, which is called Horcomosium, but also by the sacrifice which, in ancient times, was offered to the Amazons before the festival of Theseus.

 

And the Megarians, too, show a place in their country where Amazons were buried, on the way from the market-place to the place called Rhus, where the Rhomboid stands. And it is said, likewise, that others of them died near Chaeroneia, and were buried on the banks of the little stream which, in ancient times, as it seems, was called Thermodon, but nowadays, Haemon; concerning which names I have written in my Life of Demosthenes. It appears also that not even Thessaly was traversed by the Amazons without opposition, for Amazonian graves are to this day shown in the vicinity of Scotussa and Cynoscephalae.

So much, then, is worthy of mention regarding the Amazons. For the Insurrection of the Amazons, written by the author of the Theseid, telling how, when Theseus married Phaedra, Antiope and the Amazons who fought to avenge her attacked him, and were slain by Heracles, has every appearance of fable and invention.  Theseus did, indeed, marry Phaedra, but this was after the death of Antiope, and he had a son by Antiope, Hippolytus, or, as Pindar says, Demophoon.

As for the calamities which befell Phaedra and the son of Theseus by Antiope, since there is no conflict here between historians and tragic poets, we must suppose that they happened as represented by the poets uniformly.

There are, however, other stories also about marriages of Theseus which were neither honorable in their beginnings nor fortunate in their endings, but these have not been dramatized. For instance, he is said to have carried off Anaxo, a maiden of Troezen, and after slaying Sinis and Cercyon to have ravished their daughters; also to have married Periboea, the mother of Aias, and Phereboea afterwards, and Iope, the daughter of Iphicles; and because of his passion for Aegle, the daughter of Panopeus, as I have already said, he is accused of the desertion of Ariadne, which was not honorable nor even decent; and finally, his rape of Helen is said to have filled Attica with war, and to have brought about at last his banishment and death, of which things I shall speak a little later.

Of the many exploits performed in those days by the bravest men, Herodorus thinks that Theseus took part in none, except that he aided the Lapithae in their war with the Centaurs; but others say that he was not only with Jason at Colchis, but helped Meleager to slay the Calydonian boar, and that hence arose the proverb “Not without Theseus”; that he himself, however, without asking for any ally, performed many glorious exploits, and that the phrase “Lo! another Heracles” became current with reference to him.

He also aided Adrastus in recovering for burial the bodies of those who had fallen before the walls of the Cadmeia, not by mastering the Thebans in battle, as Euripides has it in his tragedy, but by persuading them to a truce; for so most writers say, and Philochorus adds that this was the first truce ever made for recovering the bodies of those slain in battle, although in the accounts of Heracles it is written that Heracles was the first to give back their dead to his enemies. And the graves of the greater part of those who fell before Thebes are shown at Eleutherae, and those of the commanders near Eleusis, and this last burial was a favour which Theseus showed to Adrastus. The account of Euripides in his Suppliants is disproved by that of Aeschylus in his Eleusinians, where Theseus is made to relate the matter as above.

The friendship of Peirithous and Theseus is said to have come about in the following manner. Theseus had a very great reputation for strength and bravery, and Peirithous was desirous of making test and proof of it. Accordingly, he drove Theseus's cattle away from Marathon, and when he learned that their owner was pursuing him in arms, he did not fly, but turned back and met him.  When, however, each beheld the other with astonishment at his beauty and admiration of his daring, they refrained from battle, and Peirithous, stretching out his hand the first, bade Theseus himself be judge of his robbery, for he would willingly submit to any penalty which the other might assign. Then Theseus not only remitted his penalty, but invited him to be a friend and brother in arms; whereupon they ratified their friendship with oaths.

After this, when Peirithous was about to marry Deidameia, he asked Theseus to come to the wedding, and see the country, and become acquainted with the Iapithae. Now he had invited the Centaurs also to the wedding feast. And when these were flown with insolence and wine, and laid hands upon the women, the Lapithae took vengeance upon them. Some of them they slew upon the spot, the rest they afterwards overcame in war and expelled from the country, Theseus fighting with them at the banquet and in the war.

Herodorus, however, says that this was not how it happened, but that the war was already in progress when Theseus came to the aid of the Lapithae and that on his way thither he had his first sight of Heracles, having made it his business to seek him out at Trachis, where the hero was already resting from his wandering and labours; and he says the interview passed with mutual expressions of honor, friendliness, and generous praise.  Notwithstanding, one might better side with those historians who say that the heroes had frequent interviews with one another, and that it was at the instigation of Theseus that Heracles was initiated into the mysteries at Eleusis, and purified before his initiation, when he requested it on account of sundry rash acts.

http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html

This passage continues with Helen & Phersephone, but our episode has tales of Centaurs & Hippolytus.

LP0116 LoAE-1-5 Epitome of Theseus

Legendary Passages #0116,
Pseudo-Apollodorus,
The Library Epitome [E.1.5],
Epitome of Theseus.

Previously, Theseus discovered his origins and journeyed to Athens. In this passage, he expelled Medea, fought the Minotaur, and had many adventures as King, most ending in disaster.

After sacrificing the Marathonian Bull, Theseus was recognized by his father Aegeus. He sailed to Crete, and navigated the Labyrinth with a spool of thread called a 'clue' given to him by Ariadne. He was going to marry her, but after Dionysus carried her off, Theseus forgot to change the sail, and thinking his son dead, Aegeus jumped to his death.

Ariadne learned how to master the Labyrinth from Daedalus, who was then imprisoned by Minos. Daedalus escaped by building wings, but his son Icarus fell into the sea. After tracking him down in Camicus, Minos died in boiling bath.

Theseus joined Hercules on his eighth labor to retrieve the Girdle of the Amazon Queen Hippolyte, and fell in love with her sister Antiope. They had a son Hippolytus, but when the Amazons invaded Athens to rescue her, she died.

Eventually Theseus married Ariadne's sister Phaedra, but she fell in love with Hippolytus, got rejected, accused him of assault, and hanged herself. Theseus cursed his son, so Poseidon caused the death of Hippolytus.

Next was the Centauromachy, where Theseus and his friend Pirithous fought the centaurs, descended from Ixion and Nebula, a cloud formed in the image of Hera. Fighting along side them was Caeneus, who was transformed by Poseidon from a woman into a man, but was killed by the centaurs.

Both widowers, Theseus and Pirithous vowed to aid each other to marry daughters of Zeus. His friend wanted Persephone, wife of Hades, so they went down into the underworld. They were both captured and held fast in magical chairs. Fortunately, for his twelfth labor, Hercules went to Hades and rescued Theseus... but they could not save Pirithous.

Before Hades, Theseus had kidnapped the future Helen of Troy. Her brothers the Dioscuri besieged Athens, rescued Helen, enslaved Theseus' mother Aethra, and made Menestheus king.  Dethroned, he sought refuge with King Lycomedes, but he pushed Theseus off a cliff.

Epitome of Theseus
a Legendary Passage from,
J. G. Frazer translating,
Pseudo-Apollodorus,
The Library Epitome,
[E.1.5] - [E.2.3]

https://www.theoi.com/Text/ApollodorusE.html

But Medea, being then wedded to Aegeus, plotted against him and persuaded Aegeus to beware of him as a traitor. And Aegeus, not knowing his own son, was afraid and sent him against the Marathonian bull.

And when Theseus had killed it, Aegeus presented to him a poison which he had received the selfsame day from Medea. But just as the draught was about to be administered to him, he gave his father the sword, and on recognizing it Aegeus dashed the cup from his hands. And when Theseus was thus made known to his father and informed of the plot, he expelled Medea.


And he was numbered among those who were to be sent as the third tribute to the Minotaur; or, as some affirm, he offered himself voluntarily. And as the ship had a black sail, Aegeus charged his son, if he returned alive, to spread white sails on the ship.

And when he came to Crete, Ariadne, daughter of Minos, being amorously disposed to him, offered to help him if he would agree to carry her away to Athens and have her to wife. Theseus having agreed on oath to do so, she besought Daedalus to disclose the way out of the labyrinth.

And at his suggestion she gave Theseus a clue when he went in; Theseus fastened it to the door, and, drawing it after him, entered in. And having found the Minotaur in the last part of the labyrinth, he killed him by smiting him with his fists; and drawing the clue after him made his way out again.

And by night he arrived with Ariadne and the children at Naxos. There Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off; and having brought her to Lemnos he enjoyed her, and begat Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, and Peparethus.

In his grief on account of Ariadne, Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship when he stood for port; and Aegeus, seeing from the acropolis the ship with a black sail, supposed that Theseus had perished; so he cast himself down and died.

But Theseus succeeded to the sovereignty of Athens, and killed the sons of Pallas, fifty in number; likewise all who would oppose him were killed by him, and he got the whole government to himself.


On being apprized of the flight of Theseus and his company, Minos shut up the guilty Daedalus in the labyrinth, along with his son Icarus, who had been borne to Daedalus by Naucrate, a female slave of Minos. But Daedalus constructed wings for himself and his son, and enjoined his son, when he took to flight, neither to fly high, lest the glue should melt in the sun and the wings should drop off, nor to fly near the sea, lest the pinions should be detached by the damp.

But the infatuated Icarus, disregarding his father's injunctions, soared ever higher, till, the glue melting, he fell into the sea called after him Icarian, and perished. But Daedalus made his way safely to Camicus in Sicily.

And Minos pursued Daedalus, and in every country that he searched he carried a spiral shell and promised to give a great reward to him who should pass a thread through the shell, believing that by that means he should discover Daedalus. And having come to Camicus in Sicily, to the court of Cocalus, with whom Daedalus was concealed, he showed the spiral shell. Cocalus took it, and promised to thread it, and gave it to Daedalus; and Daedalus fastened a thread to an ant, and, having bored a hole in the spiral shell, allowed the ant to pass through it. But when Minos found the thread passed through the shell, he perceived that Daedalus was with Cocalus, and at once demanded his surrender. Cocalus promised to surrender him, and made an entertainment for Minos; but after his bath Minos was undone by the daughters of Cocalus; some say, however, that he died through being drenched with boiling water.


Theseus joined Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons and carried off Antiope, or, as some say, Melanippe; but Simonides calls her Hippolyte. Wherefore the Amazons marched against Athens, and having taken up a position about the Areopagus they were vanquished by the Athenians under Theseus. And though he had a son Hippolytus by the Amazon, Theseus afterwards received from Deucalion in marriage Phaedra, daughter of Minos; and when her marriage was being celebrated, the Amazon that had before been married to him appeared in arms with her Amazons, and threatened to kill the assembled guests. But they hastily closed the doors and killed her. However, some say that she was slain in battle by Theseus.

And Phaedra, after she had borne two children, Acamas and Demophon, to Theseus, fell in love with the son he had by the Amazon, to wit, Hippolytus, and besought him to lie with her. Howbeit, he fled from her embraces, because he hated all women. But Phaedra, fearing that he might accuse her to his father, cleft open the doors of her bed-chamber, rent her garments, and falsely charged Hippolytus with an assault.

