Oenone

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Œnone holding pan pipes, Paris and Eros: detail from a sarcophagus with the Judgement of Paris, Roman artwork from the Hadrianic period
Œnone holding pan pipes, Paris and Eros: detail from a sarcophagus with the Judgement of Paris, Roman artwork from the Hadrianic period

In Greek mythology, Oenone or Œnone ("wine woman") was the first wife of Paris.

She was a mountain nymph (an Oread) on Mount Ida in Phrygia, a mountain associated with the Mother Goddess Cybele. Her father was Cebren, a river-god. Her very name links her to the gift of wine.

The Trojan prince Paris, son of Priam and Hecuba, fell in love with Oenone when he was a shepherd on the slopes of Mount Ida, having been exposed in infancy owing to a prophecy that he would be the means of the destruction of the city of Troy but rescued by the herdsman Agelaus. The couple married, and Oenone gave birth to a son, Corythus. When Paris later abandoned her to return to Troy and sail across the Aegean to kidnap Helen, Queen of Sparta, Oenone predicted the Trojan War.

Out of revenge for Paris' betrayal, she sent Corythus to guide the Greeks to Troy. Another version has it that she used her son to drive a rift between Paris and Helen, but Paris, not recognizing his own son, killed him.

When Paris was mortally wounded by Philoctetes' arrow, he begged Oenone to heal him, but she refused and Paris died. Overcome with guilt, she threw herself onto his burning funeral pyre (many sources also say that she hanged herself)

In Jean Racine's play Phèdre, Oenone is the name given to Phaedra's nurse.

"The Misjudgment of Oenone" is a play written by Eddie McGuire.

Oenone was also the name of an island, which was later named after Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus.