The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)

by Apollodorus

  4 When Epaphos became king of the Egyptians, he married Memphis, daughter of the Nile, founded the city of Memphis in her name, and fathered a daughter, Libya, after whom the land of Libya was named. By Poseidon, Libya had twin sons, Agenor and Belos. Agenor departed to Phoenicia, where he became king and the founder of a great line, and for that reason, we shall reserve our treatment of him until later.* But Belos* remained in Egypt, where he became king, and married Anchinoe, daughter of the Nile, who bore him twin sons, Aigyptos and Danaos (and according to Euripides, Cepheus and Phineus in addition).

  Aigyptos, Danaos, and the Danaids

  Belos established Danaos in Libya and Aigyptos in Arabia; but Aigyptos conquered the land of the Melampodes* too, and named it Egypt after himself. Both had children by many different women, Aigyptos fifty sons and Danaos fifty daughters. Later, they quarrelled over the throne, and Danaos, fearing the sons of Aigyptos, constructed a ship on the advice of Athene— he was the first man to do so*—and putting his daughters on board, he fled the country.

  Calling in at Rhodes, he set up the statue of Lindian Athene; and from there he went to Argos, where Gelanor, who was king at the time, surrendered the throne to him.* [After he had taken control of the country, Danaos named its inhabitants the Danaans after himself.*] There was no water in the land, because Poseidon had caused even the springs to run dry in his anger against Inachos for having testified that the land belonged to Hera;* so Danaos sent his daughters in search of water. Now one of them, Amymone, during her search, threw a javelin at a deer and hit a sleeping Satyr, who leapt up and was eager to make love with her; but when Poseidon appeared, the Satyr fled, and Amymone slept with Poseidon, who then revealed the springs of Lerna* to her.

  5 The sons of Aigyptos came to Argos, and they invited Danaos to call an end to his hostility and asked to marry his daughters. Although Danaos distrusted their protestations and bore them a grudge because of his exile, he agreed to the marriages and apportioned the girls by lot. Hypermnestra, the eldest, was selected to be the wife of Lynceus, and Gorgophone to be the wife of Proteus; for Lynceus and Proteus were borne to Aigyptos by a woman of royal blood, Argyphie. Of those who remained, Bousiris, Encelados, Lycos, and Daiphron obtained in the lot the daughters who were borne to Danaos by Europe, namely, Automate, Amymone, Agave, and Scaie. These were borne to Danaos by a woman of royal blood; Gorgophone and Hypermnestra, for their part, were borne to him by Elephantis. Istros obtained Hippodameia in the lot; Chalcodon, Rhodia; Agenor, Cleopatra; Chaitos, Asteria; Diocorystes, [Phylodameia]; Alces, Glauce; Alcmenor, Hippomedousa; Hippothoos, Gorge; Euchenor, Iphimedousa; and Hippolytos, Rhode. These ten sons were borne by an Arabian woman, and the daughters by hamadryad nymphs, some being daughters of Atlanteia, others of Phoebe. Agaptolemos obtained Peirene in the lot; Cercetes, Dorion; Eurydamas, Phartis; Aigios, Mnestra; Argios, Evippe; Archelaos, Anaxibia; and Menemachos, Nelo. These seven sons were borne by a Phoenician woman, and the daughters by an Ethiopian woman. The sons borne by Tyria obtained the daughters of Memphis as their wives, not through the lot, but because of the similarity of their names, Cleitos obtaining Cleite; Sthenelos, Sthenele; and Chrysippos, Chrysippe. The twelve sons of Aigyptos by the naiad nymph Caliadne cast lots for the daughters of Danaos by the naiad nymph Polyxo. The sons were Eurylochos, Phantes, Peristhenes, Hermos, Dryas, Potamon, Cisseus, Lixos, Imbros, Bromios, Polyctor, and Cthonios; the daughters were Autonoe, Theano, Electra, Cleopatra, Eurydice, Glaucippe, Antheleia, Cleodore, Evippe, Erato, Stygne, and Bryce. The sons of Aigyptos by Gorgo cast lots for the daughters of Danaos by Pieria. Periphas obtained Actaie; Oineus, Podarce; Aigyptos, Dioxippe; Menalces, Adite; Lampos, Ocypete; and Idmon, Pylarge. To proceed to the youngest sons, Idas obtained Hippodice, and Daiphron Adiante (the mother of these two girls was Herse); Pandion obtained Callidice; Arbelos, Oime; Hyperbios, Celaino; and Hippocorystes, Hyperippe: these were sons of Hephaistine and daughters of Crino respectively.

  When they had obtained their brides in the lot and the marriage feast had been celebrated, Danaos handed daggers to his daughters, and they killed their bridegrooms as they slept, except for Hypermnestra, who spared Lynceus* because he had allowed her to preserve her virginity. Danaos imprisoned her for this, and kept her under guard. The rest of his daughters buried the heads of their bridegrooms at Lerna and held funerals for their bodies in front of the city; and they were purified* by Athene and Hermes on the orders of Zeus. Danaos later reunited Hypermnestra to Lynceus, and gave his other daughters in marriage to the victors at an athletic contest.*

  Amymone bore a son, Nauplios, to Poseidon. This Nauplios lived to a great age, sailing the seas, and using beacon fires to draw those who came across him to their death. And it turned out that he himself met his death in that very manner.* Before his death, he married Clymene, daughter of Catreus (according to the tragic poets, but according to the author of the Returns, Philyra, or according to Cercops, Hesione), and had three sons by her, Palamedes, Oiax, and Nausimedon.

  Proitos and Acrisios divide the Argolid

  1 Lynceus became king of Argos after Danaos, and had a son,

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  Abas, by Hypermnestra; and Abas had twin sons, Acrisios and Proitos, by Aglaia, daughter of Mantineus. The twins quarrelled with one another even while they were still in the womb, and when they grew up, they went to war over the kingdom. (It was during this war that they became the first inventors of shields.) Acrisios gained the upper hand and drove Proitos from Argos. Arriving in Lycia at the court of Iobates, or according to some, of Amphianax, Proitos married the king’s daughter, whom Homer calls Anteia,* and the tragic poets, Stheneboia. His father-in-law, with a Lycian army, restored Proitos to his own land, and he took possession of Tiryns, which was fortified for him by the Cyclopes.* The brothers divided the whole of the Argolid between them, and made it their home, Acrisios ruling in Argos, and Proitos in Tiryns.

  Bias, Melampous, and the daughters of Proitos

  2 By Eurydice, daughter of Lacedaimon, Acrisios had a daughter, Danae, and Proitos had three daughters, Lysippe, Iphinoe, and Iphianassa, by Stheneboia. When the daughters of Proitos were fully grown, they went mad, because, according to Hesiod, they refused to accept the rites of Dionysos, or, according to Acousilaos, because they had disparaged the wooden image of Hera.* In their madness, they wandered through the whole of the Argolid, and then, after passing through Arcadia and the Peloponnese, rushed through the desert in a state of complete abandon. Melampous, the son of Amythaon and Eidomene, daughter of Abas, who was a diviner and the first man to discover that illnesses could be cured by drugs and purifications, promised to cure the girls if he was given a third of the kingdom in return. When Proitos refused to hand them over for treatment at such a high price, not only did the girls’ madness grow worse, but the other women* went mad also; for they too deserted their houses, destroyed their own children, and wandered into the wilderness. The calamity had developed to such an extreme that Proitos now offered to pay the demanded fee; but Melampous would promise to undertake the cure only if his brother Bias received a share of the land equal to his own. Fearing that if the cure were delayed, a still greater fee would be demanded of him, Proitos agreed to the cure on these terms.* So Melampous took the most vigorous of the young men, and with loud cries and ecstatic dancing, they chased the women out of the mountains and into Sicyon. During the pursuit, the eldest of Proitos’ daughters, Iphinoe, met her death; but the other two were duly purified, and recovered their reason. Proitos gave his daughters in marriage to Melampous and Bias, and later became the father of a son, Megapenthes.

  Excursus: the story of Bellerophon

  1 Bellerophon, the son of Glaucos and grandson of Sisyphos,

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  had accidentally killed his brother* Deliades (or according to some, Peiren, or according to others, Alcimenes) and came to Proitos to be purified.* Stheneboia fell in love with him,* and sent word to him proposing an assignation; but when he refused, she told Proitos that Bellerophon h
ad been sending her messages in the hope of seducing her. Proitos believed her, and gave Bellerophon a letter to deliver to Iobates,* which con tained a message that he should put Bellerophon to death; so when Iobates had read it, he told him to kill the Chimaera, believing that he would be destroyed by the monster. For it was no easy prey for a multitude of men, let alone for one, seeing that it was a single creature which yet had the power of three, having the foreparts of a lion, the tail of a dragon, and a third head in the middle*—a goat’s head, through which it breathed fire. The beast was devastating the land and destroying the cattle. It is said, furthermore, that this Chimaera was reared by Amisodaros,* as Homer has stated also, and was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, as Hesiod records.*

  2 So Bellerophon climbed on to his winged horse, Pegasos,* the offspring of Medusa and Poseidon, and soaring high into the air, killed the Chimaera by shooting arrows at it from above. After his battle with the Chimaera, Iobates told him to fight against the Solymoi,* and when he had fulfilled that task also, ordered him to attack the Amazons. When he had killed these also, Iobates picked out the Lycians who were thought to excel at the time in youthful vigour,* and told them to mount an ambush and kill him. But when Bellerophon had killed all of these in addition, Iobates, marvelling at his strength, showed him the letter and urged him to remain at his court; and he gave him his daughter, Philonoe, in marriage, and left him the kingdom when he died.

  Danae and the birth of Perseus

  1 When Acrisios consulted the oracle about the birth of male

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  children, the god replied that his daughter would give birth to a son who would kill him. For fear of this, Acrisios built a bronze chamber beneath the ground and kept Danae guarded within it. She was seduced none the less, some say by Proitos* (so giving rise to the quarrel between the brothers), while according to others, Zeus had intercourse with her by transforming himself into a shower of gold and pouring through the roof into Danae’s lap. Later, when Acrisios learned* that a child, Perseus, had been born to her, he refused to believe that she had been seduced by Zeus, and put his daughter into a chest along with her child, and threw it into the sea. The chest was cast ashore at Seriphos, where Dictys recovered it, and raised the child.

  Perseus fetches the Gorgon’s head

  2 Polydectes, the brother of Dictys,* who was king of Seriphos at the time, fell in love with Danae; and when he was unable to achieve his desire now that Perseus was a grown man, he summoned his friends together, with Perseus amongst them, and claimed that he was gathering contributions for a marriage-offering* to enable him to marry Hippodameia, the daughter of Oinomaos. When Perseus declared that he would not deny him even the Gorgon’s head, Polydectes demanded horses from all the others, but did not take the horses of Perseus* and ordered him to fetch the Gorgon’s head.

  Guided by Hermes and Athene, he went to see the daughters of Phorcos:* Enyo, Pephredo, and Deino. Daughters of Phorcos by Ceto, they were sisters of the Gorgons, and had been old women from the time of their birth. The three of them had only a single eye and a single tooth, which they exchanged in turn between themselves. Perseus gained possession of the eye and tooth, and when they asked him to give them back, he said that he would surrender them if they showed him the way to the nymphs. These nymphs had in their possession some winged sandals,* and the kihisis, which is said to have been a kind of wallet, † They also had the cap [of Hades*]. When the daughters of Phorcos had told him the way, he returned the eye and tooth to them, and visited the nymphs and obtained what he desired. He slung the kihisis around his neck, tied the sandals to his ankles, and placed the cap on his head; as long as he wore it, he could see whomever he wished while remaining invisible to others. After he had received in addition an adamantine sickle from Hermes, he flew to the Ocean, and when he arrived there, he caught the Gorgons asleep.