Theseus believed her and prayed to Poseidon that Hippolytus might perish. So, when Hippolytus was riding in his chariot and driving beside the sea, Poseidon sent up a bull from the surf, and the horses were frightened, the chariot dashed in pieces, and Hippolytus, entangled in the reins, was dragged to death. And when her passion was made public, Phaedra hanged herself.


Ixion fell in love with Hera and attempted to force her; and when Hera reported it, Zeus, wishing to know if the thing were so, made a cloud in the likeness of Hera and laid it beside him; and when Ixion boasted that he had enjoyed the favours of Hera, Zeus bound him to a wheel, on which he is whirled by winds through the air; such is the penalty he pays. And the cloud, impregnated by Ixion, gave birth to Centaurus.

And Theseus allied himself with Pirithous, when he engaged in war against the centaurs. For when Pirithous wooed Hippodamia, he feasted the centaurs because they were her kinsmen. But being unaccustomed to wine, they made themselves drunk by swilling it greedily, and when the bride was brought in, they attempted to violate her. But Pirithous, fully armed, with Theseus, joined battle with them, and Theseus killed many of them.

Caeneus was formerly a woman, but after that Poseidon had intercourse with her, she asked to become an invulnerable man; wherefore in the battle with the centaurs he thought scorn of wounds and killed many of the centaurs; but the rest of them surrounded him and by striking him with fir trees buried him in the earth.


Having made a compact with Pirithous that they would marry daughters of Zeus, Theseus, with the help of Pirithous, carried off Helen from Sparta for himself, when she was twelve years old, and in the endeavor to win Persephone as a bride for Pirithous he went down to Hades.

And the Dioscuri, with the Lacedaemonians and Arcadians, captured Athens and carried away Helen, and with her Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, into captivity; but Demophon and Acamas fled. And the Dioscuri also brought back Menestheus from exile, and gave him the sovereignty of Athens.

But when Theseus arrived with Pirithous in Hades, he was beguiled; for, on the pretence that they were about to partake of good cheer, Hades bade them first be seated on the Chair of Forgetfulness, to which they grew and were held fast by coils of serpents. Pirithous, therefore, remained bound for ever, but Hercules brought Theseus up and sent him to Athens. Thence he was driven by Menestheus and went to Lycomedes, who threw him down an abyss and killed him.

https://www.theoi.com/Text/ApollodorusE.html

This passage continues with Tantalus and Pelops, but in our next episode Theseus is introduced to Anitope & Pirithous.

LP0115 plLoT22 The Ship of Theseus

Legendary Passages #0115,
Plutarch's Life of Theseus,
Section [XXII.],
The Ship of Theseus.

Previously, Theseus returned from the Labyrinth, only to find his father Aegeus had jumped off the Sounion Cliffs, thinking him dead. In this passage, the people of Athens welcome the reign of their new king and his many innovations.

Not only had Theseus seemingly returned from dead, but so had the thirteen other boys and girls from the tribute to Minos. Many new traditions began with their return: funny cross-dressing for the boys who had snuck aboard as girls, a makeshift stew the youths had cobbled together in the Labyrinth, and a feast celebrating their miraculous return. Even the ship of tribute was preserved for centuries, new wood replacing old, until nothing was left of the original.

King Theseus resettled the population of Attica, even inviting foreigners to rededicate Athens as a city proper. The people were split into three classes: nobility, tradesmen, and craftsmen. He instituted democratic reforms and self-rule, but preserved his military authority.

And lastly, for his dedication to agriculture, or in memory of the Marathonian Bull, or perhaps Taurus, the general of Minos, Athenian coins where stamped with the image of an bull, and referred to as oxen.

The Ship of Theseus,
a Legendary Passage from,
Bernadotte Perrin translating,
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus,
Life of Theseus,
Sections [XXII.] - [XXV.]

https://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html

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.


XXIII. 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. 


XXIV. 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.


XXV. 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.

https://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html

This passage continues with Theseus meeting the Amazons, but in our next episode his story comes to an end in the Epitome of Theseus.

LP0114 philE1A14 Pasiphae & Semele

Legendary Passages #0114,
Philostratus the Elder,
Imagines Book 1,
Image 14,
Pasiphae & Semele.

Previously, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on Naxos, where she was rescued by the god Dionysus. In this passage there are descriptions of three paintings: Semele, mother of Dionysus; Ariadne, wife of Dionysus; and Pasiphae, mother of Ariadne and the Minotaur.

The first image is of the fire that consumed Semele and gave birth to Dionysus. Semele was the youngest daughter of Cadmus, and after she became pregnant by Zeus, Hera tricked her into asking Zeus to show his true self. She was burned to death by his godly form, but the fetus of Dionysus survived, and his father placed him inside Zeus' own body to carry him to term.

The second image is that of Dionysus watching a sleeping Ariadne as Theseus sails away. Dionysus is usually depicted with ivy, horns, leopards, thyrsi, faun-skins, cymbals, flutes, and satyrs; but here the god is recognized by his love alone. Theseus looks entranced, having apparently forgotten the Minotaur and his love for Ariadne.

The last image is primarily of the workshop of Daedalus, who constructed the hollow wooden cow that, uh, facilitated the union of Pasiphae and the Cretan Bull. About the workshop are unfinished statues, and little cupids aid Daedalus in constructing the wooden cow.

Pasiphae & Semele,
a Legendary Passage from,
Arthur Fairbanks translating,
Philostratus the Elder,
Imagines Book 1,
Images 14-16.

https://www.theoi.com/Text/PhilostratusElder1A.html#14

1.14 SEMELE

Brontè, stern of face, and Astrapè flashing light from her eyes, and raging fire from heaven that has laid hold of a king’s house, suggest the following tale, if it is one you know.

