Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/189

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255—288.
ODYSSEY. XI.
153

abounding in cattle, dwelt in spacious Iolcus; but the other in sandy Pylos. And the queen of women brought forth the others to Cretheus, Æson, and Pheres, and steed-rejoicing Amithaon.

"After her I beheld Antiope, the daughter of Asopus, who also boasted to have slept in the arms of Jove; and she brought forth two sons, Amphion and Zethus, who first laid the foundations of seven-gated Thebes, and surrounded it with turrets; since they were not able, although they were strong, to dwell in spacious Thebes without turrets.

"After her I beheld Alcmene, the wife of Amphitryon, who, mingled in the arms of great Jove, brought forth bold, lion-hearted Hercules. And Megara, daughter of high-minded Creon, whom the son of Amphitryon, ever unwasted in strength, wedded.

"And I beheld the mother of Œdipus, beautiful Epicaste,[1] who committed a dreadful[2] deed in the ignorance of her mind, having married her own son; and he, having slain his father, married her: but the gods immediately made it public amongst men. Then he, suffering grief in delightful Thebes, ruled over the Cadmeians, through the pernicious counsels of the gods; but she went to the [dwellings] of strong-gated Hades, suspending the cord on high[3] from the lofty house, held fast by her own sorrow; but she left behind for him very many griefs, as many as the Furies of a mother accomplish.

"And I saw the very beautiful Chloris, whom Neleus once married, on account of her beauty, when he had given her countless dowries, the youngest daughter of Amphion, son of Iasus: who once ruled strongly in Minyean Orchomenus; and he reigned over Pylos; and she bore to him noble children, Nestor, and Chromius, and proud Periclymenus; and besides these she brought forth strong Pero, a marvel to mortals, whom all the neighbouring inhabitants wooed; nor did Neleus at all offer [her] to any one, who could not drive away from Phylace the crumple-horned oxen of mighty

  1. In the Tragedians, Jocasta. But see Schol. on Eur. Phœn. 13. Nicolaus Damascenus, from a MS. in the Escurial, agrees with Homer.
  2. μέγα is used by an euphemisus to denote her illicit intercourse. See Schol.
  3. See my note on Æsch. Ag. p. 121, n. 1, ed. Bohn.