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Apollodorus

Apollodorus. The Library. Frazer, James George, Sir, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

Thence he went with Eurytion to hunt the Calydonian boar, but in throwing a dart at the hog he involuntarily struck and killed Eurytion. Therefore flying again from Phthia he betook him to Acastus at Iolcus and was purified by him.[*](As to this involuntary homicide committed by Peleus and his purification by Acastus, see above, Apollod. 1.8.2; Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 1063; Ant. Lib. 38; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175 (vol. i. p. 447, ed. Muller). The Scholiast on Aristophanes, calls the slain man Eurytus, not Eurytion. Antoninus Liberalis and Tzetzes describe him as Eurytion, son of Irus, not of Actor. They do not mention the hunt of the Calydonian boar in particular, but speak of a boar-hunt or a hunt in general.)

And at the games celebrated in honor of Pelias he contended in wrestling with Atalanta.[*](See above, Apollod. 3.9.2.) And Astydamia, wife of Acastus, fell in love with Peleus, and sent him a proposal for a meeting;[*](The following romantic story of the wicked wife, the virtuous hero, and his miraculous rescue from the perils of the forest, in which his treacherous host left him sleeping alone and unarmed, is briefly alluded to by Pind. N. 4.54(88)ff.; Pind. N. 5.25(46)ff. It is told more explicitly by the Scholiast on Pind. N. 4.54(88) and 59(95); the Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 1063; and the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.224. But the fullest and clearest version of the tale is given by Apollodorus in the present passage. Pindar calls the wicked wife Hippolyta or Hippolyta Cretheis, that is, Hippolyta daughter of Cretheus. His Scholiast calls her Cretheis; the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, calls her Cretheis or Hippolyte; and the Scholiast on Aristophanes, calls her first Hippolyte and afterwards Astydamia. The sword of Peleus, which his faithless host hid in the cows' dung while the hero lay sleeping in the wood, was a magic sword wrought by the divine smith Hephaestus and bestowed on Peleus by the pitying gods as a reward for his chastity. With this wondrous brand the chaste hero, like a mediaeval knight, was everywhere victorious in the fight and successful in the chase. Compare Zenobius, Cent. v.20. The episode of the hiding of the sword was told by Hesiod, some of whose verses on the subject are quoted by the Scholiast on Pind. N. 4.59(95). The whole story of the adventures of Peleus in the house of Acastus and in the forest reads like a fairy tale, and we can hardly doubt that it contains elements of genuine folklore. These are well brought out by W. Mannhardt in his study of the story. See his W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte (Berlin, 1877), pp. 49ff. ) and when she could not prevail on him

she sent word to his wife that Peleus was about to marry Sterope, daughter of Acastus; on hearing which the wife of Peleus strung herself up. And the wife of Acastus falsely accused Peleus to her husband, alleging that he had attempted her virtue. On hearing that, Acastus would not kill the man whom he had purified, but took him to hunt on Pelion. There a contest taking place in regard to the hunt, Peleus cut out and put in his pouch the tongues of the animals that fell to him, while the party of Acastus bagged his game and derided him as if he had taken nothing. But he produced them the tongues, and said that he had taken just as many animals as he had tongues.[*](In fairy tales the hero often cuts out the tongues of a seven-headed dragon or other fearsome beast, and produces them as evidence of his prowess. See W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, pp. 53ff.; Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.269.) When he had fallen asleep on Pelion, Acastus deserted him, and hiding his sword in the cows' dung, returned. On arising and looking for his sword, Peleus was caught by the centaurs and would have perished, if he had not been saved by Chiron, who also restored him his sword, which he had sought and found.

Peleus married Polydora, daughter of Perieres, by whom he had a putative son Menesthius, though in fact Menesthius was the son of the river Sperchius.[*](See above, note on Apollod. 3.13.1.)

Afterwards he married Thetis, daughter of Nereus,[*](Compare Hom. Il. 18.83ff.; Hom. Il. 18.432ff.; Pind. N. 4.61(100)ff.; Eur. IA 701ff.; Eur. IA 1036ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.805ff.; Catul. 64; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 65, 142ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 207, 208; Second Vatican Mythographer 205).) for whose hand Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals; but when Themis prophesied that the son born of Thetis would be mightier than his father, they withdrew.[*](See Pind. I. 8.27(58)ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.790ff.; Ov. Met. 11.217ff., who attributes the prophecy to Proteus. The present passage of Apollodorus is quoted, with the author's name, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 178).) But some say that when Zeus was bent on gratifying his passion for her, Prometheus declared that the son borne to him by her would be lord of heaven;[*](Compare Aesch. PB 908ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.519; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica v.338ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 54; Hyginus, Ast. ii.15. According to Hyginus, Zeus released Prometheus from his fetters in gratitude for the warning which the sage had given him not to wed Thetis.) and others affirm that Thetis would not consort with Zeus because she had been brought up by Hera, and that Zeus in anger would marry her to a mortal.[*](Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.790-798, a passage which Apollodorus seems here to have had in mind.) Chiron, therefore, having advised Peleus to seize her and hold her fast in spite of her shape-shifting, he watched his chance and carried her off, and though she turned, now into fire, now into water, and now into a beast, he did not let her go till he saw that she had resumed her former shape.[*](As to the various shapes into which the reluctant Thetis turned herself in order to evade the grasp of her mortal lover, see Pind. N. 4.62(101)ff.; Scholiast on Pind. N. 3.35(60); Scholiast on Pind. N. 4.62(101); Paus. 5.18.5; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iii.618-624; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175, 178 (vol. i. pp. 446, 457, ed. Muller); Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.582; Ov. Met. 11.235ff. She is said to have changed into fire, water, wind, a tree, a bird, a tiger, a lion, a serpent, and a cuttlefish. It was when she had assumed the form of a cuttlefish (sepia) that Peleus at last succeeded in seizing her and holding her fast (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175, 178 (vol. i. pp. 446, 457, ed. Muller)). With the transformations which Thetis underwent in order to escape from the arms of her lover we may compare the transformations which her father Nereus underwent in order to escape from Herakles (above, Apollod. 2.5.11), the transformations which the river-god Achelous underwent in his tussle with the same doughty hero (above, Apollod. 2.7.5, note), and the transformations which the sea-god Proteus underwent in order to give the slip to Menelaus (Hom. Od. 4.354ff.). All these stories were appropriately told of water-spirits, their mutability reflecting as it were the instability of the fickle, inconstant element of which they were born. The place where Peleus caught and mastered his sea-bride was believed to be the southeastern headland of Thessaly, which hence bore the name of Sepia or the Cuttlefish. The whole coast of the Cape was sacred to Thetis and the other Nereids; and after their fleet had been wrecked on the headland, the Persians sacrificed to Thetis on the spot (Hdt. 7.191). See further, Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis.”) And he married her on Pelion,

and there the gods celebrated the marriage with feast and song.[*](The Muses sang at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, according to Pind. P. 3.89(159)ff. Catullus describes the Fates singing on the same occasion, and he has recorded their magic song (Catul. 64.305ff.).) And Chiron gave Peleus an ashen spear,[*](Compare Hom. Il. 16.140-144, with the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 16.140, according to whom Chiron felled the ash-tree for the shaft, while Athena polished it, and Hephaestus wrought (the blade). For this account the Scholiast refers to the author of the epic Cypria.) and Poseidon gave him horses, Balius and Xanthus, and these were immortal.[*](Compare Hom. Il. 16.148ff. )

When Thetis had got a babe by Peleus, she wished to make it immortal, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the mortal element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia.[*](This account of how Thetis attempted to render Achilles immortal, and how the attempt was frustrated by Peleus, is borrowed from Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.869ff. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 178 (vol. i. p. 458, ed. Muller). According to another legend, Thetis bore seven sons, of whom Achilles was the seventh; she destroyed the first six by throwing them into the fire or into a kettle of boiling water to see whether they were mortal or to make them immortal by consuming the merely mortal portion of their frame; and the seventh son, Achilles, would have perished in like manner, if his father Peleus had not snatched him from the fire at the moment when as yet only his anklebone was burnt. To supply this missing portion of his body, Peleus dug up the skeleton of the giant Damysus, the fleetest of all the giants, and, extracting from it the anklebone, fitted it neatly into the ankle of his little son Achilles, applying drugs which caused the new, or rather old, bone to coalesce perfectly with the rest. See Ptolemy Hephaest., Nov. Hist. vi in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, p. 195; Lycophron, Cassandra 178ff., with scholium of Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 178 (vol. i. pp. 455ff.); Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.37; Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 1068, p. 443, ed. Fr. Dubner; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.816. A similar story is told of Demeter and the infant son of Celeus. See above, Apollod. 1.5.1, with the note.) But Peleus watched her, and, seeing the child

writhing on the fire, he cried out; and Thetis, thus prevented from accomplishing her purpose, forsook her infant son and departed to the Nereids.[*](Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.875ff., who says that when Thetis was interrupted by Peleus in her effort to make Achilles immortal, she threw the infant screaming on the floor, and rushing out of the house plunged angrily into the sea, and never returned again. In the Iliad Homer represents Thetis dwelling with her old father Nereus and the sea-nymphs in the depths of the sea (Hom. Il. 1.357ff.; Hom. Il. 18.35ff.; Hom. Il. 14.83ff.), while her forlorn husband dragged out a miserable and solitary old age in the halls (Hom. Il. 18.434ff.). Thus the poet would seem to have been acquainted with the story of the quarrel and parting of the husband and wife, though he nowhere alludes to it or to the painful misunderstanding which led to their separation. In this, as in many other places, Homer passes over in silence features of popular tradition which he either rejected as incredible or deemed below the dignity of the epic. Yet if we are right in classing the story of Peleus and Thetis with the similar tales of the marriage of a man to a mermaid or other marine creature, the narrative probably always ended in the usual sad way by telling how, after living happily together for a time, the two at last quarrelled and parted for ever.) Peleus brought the child to Chiron, who received him and fed him on the inwards of lions and wild swine and the marrows of bears,[*](Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.37. According to Statius (Achill. ii.382ff.), Chiron fed the youthful Achilles not on ordinary victuals, but on the flesh and marrows of lions. Philostratus says that his nourishment consisted of honeycombs and the marrows of fawns (Philostratus, Her. xx.2), while the author of the Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἀχιλλεύς, p. 181 says that he was nurtured on the marrows of deer. Compare Eustathius on Hom. Il. 1.1, p. 14. The flesh and marrows of lions, wild boars, and bears were no doubt supposed to impart to the youthful hero who partook of them the strength and courage of these animals, while the marrows of fawns or deer may have been thought to ensure the fleetness of foot for which he was afterwards so conspicuous. It is thus that on the principle of sympathetic magic many races seek to acquire the qualities of certain animals by eating their flesh or drinking their blood; whereas they abstain from eating the flesh of other animals lest they should, by partaking of it, be infected with the undesirable qualities which these creatures are believed to possess. For example, in various African tribes men eat the hearts of lions in order to become lionhearted, while others will not eat the flesh of tortoises lest they should become slow-footed like these animals. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.138ff. On the same principle the ancients believed that men could acquire the art of divination by eating the hearts of ravens, moles, or hawks, because these creatures were supposed to be endowed with prophetic powers. See Porphyry, De abstinentia ii.48; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx.19. So Medea is said to have restored the aged Aeson to youth by infusing into his veins a decoction of the liver of a long-lived stag and of the head of a crow that had survived nine generations of men. See Ov. Met. 7.273ff. ) and named him Achilles, because he had not put his lips to the breast;[*](Apollodorus absurdly derives the name Achilles from α (privative) and χείλη, “lips,” so that the word would mean “not lips.” Compare Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἀχιλλεύς, p. 181,; Eustathius on Hom. Il. i.1, p. 14.) but before that time his name was Ligyron.