A cloud of fire encompassing Thebes breaks into the dwelling of Cadmus as Zeus comes wooing Semele; and Semele apparently is destroyed, but Dionysus is born, by Zeus, so I believe, in the presence of the fire. And the form of Semele is dimly seen as she goes to the heavens, where the Muses will hymn her praises: but Dionysus leaps forth as his mother’s womb is rent apart and he makes the flame look dim, so brilliantly does he shine like a radiant star.

The flame, dividing, dimly outlines a cave for Dionysus more charming than any in Assyria and Lydia; for sprays of ivy grow luxuriantly about it and clusters of ivy berries and now grape-vines and stalks of thyrsus which spring up from the willing earth, so that some grow in the very fire. We must not be surprised if in honour of Dionysus the Fire is crowned by the Earth, for the Earth will take part with the Fire in the Bacchic revel and will make it possible for the revelers to take wine from springs and to draw milk from clods of earth or from a rock as from living breasts.

Listen to Pan, how he seems to be hymning Dionysus on the crests of Cithaeron, as he dances an Evian fling. And Cithaeron in the form of a man laments the woes soon to occur on his slopes, and he wears an ivy crown aslant on his head – for he accepts the crown most unwillingly – and Megaera causes a fir to shoot up beside him and brings to light a spring of water, in token, I fancy, of the blood of Actaeon and of Pentheus. 

1.15 ARIADNE

That Theseus treated Ariadne unjustly – though some say not with unjust intent, but under the compulsion of Dionysus – when he abandoned her while asleep on the island of Dia, you must have heard from your nurse; for those women are skilled in telling such tales and they weep over them whenever they will.

I do not need to say that it is Theseus you see there on the ship and Dionysus yonder on the land, nor will I assume you to be ignorant and call your attention to the woman on the rocks, lying there in gentle slumber. Nor yet is it enough to praise the painter for things for which someone else too might be praised; for it is easy for anyone to paint Ariadne as beautiful and Theseus as beautiful; and there are countless characteristics of Dionysus for those who wish to represent him in painting or sculpture, by depicting which even approximately the artist has captured the god.

For instance, the ivy clusters forming a crown are the clear mark of Dionysus, even if the workmanship is poor; and a horn just springing from the temples reveals Dionysus, and a leopard, though but just visible, is a symbol of the god; but this Dionysus the painter has characterized by love alone. Flowered garments and thyrsi and fawn-skins have been cast aside as out of place for the moment, and the Bacchantes are not clashing their cymbals now, nor are the Satyrs playing the flute, nay, even Pan checks his wild dance that he may not disturb the maiden’s sleep. Having arrayed himself in fine purple and wreathed his head with roses, Dionysus comes to the side of Ariadne, “drunk with love” as the Teian poet says of those who are overmastered by love.

As for Theseus, he is indeed in love, but with the smoke rising from Athens, and he no longer knows Ariadne, and never knew her, and I am sure that he has even forgotten the labyrinth and could not tell on what possible errand he sailed to Crete, so singly is his gaze fixed on what lies ahead of his prow.

And look at Ariadne, or rather at her sleep; for her bosom is bare to the waist, and her neck is bent back and her delicate throat, and all her right armpit is visible, but the left hand rests on her mantle that a gust of wind may not expose her. How fair a sight, Dionysus, and how sweet her breath! Whether its fragrance is of apples or of grapes, you can tell after you have kissed her!

1.16. PASIPHAË

Pasiphaë is in love with the bull and begs Daedalus to devise some lure for the creature; and he is fashioning a hollow cow like a cow of the herd to which the bull is accustomed. What their union brought forth is shown by the form of the Minotaur, strangely composite in its nature.

Their union is not depicted here, but this is the workshop of Daedalus; and about it are statues, some with forms blocked out, others in a quite complete state in that they are already stepping forward and give promise of walking about. Before the time of Daedalus, you know, the art of making statues had not yet conceived such a thing.

Daedalus himself is of the Attic type in that his face suggests great wisdom and that the look of the eye is so intelligent; and his very dress also follows the Attic style; for he wears this dull coarse mantle and also he is painted without sandals, in a manner peculiarly affected by the Athenians.

He sits before the framework of the cow and he uses Cupids [Erotes] as his assistants in the device so as to connect with it something of Aphrodite. Of the Cupids, my boy, those are visible who turn the drill, and those by Zeus that smooth with the adze portions of the cow which are not yet accurately finished, and those that measure off the symmetrical proportions on which craftsmanship depends. But the Cupids that work with the saw surpass all conception and all skill in drawing and colour. For look! The saw has attacked the wood and is already passing through it, and these Cupids keep it going, one on the ground, another on the staging, both straightening up and bending forward in turn. Let us consider this movement to be alternate; one has bent low as if about to rise up, his companion has risen erect as if about to bend over; the one on the ground draws his breath into his chest, and the one who is aloft fills his lungs down to his belly as he presses both hands down on the saw.

Pasiphaë outside the workshop in the cattlefold gazes on the bull, thinking to draw him to her by her beauty and by her robe, which is divinely resplendent and more beautiful than any rainbow. She has a helpless look – for she knows what the creature is that she loves – and she is eager to embrace it, but takes no notice of her and gazes at its own cow.

The bull is depicting with proud mien, the leader of the herd, with splendid horns, white, already experienced in love, its dewlap low and its neck massive, and it gazes fondly at the cow; but the cow in the herd, ranging free and all white but for a black head, disdains the bull. For its purpose suggests a leap, as of a girl who avoids the importunity of a lover.

https://www.theoi.com/Text/PhilostratusElder1B.html#16

This passage continues with Hippodameia, but in our next passage we return to Athens on The Ship of Theseus.

LP0113 cat64b Ariadne's Curse

Legendary Passages #0113,
The Poems of Catullus,
Part II of Poem [64],
Ariadne's Curse.

Previously, Catullus described a couch covered with images of Theseus and Ariadne. Here the passage continues with her lamentations, her curse, and her rescue, of sorts.

Ariadne had hoped for marriage, would have endured slavery, but being left to die alone was the ultimate betrayal by Theseus. She insulted his parentage, complained to the uncaring wind about the evilness of men, and despaired that even if she escaped off the island, she had no where else to go. Her love spurned, her fate sealed, as her final act she cursed Theseus to die alone.

Meanwhile, his mind in a haze, Theseus dimly recalled his father Aegeus' parting words to him. Aegeus believed that Theseus would die as had all the youths before him, thus the tribute ship was given a black sail, the color of grief and death. Should a miracle occur, the Minotaur slain and he survive, Theseus was told to hoist a white sail, to let his father know that he yet lived.

The final section has Ariadne rescued by the god Dionysus, here called Bacchus, and his strange entourage of followers and satyrs. It is hinted that Bacchus himself compelled Theseus to leave, and the god of liberation declared his own love for Ariadne. Bacchus throws a massive party for their wedding, she became a goddess, and received her happily ever after.

Ariadne's Curse,
a Legendary Passage from,
A. S. Kline translating,
Gaius Valerius Catullus,
Part II of Poem [64].

https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789

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.

In rapture his Bacchantes raved madly, crazed in mind,
with cries of ‘euhoe’ and tossing heads,
some brandished the thyrsus with hidden tip,
some flourished the torn limbs of bullocks,
some wreathed themselves with twining snakes,
some celebrated the secret rites of the hollow box,
rights they wished the profane to hear in vain:
others beat the drums with the flat of their hands,
or raised a clear ringing from rounded cymbals:
they blew endless strident calls on the horns
and the barbarous flute shrilled with fearful tunes.

Such the splendid workings of figured tapestry
covering the sacred couch its cloth embraced.

https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789

This passage continues with the wedding of Peleus & Thetis, but in our next episode we hear the stories of Pasiphae & Semele.

LP0112 cat64a Of the Argonauts & Ariadne

Legendary Passages #0112,
The Poems of Catullus,
Part I of Poem [64],
Of the Argonauts & Ariadne.

Previously, Princess Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos. In this passage we revisit how she came to be  stranded there.

Now the structure of this poem is quite odd. It begins with the voyage of the Argonauts, where Prince Peleus fell in love the mermaid goddess Thetis, and Jupiter, King of the Gods, approved of the marriage. The people of Pelion Thessaly abandoned farm and field and gathered at the palace for the wedding of the hero and goddess.

It is here that Catullus describes a magnificent purple and ivory couch, decorated with images of an unkempt Ariadne, standing half-dressed on shores edge, watching Theseus row off without her.

Then as an aside, a summary of how they came to meet.  Her brother Androgeus slain, Athens plagued by the gods, and the young boys and girls due to Minos as tribute, for which Theseus volunteered. It was love at first sight for Ariadne; she gave him the thread to escape from the Labyrinth, so that they could live together, happily ever after. But fate had other plans for them....

Of the Argonauts & Ariadne.
a Legendary Passage from,
A. S. Kline translating,
Gaius Valerius Catullus,
Part I of Poem [64].

https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789

64. Of the Argonauts and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis

Once they say pine-trees born on the heights of Pelion
floated through Neptune’s clear waves,
to the River Phasis and Aeetes’s borders,
with chosen men, oaks of the Argive people,
hoping to steal the Golden Fleece of Colchis
daring to course the salt deeps in their swift ship,
sweeping the blue waters with fir-wood oars.

The goddess herself who guards the heights of the city,
who joined the curving fabric to pinewood keel,
made their ship speed onwards with light winds.

That vessel was first to explore the unknown sea:
so, as she ploughed the windblown waters with her prow,
and whitened the churning waves with foam from the oars,
the Nereids lifted themselves from the dazzling white
depths of the sea, amazed at this wonder of ocean.
In those, and other days, mortal eyes saw the sea-nymphs
raise themselves, bodies all naked, as far as their nipples,
from the white depths.

Then Peleus, they say, was inflamed with love of Thetis,
then Thetis did not despise marriage with a mortal,
then Jupiter himself agreed to Thetis’s marriage.

O heroes, born in a chosen age, hail, godlike race!
O offspring of a blessed mother, hail once more.
Often I’ll address you, in my song.
And I address you, so blessed in your fortunate marriage,
chief of Pelian Thessaly, to whom Jupiter himself
creator of gods, yielded his beloved:
did not Thetis possess you, loveliest of Nereids?
Did not Tethys allow you to lead off her grand-daughter,
and Oceanus, who embraces the whole world with sea?

When at the time appointed the longed-for flames arise,
all of Thessaly crowds together to the palace,
the halls are filled with a joyful assembly:
they bring gifts with them, declaring their joy in their looks.

Cieros is deserted: they leave Pthiotic Tempe,
Crannon’s houses, and Larissa’s walls,
they gather in Pharsalia, crowd under Pharsalia’s roofs.

No one farms the fields, the necks of bullocks soften,
nor does the curved hoe clear beneath the vines,
nor does the ox drag earth outward with the blade,
nor does the sickle thin the shade of leafy trees,
coarse rust attacks the neglected plough.

But the palace gleams bright with gold and silver
through all the rich receding halls.
The ivory chairs shine, cups glisten on tables,
the whole palace gladdened with splendour of royal wealth.

