Meleager

Bust of Meleager

In Greek mythology, Meleager (/ˌmɛliˈeɪɡər/,[1] Greek: Μελέαγρος Meléagros) was a hero venerated in his temenos at Calydon in Aetolia. He was already famed as the host of the Calydonian boar hunt in the epic tradition that was reworked by Homer.[2] Meleager is also mentioned as one of the Argonauts.

Mythology

Early life

Meleager was the son of Althaea and the vintner Oeneus or according to some, of the god Ares.[3] He was the father of Parthenopeus by Atalanta. Meleager married Cleopatra, daughter of Idas and Marpessa.[4] They had a daughter, Polydora, who became the bride of Protesilaus, who left her bed on their wedding-night to join the expedition to Troy.

Calydonian Boar Hunt

When Meleager was born, the Moirai (the Fates) predicted he would only live until a piece of wood, burning in the family hearth, was consumed by fire. