The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) (25 page)

⁷
When the third tribute was sent to the Minotaur,
*
he was included on the list, or, according to some, he offered himself as a volunteer. As the ship had a black sail, Aigeus ordered his son to raise white sails on it if he came back alive.
⁸
When Theseus arrived in Crete, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, fell in love with him and promised to assist him if he would agree to take her away to Athens and have her as his wife. When Theseus agreed on oath to do so, she asked Daidalos to reveal how it was possible to escape from the Labyrinth.
⁹
On his advice, she gave Theseus a thread as he entered. He attached it to the door and played it out as he went in; and discovering the Minotaur in the innermost part of the Labyrinth, he killed it with blows from his fists, and then made his way out again by pulling back on the thread. [On the journey back,] he arrived at Naxos by night with Ariadne and the children.
*
There Dionysos fell in love with Ariadne
*
and carried her off; and taking her to Lemnos, he had intercourse with her, fathering Thoas, Staphylos, Oinopion, and Peparethos.

¹⁰
In his grief for Ariadne, Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship as he put into port. And when Aigeus saw from the Acropolis that the ship had a black sail, he thought that Theseus had died, and threw himself down to his death.
¹¹
Theseus then succeeded him as king of Athens, and killed the sons of Pallas,
*
who were fifty in number; and in the same way, all who tried to rebel were killed by him, and he held sole power.

¹²
When Minos learned that Theseus and his companions had escaped, he enclosed Daidalos—who was to blame for it—in the Labyrinth, together with his son Icaros (who had been borne to him by Naucrate, a slave of Minos). But Daidalos constructed wings for himself and his son; and as his son took flight, he warned him not to fly too high, for fear that the glue would be melted by the sun and the wings would come loose, nor to fly too close to the sea, for fear that they would come loose because of the moisture.
¹³
But Icaros disregarded his father’s
instructions and in his elation soared higher and higher; and when the glue melted, he plunged into the sea which is named the Icarian Sea
*
because of him, and perished. [Daidalos for his part escaped safely to Camicos in Sicily.]

¹⁴
Minos went in pursuit of Daidalos, and to every land that he visited on his search, he brought a spiral shell and proclaimed that he would give a large reward to the man who could draw a thread through it, thinking that by this means he would be able to discover Daidalos. Arriving at Camicos in Sicily, he visited the court of Cocalos, with whom Daidalos was hiding, and displayed the shell. Cocalos took the shell, promising that he would thread it, and gave it to Daidalos.
¹⁵
Daidalos attached a thread to an ant, pierced a hole in the shell, and let the ant make its way through. When Minos received it back with the thread drawn through, he realized that Daidalos was staying with Cocalos and demanded at once that he be handed over. Cocalos promised to surrender him, and offered Minos his hospitality. But Minos was killed in his bath by the daughters of Cocalos; according to some, he died when boiling water was poured over him.

¹⁶
Theseus accompanied Heracles on his expedition against the Amazons,
*
and he abducted Antiope, or according to some, Melanippe, or according to Simonides, Hippolyte. It was for that reason that the Amazons marched against Athens
*
and after they had pitched camp by the Areiopagos,
*
they were defeated by Theseus and the Athenians. Although he had a son, Hippolytos, by the Amazon,
¹⁷
he afterwards accepted Phaedra, daughter of Minos, as a wife from Deucalion,
*
put ting an end to their previous hostility. During the wedding celebrations, the Amazon who had been formerly married to him arrived fully armed with her fellow Amazons, and was on the point of killing the guests; but they closed the doors with all speed, and killed her. Or, according to some, she was killed in battle by Theseus.

¹⁸
After Phaedra had borne two children, Acamas and Demophon, to Theseus, she fell in love with Hippolytos, his
son by the Amazon, and asked him to sleep with her.
*
But he hated all women
*
and shunned her embraces. So Phaedra, fearing that he might accuse her to his father, broke down the doors of her bedroom, ripped her clothing, and falsely accused him of rape.
¹⁹
Theseus believed her and prayed to Poseidon for the destruction of Hippolytos. And when Hippolytos was riding in his chariot and drove it along the sea-shore,
*
Poseidon caused a bull to emerge from the breakers. The horses were panic-stricken and the chariot was dashed to pieces; and becoming entangled [in the reins], Hippolytos was dragged to his death. When Phaedra’s passion came to light, she hanged herself.

²⁰
Ixion
*
conceived a passion for Hera and tried to take her by force. Hera reported the matter to Zeus; and Zeus, wanting to know whether it was really the case, fashioned a cloud in Hera’s likeness and laid it down beside Ixion. When Ixion boasted that he had slept with Hera, Zeus fastened him to a wheel on which, as a punishment, he is whirled through the air by the force of the winds. As for the cloud, it gave birth to Centauros, a child by Ixion.

²¹
[Theseus joined Peirithoos
*
as an ally when he went to war against the Centaurs. For when Peirithoos had married Hippodameia, he had invited the Centaurs to the wedding feast as relatives of the bride.
*
But they were unaccustomed to wine, and drank it down so copiously that they became drunk; and when the bride was brought in, they tried to rape her. So Peirithoos took up arms, and aided by Theseus, engaged them in battle. Theseus killed a good number of them.]

²²
Caineus was originally a woman, but after Poseidon had intercourse with her, she asked to become a man and to be invulnerable. For that reason, he had no concern for wounds during the battle with the Centaurs, and killed a large number of them. The survivors, however, surrounded him, and hammered him with fir trees until he was buried in the earth.
*

²³
Theseus came to an agreement with Peirithoos that both would marry daughters of Zeus. With the aid of Peirithoos,
he abducted Helen (then aged twelve) from Sparta for himself, and then, in the hope of winning Persephone as a bride for Peirithoos, made his way down to Hades. [While he was there,] the Dioscuri, with the Lacedaimonians and Arcadians, captured Athens,
*
and recovered Helen; and with her, they took away Aithra,
*
the daughter of Pittheus, as a captive. But Demophon and Acamas escaped. The Dioscuri also brought Menestheus
*
back from exile and entrusted the throne of Athens to him.
²⁴
When Theseus arrived in Hades with Peirithoos, he became the victim of a trick. For on the pretence that they were about to enjoy his hospitality as guests, Hades asked them to sit down first on the Chair of Forgetfulness; and they became stuck to it,
*
and were held down by coils of snakes. Peirithoos remained a prisoner in Hades ever after, but Heracles brought Theseus back to earth and sent him to Athens. He was driven from there by Menestheus, and went to Lycomedes,
*
who threw him into an abyss and killed him.

12. The Pelopids

¹
The punishment suffered by Tantalos
*
in Hades is to have

2

a stone suspended over him, and remain perpetually in a lake, seeing at either side of his shoulders fruit-laden trees growing by its bank; the water grazes his chin, but when he wants to drink from it, the water dries up, and when he wants to feed from the fruit, the trees and their fruits are raised by winds as high as the clouds. It is said by some that he suffers this punishment because he divulged the secrets of the gods to men and tried to share ambrosia with his friends.
*

²
Broteas,
*
who was a hunter, failed to honour Artemis, and said that even fire could cause him no harm; so he went mad and threw himself into the fire.

³
Pelops, after being slaughtered and boiled at the banquet of the gods, was more beautiful than ever when he was brought
back to life again, and because of his remarkable beauty, he became the beloved of Poseidon, who gave him a winged chariot
*
which could run even across the sea without wetting its axles.
⁴
Now Oinomaos, the king of Pisa,
*
had a daughter, Hippodameia, and whether it was because he had a passion for her, as some people say, or because he had been warned by an oracle that he would die at the hand of the man who married her, nobody was able to win her as his wife, since her father could not persuade her to have intercourse with him, and her suitors were put to death by him.
⁵
For he possessed arms and horses given to him by Ares, and offered his daughter’s hand to the suitors as the prize in a contest. Each suitor had to take Hippodameia on his own chariot and flee as far as the Isthmus of Corinth, and Oinomaos would immediately pursue him in full armour. If Oinomaos caught up with the suitor, he killed him, but if the suitor were not overtaken, he would win Hippodameia as his wife. In this way, he had killed numerous suitors (twelve according to some accounts). And he cut off the suitors’ heads and nailed them to his house.

⁶
Pelops too arrived to seek her hand; and when Hippodameia saw how beautiful he was, she fell in love with him, and persuaded Myrtilos, son of Hermes, to come to his aid. (This Myrtilos was Oinomaos’ charioteer.)
⁷
So Myrtilos, who loved her and wanted to please her, failed to insert the axlepins
*
into the wheel hubs, causing Oinomaos to be defeated in the race and to lose his life when he became entangled in the reins and was dragged to his death (though according to some, he was killed by Pelops). As he was dying, he cursed Myrtilos, recognizing his treachery, and prayed that he would perish at the hand of Pelops.

⁸
So in this way, Pelops won Hippodameia; and when he arrived at a certain place accompanied by Myrtilos, he went away some small distance to fetch water for his wife, who was thirsty; and during that time, Myrtilos tried to rape her. When she told Pelops of this, he threw Myrtilos into the Myrtoan Sea
*
that bears his name, at Cape Geraistos. As Myrtilos fell, he hurled curses at the house of Pelops.
*
⁹
After he had made his way to the Ocean and been purified by Hephaistos, Pelops returned to Pisa in Elis and took over the kingdom of Oinomaos,
after first subjugating the land formerly known as Apia or Pelasgiotis,
*
which he now named the Peloponnese after himself.

¹⁰
The sons of Pelops were Pittheus, Atreus, and Thyestes, amongst others. Now the wife of Atreus was Aerope, daughter of Catreus, and she was in love with Thyestes. And Atreus had once made a vow that he would sacrifice to Artemis the finest lamb born in his flock, but when a golden lamb appeared, they say that he failed to honour his vow,
¹¹
and instead, he throttled it, and placed it in a chest
*
for safe keeping; and it was given to Thyestes by Aerope, who had been seduced by him. For the Mycenaeans had received an oracle telling them to choose a Pelopid as their king, and they had sent for Atreus and Thyestes;
*
and while they were discussing who should be king, Thyestes declared before the crowd that the man to gain the throne should be the one who possessed the golden lamb. And when Atreus agreed to this, Thyestes produced the lamb and so became king.
¹²
But Zeus sent Hermes to Atreus, telling him to reach an agreement with Thyestes that Atreus should become king if the Sun reversed his course, and when Thyestes had agreed, the Sun went down in the east. Since the deity had clearly attested that Thyestes was a usurper, Atreus took over the kingdom and banished Thyestes.
¹³
But later, when he learned of the adultery,
*
he sent a herald to Thyestes suggesting a reconciliation; and when Thyestes arrived, Atreus, pretending friendship all the while, slaughtered Aglaos, Callileon, and Orchomenos, the children whom Thyestes had fathered by a naiad nymph, although they had sat down as suppliants on the altar of Zeus. He then dismembered them, boiled them, and served them to Thyestes without the extremities. And after he had swallowed them down, Atreus showed him the extremities and expelled him from the land.
¹⁴
Seeking to gain revenge by any means, Thyestes went to consult the oracle on the matter and received this response, that he would gain his revenge if he fathered a son by intercourse with his own daughter.
*
So he did that very thing, and
by his daughter he fathered Aigisthos, who, when he reached manhood and learned that he was the son of Thyestes, killed Atreus and restored the kingdom to Thyestes.

¹⁵
[But Agamemnon and Menelaos were taken by their nurse to Polypheides, king of Sicyon, and he in turn sent them to Oineus, the Aetolian. Not long afterwards, Tyndareus brought them back again; and they expelled Thyestes, exacting an oath from him, when he sought refuge
*
at the altar of Hera, that he would settle in Cythera. They for their part became the sons-in-law of Tyndareus by marrying his daughters.
*
]

¹⁶
Agamemnon became king of Mycenae and married Clytemnestra, after killing her former husband Tantalos, son of Thyestes, along with his child. A son, Orestes, was born to him, and three daughters, Chrysothemis, Electra, and Iphigeneia. Menelaos married Helen and became king of Sparta after Tyndareus had entrusted the kingdom to him.