In the midst of the palace a sacred couch, truly joyful
for the marriage of the goddess, gleaming with Indian ivory,
stained with the red dyes won from purple murex.
The cloth depicts in ancient forms, with marvellous art,
in all their variety, the excellence of gods and men.


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.

https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789

This passage continues next episode with the homecoming of Theseus, and Ariadne's Curse.

LP0111 ovHero10 Ariadne's Letter

Legendary Passages #0111,
Ovid's Heroides,
Epistle [X.],
Ariadne's Letter.

Previously, with Ariadne's help Prince Theseus defeated the Minotaur and escaped the Labyrinth. In this passage Ariadne awakens alone on the Island of Naxos, Theseus having abandoned her and sailed away in the night.

Ariadne's Letter,
a Legendary Passage from,
Grant Showerman translating,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
Heroides Epistle [X.],
Ariadne to Theseus.

https://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides2.html#10

X. ARIADNE TO THESEUS

Gentler than you I have found every race of wild beasts; to none of them could I so ill have trusted as to you. The words you now are reading, Thesues, I send you from that shore from which the sails bore off your ship without me, the shore on which my slumber, and you, so wretchedly betrayed me – you, who wickedly plotted against me as I slept.

‘Twas the time when the earth is first besprinkled with crystal rime, and songsters hid in the branch begin their plaint. Half waking only, languid from sleep, I turned upon my side and put forth hands to clasp my Theseus – he was not there! I drew back my hands, a second time I made essay, and o’er the whole couch moved my arms – he was not there! Fear struck away my sleep; in terror I arose, and threw myself headlong from my abandoned bed. Straight then my palms resounded upon my breasts, and I tore my hair, all disarrayed as it was from sleep.

The moon was shining; I bend my gaze to see if aught but shore lies there. So far as my eyes can see, naught to they find but shore. Now this way, and now that, and ever without plan, I course; the deep sand stays my girlish feet. And all the while I cried out “Theseus!” alone the entire shore, and the hollow rocks sent back your name to me; as often as I called out for you, so often did the place itself call out your name. The very place felt the will to aid me in my woe.

There was a mountain, with bushes rising here and there upon its top; a cliff hangs over from it, gnawed into by deep-sounding waves. I climb its slope – my spirit gave me strength – and thus with prospect broad I scan the billowy deep. From there – for I found the winds cruel, too – I beheld your sails stretched full by the headlong southern gale. As I looked on a sight methought I had not deserved to see, I grew colder than ice, and life half left my body. Nor does anguish allow me long to lie thus quiet; it rouses me, it stirs me up to call on Theseus with all my voice’s might. “Whither doest fly?” I cry aloud. “Come back, O wicked Theseus! Turn about thy ship! She hath not all her crew!”

Thus did I cry, and what my voice could not avail, I filled with beating of my breast; the blows I gave myself were mingled with my words. That you at least might see, if you could not hear, with might and main I sent you signals with my hands; and upon a long tree-branch I fixed my shining veil – yes, to put in mind of me those who had forgotten! And now you had been swept beyond my vision. Then at last I let flow my tears; till then my tender eyeballs had been dulled with pain. What better could my eyes do than weep for me, when I had ceased to see your sails? Alone, with hair loose flying, I have either roamed about, like to a Bacchant roused by the Ogygian god, or, looking out upon the sea, I have sat all chilled upon the rock, as much a stone myself as was the stone I sat upon. Oft do I come again to the couch that once received us both, but was fated never to show us together again, and touch the imprint left by you – ‘tis all I can in place of you! – and the stuffs that once grew warm beneath your limbs. I lay me down upon my face, bedew the bed with pouring tears, and cry aloud: “We were two who pressed thee – give back two! We came to thee both together; why do we not depart the same? Ah, faithless bed – the greater part of my being, oh, where is he?

What am I to do? Whither shall I take myself – I am alone, and the isle untilled. Of human traces I see none; of cattle, none. On every side the land is girt by sea; nowhere a sailor, no craft to make its way over the dubious paths. And suppose I did find those to go with me, and winds, and ship – yet where am I to go? My father’s realm forbids me to approach. Grant I do glide with fortunate keel over peaceful seas, that Aeolus tempers the winds – I still shall be an exile! ‘Tis not for me, O Crete composed of the hundred cities, to look upon thee, land known to the infant Jove! No, for my father and the land ruled by my righteous father – dear names! – were betrayed by my deed when, to keep you, after your victory, from death in the winding halls, I gave into your hand the thread to direct your steps in place of guide – when you said to me: “By these very perils of mine, I swear that, so long as both of us shall live, thou shalt be mine!”

We both live, Theseus, and I am not yours! – if indeed a woman lives who is buried by the treason of a perjured mate. Me, too, you should have slain, O false one, with the same bludgeon that slew my brother; then would the oath you gave me have been absolved by my death. Now, I ponder over not only what I am doomed to suffer, but all that any woman left behind can suffer. There rush into my thought a thousand forms of perishing, and death holds less of dole for me than the delay of death. Each moment, now here, now there, I look to see wolves rush on me, to rend my vitals with their greedy fangs. Who knows but that this shore breeds, too, the tawny lion? Perchance the island harbours the savage tiger as well. They say, too, that the waters of the deep cast up the mighty seal! And who is to keep the swords of men from piercing my side?

But I care not, if I am but not left captive in hard bonds, and not compelled to spin the long task with servile hand – I, whose father is Minos, whose mother the child of Phoebus, and who – what memory holds more close – was promised bride to you! When I have looked on the sea, and on the land, and on the wide-stretching shore, I know many dangers threaten me on land, and many on the waters. The sky remains – yet there I fear visions of the gods! I am left helpless, a prey to the maws of ravening beasts; and if men dwell in the place and keep it, I put no trust in them – my hurts have taught me fear of stranger-men.