  Their names were Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa. Only Medusa was mortal, and for that reason it was her head that Perseus was sent to fetch. The Gorgons had heads with scaly serpents coiled around them, and large tusks like those of swine, and hands of bronze, and wings of gold which gave them the power of flight; and they turned all who beheld them to stone. So Perseus stood over them as they slept, and while Athene guided his hand, he turned aside, and looking into a bronze shield in which he could see the reflection of the Gorgon, he cut off her head. As her head was severed, Pegasos, the winged horse, and Chrysaor, the father of Geryon, sprang from the Gorgon’s body. (She had conceived them previously by Poseidon.*) 3 So Perseus placed Medusa’s head in the wallet, and as he was making his way back, the Gorgons started from their sleep and tried to pursue him, but they were unable to see him because of the cap, which hid him from their view.

  Perseus and Andromeda

  Arriving in Ethiopia, which was ruled by Cepheus, he found the king’s daughter Andromeda exposed as prey to a sea monster; for Cassiepeia,* the wife of Cepheus, had claimed to rival the Nereids in beauty, boasting that she surpassed them all. The Nereids were enraged by this, and Poseidon, who shared their anger, sent a sea-flood and a monster against the land. Now Ammon* had prophesied deliverance from this calamity if Cepheus’ daughter Andromeda were offered as prey to the monster, and compelled by the Ethiopians, Cepheus had done so and tied his daughter to a rock. As soon as Perseus saw her, he fell in love, and promised Cepheus that he would destroy the monster if he would give him the rescued girl as a wife. When oaths had been sworn to this effect, Perseus confronted the monster and killed it, and set Andromeda free. Phineus, however, who was a brother of Cepheus and had been promised Andromeda beforehand, plotted against Perseus; but when Perseus learned of the conspiracy, he showed the Gorgon to Phineus and his fellow plotters, turning them to stone on the spot.

  The later history of Perseus

  When he arrived back at Seriphos, he found that his mother and Dictys had sought refuge at the altars to escape the violence of Polydectes. So he went into the palace, where Polydectes had assembled his friends, and turning his head aside, he displayed the Gorgon’s head. All who beheld it were turned to stone, each in the position he happened to have assumed at the time. And then, after making Dictys king of Seriphos, he restored the sandals, wallet, and cap to Hermes, and gave the Gorgon’s head to Athene. Hermes returned the aforesaid objects to the nymphs and Athene fixed the Gorgon’s head to the centre of her shield. But there are some who say that Medusa lost her head because of Athene—for they say that the Gorgon had claimed to rival the goddess in beauty.*

  4 Perseus, accompanied by Danae and Andromeda, hurried off to Argos to see Acrisios. But when Acrisios learned of this, he feared what the oracle had predicted,* and left Argos and travelled to the land of the Pelasgians. Now Teutamides, king of Larissa,* was holding an athletic contest in honour of his dead father, and Perseus came to take part. While competing in the pentathlon, he threw his discus and struck Acrisios on the foot, killing him* instantly. Realizing that the oracle had been fulfilled, he buried Acrisios outside the city, and then, because he was ashamed to go to Argos to claim the inheritance of one who had died at his own hand, he went to Megapenthes, son of Proitos, and arranged an exchange of kingdoms with him, placing Argos in his hands. So in this way Megapenthes became king of the Argives, and Perseus king of Tiryns; and Perseus fortified Midea and Mycenae* in addition.

  The immediate descendants of Perseus

  5 By Andromeda, Perseus had the following sons, first, before their arrival in Greece, Perses, whom he left behind with Cepheus (and from whom, they say, the kings of Persia are descended), and later, in Mycenae, Alcaios, Sthenelos, Heleios, Mestor, and Electryon; he also had a daughter, Gorgophone, who became the wife of Perieres.

  Alcaios had a son, Amphitryon, and a daughter, Anaxo, by Astydameia, daughter of Pelops (or according to some, by Laonome, daughter of Gouneus, or according to others, by Hipponome, daughter of Menoiceus); and Mestor and Lysidice, daughter of Pelops, had a daughter, Hippothoe. Hippothoe was carried off by Poseidon, who took her
to the Echinadian Islands, where he had intercourse with her, fathering Taphios, who colonized Taphos and called his people the Teleboans because he had gone far* from the land of his birth. To Taphios a son, Pterelaos, was born, whom Poseidon made immortal by planting a golden hair in his head; and Pterelaos had six sons, Chromios, Tyrannos, Antiochos, Chersidamas, Mestor, and Everes.