O, that Androgeos were still alive, and that thou, O Cecropian land, hadst not been made to atone for thy impious deeds with the doom of thy children! and would that thy upraised right hand, O Theseus, had not slain with knotty club him that was man in part, and in part bull; and I had not given thee the thread to show the way of thy return – thread oft caught up again and passed through the hands led on by it. I marvel not – ah, no! – if victory was thine, and the monster smote with his length the Cretan earth. His horn could not have pierced that iron heart of thine; thy breast was safe, even didst thou naught to shield thyself. There barest thou flint, there barest thou adamant; there hast thou a Theseus harder than any flint!

Ah, cruel slumbers, why did you hold me thus inert? Or, better had I been weighed down once for all by everlasting night. You, too, were cruel, O winds, and all too well prepared, and you breezes, eager to start my tears. Cruel the right hand that has brought me and my brother to our death, and cruel the pledge – an empty word – that you gave at my demand! Against me conspiring were slumber, wind, and treacherous pledge – treason three-fold against one maid!

Am I, then, to die, and, dying, not behold my mother’s tears; and shall there be no one’s finger to close my eyes? Is my unhappy soul to go forth into stranger-air, and no friendly hand compose my limbs and drop them on the unguent due? Are my bones to lie unburied, the prey of hovering birds of the shore? Is this the entombment due to me for my kindnesses? You will go to the haven of Cecrops; but when you have been received back home, and have stood in pride before your thronging followers, gloriously telling the death of the man-and-bull, and of the halls of rock cut out in winding ways, tell, too, of me, abandoned on a solitary shore – for I must not be stolen from the record of your honours! Neither is Aegeus your father, nor are you the son of Pittheus’ daughter Aethra; they who begot you were the rocks and the deep!

Ah, I could pray the gods that you had seen me from the high stern; my sad figure had moved your heart! Yet look upon me now – not with eyes, for with them you cannot, but with your mind – clinging to a rock all beaten by the wandering wave. Look upon my locks, let loose like those of one in grief for the dead, and on my robes, heavy with tears as if with rain. My body is a-quiver like standing corn struck by the northern blast, and the letters I am tracing falter beneath my trembling hand. ‘Tis not for my desert – for that has come to naught – that I entreat you now; let no favour be due for my service. Yet neither let me suffer for it! If I am not the cause of your deliverance, yet neither is it right that you should cause my death.

These hands, wearied with beating of my sorrowful breast, unhappy I stretch toward you over the long seas; these locks – such as remain – in grief I bid you look upon! By these tears I pray you – tears moved by what you have done – turn about your ship, reverse your sail, glide swiftly back to me! If I have died before you come, ‘twill yet be you who bear away my bones!

https://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides2.html#10

This passage continues with a letter from Canace to Macareus, but in our next episode we hear more of the Argonauts and Ariadne.

LP0110 plLoT17 The Black Sail

Legendary Passages #0110,
Plutarch's Life of Theseus,
Section [XVII.],
The Black Sail.

Previously, the time had come for the third tribute of Athenian youths to be sent to Crete, with no hope of return. In this passage are many different versions of their adventures, not one ending happily ever after.

First of all, Theseus promised his father that if they returned safe and sound, he would replace the ship's black sail with a white one. After prayers and sacrifices to Aphrodite by the sea shore, they set sail for Crete.

Theseus competed in games against Minos' general named Taurus, and then it was love at first sight for Princess Ariadne. She gave Theseus the thread to find his way out of the Labyrinth, and after crippling the Cretan fleet they escaped on the tribute ship.

After the ship made landfall on the island of Naxos, it departed again without Princess Ariadne. Some say she she married the god Dionysus; others that Theseus left her for another woman and she died of grief. The worst story was that she went ashore while sick and the tides pushed the ship out to sea, but by the time Theseus returned to her side, she had died in childbirth.

Nevertheless, when they sailed back home to Athens, Theseus had forgotten to take down the black sail. So then King Aegeus, thinking his son and heir dead at the hands of the Minotaur, leapt off the cliff into the sea that bears his name.


The Black Sail
a Legendary Passage from,
Bernadotte Perrin translating,
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus,
Life of Theseus,
Sections [XVII.] - [XXII.]

https://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html

On the two former occasions, then, no hope of safety was entertained, and therefore they sent the ship with a black sail, convinced that their youth were going to certain destruction; but now Theseus encouraged his father and loudly boasted that he would master the Minotaur, so that he gave the pilot another sail, a white one, ordering him, if he returned with Theseus safe, to hoist the white sail, but otherwise to sail with the black one, and so indicate the affliction.

Simonides, however, says that the sail given by Aegeus was not white, but “a scarlet sail dyed with the tender flower of luxuriant holm-oak,” and that he made this a token of their safety. Moreover, the pilot of the ship was Phereclus, son of Amarsyas, as Simonides says; but Philochorus says that Theseus got from Scirus of Salamis Nausithous for his pilot, and Phaeax for his look-out man, the Athenians at that time not yet being addicted to the sea, and that Scirus did him this favour because one of the chosen youths, Menesthes, was his daughter's son. And there is evidence for this in the memorial chapels for Nausithous and Phaeax which Theseus built at Phalerum near the temple of Scirus, and they say that the festival of the Cybernesia, or Pilot's Festival, is celebrated in their honor.

XVIII. When the lot was cast, Theseus took those upon whom it fell from the prytaneium and went to the Delphinium, where he dedicated to Apollo in their behalf his suppliant's badge. This was a bough from the sacred olive-tree, wreathed with white wool. Having made his vows and prayers, he went down to the sea on the sixth day of the month Munychion, on which day even now the Athenians still send their maidens to the Delphinium to propitiate the god. And it is reported that the god at Delphi commanded him in an oracle to make Aphrodite his guide, and invite her to attend him on his journey, and that as he sacrificed the usual she-goat to her by the sea-shore, it became a he-goat (tragos) all at once, for which reason the goddess has the surname Epitragia.

XIX. When he reached Crete on his voyage, most historians and poets tell us that he got from Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him, the famous thread, and that having been instructed by her how to make his way through the intricacies of the Labyrinth, he slew the Minotaur and sailed off with Ariadne and the youths. And Pherecydes says that Theseus also staved in the bottoms of the Cretan ships, thus depriving them of the power to pursue. And Demon says also that Taurus, the general of Minos, was killed in a naval battle in the harbor as Theseus was sailing out. But as Philochorus tells the story, Minos was holding the funeral games, and Taurus was expected to conquer all his competitors in them, as he had done before, and was grudged his success. For his disposition made his power hateful, and he was accused of too great intimacy with Pasiphae. Therefore when Theseus asked the privilege of entering the lists, it was granted him by Minos. And since it was the custom in Crete for women to view the games, Ariadne was present, and was smitten with the appearance of Theseus, as well as filled with admiration for his athletic prowess, when he conquered all his opponents. Minos also was delighted with him, especially because he conquered Taurus in wrestling and disgraced him, and therefore gave back the youths to Theseus, besides remitting its tribute to the city.

Cleidemus, however, gives a rather peculiar and ambitious account of these matters, beginning a great way back. There was, he says, a general Hellenic decree that no trireme should sail from any port with a larger crew than five men, and the only exception was Jason, the commander of the Argo, who sailed about scouring the sea of pirates. Now when Daedalus fled from Crete in a merchant-vessel to Athens, Minos, contrary to the decrees, pursued him with his ships of war, and was driven from his course by a tempest to Sicily, where he ended his life. And when Deucalion, his son, who was on hostile terms with the Athenians, sent to them a demand that they deliver up Daedalus to him, and threatened, if they refused, to put to death the youth whom Minos had received from them as hostages, Theseus made him a gentle reply, declining to surrender Daedalus, who was his kinsman and cousin, being the son of Merope, the daughter of Erechtheus. But privately he set himself to building a fleet, part of it at home in the township of Thymoetadae, far from the public road, and part of it under the direction of Pittheus in Troezen, wishing his purpose to remain concealed. When his ships were ready, he set sail, taking Daedalus and exiles from Crete as his guides, and since none of the Cretans knew of his design, but thought the approaching ships to be friendly, Theseus made himself master of the harbor, disembarked his men, and got to Gnossus before his enemies were aware of his approach. Then joining battle with them at the gate of the Labyrinth, he slew Deucalion and his body-guard. And since Ariadne was now at the head of affairs, he made a truce with her, received back the youthful hostages, and established friendship between the Athenians and the Cretans, who took oath never to begin hostilities.


XX. There are many other stories about these matters, and also about Ariadne, but they do not agree at all. Some say that she hung herself because she was abandoned by Theseus; others that she was conveyed to Naxos by sailors and there lived with Oenarus the priest of Dionysus, and that she was abandoned by Theseus because he loved another woman: --

Dreadful indeed was his passion for Aigle child of Panopeus.”

This verse Peisistratus expunged from the poems of Hesiod, according to Hereas the Megarian, just as, on the other hand, he inserted into the Inferno of Homer the verse: --

Theseus, Peirithous, illustrious children of Heaven,

and all to gratify the Athenians. Moreover, some say that Ariadne actually had sons by Theseus, Oenopion and Staphylus, and among these is Ion of Chios, who says of his own native city: --

This, once, Theseus's son founded, Oenopion.

Now the most auspicious of these legendary tales are in the mouths of all men, as I may say; but a very peculiar account of these matters is published by Paeon the Amathusian. He says that Theseus, driven out of his course by a storm to Cyprus, and having with him Ariadne, who was big with child and in sore sickness and distress from the tossing of the sea, set her on shore alone, but that he himself, while trying to succour the ship, was borne out to sea again. The women of the island, accordingly, took Ariadne into their care, and tried to comfort her in the discouragement caused by her loneliness, brought her forged letters purporting to have been written to her by Theseus, ministered to her aid during the pangs of travail, and gave her burial when she died before her child was born. Paeon says further that Theseus came back, and was greatly afflicted, and left a sum of money with the people of the island, enjoining them to sacrifice to Ariadne, and caused two little statuettes to be set up in her honor, one of silver, and one of bronze. He says also that at the sacrifice in her honor on the second day of the month Gorpiaeus, one of their young men lies down and imitates the cries and gestures of women in travail; and that they call the grove in which they show her tomb, the grove of Ariadne Aphrodite.

Some of the Naxians also have a story of their own, that there were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, one of whom, they say, was married to Dionysus in Naxos and bore him Staphylus and his brother, and the other, of a later time, having been carried off by Theseus and then abandoned by him, came to Naxos, accompanied by a nurse named Corcyne, whose tomb they show; and that this Ariadne also died there, and has honors paid her unlike those of the former, for the festival of the first Ariadne is celebrated with mirth and revels, but the sacrifices performed in honor of the second are attended with sorrow and mourning.

XXI. 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.

XXII. 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.

https://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html

This passage continues with Theseus becoming High King of Athens, but in our next episode we read Ariadne's Letter to her forsaken love.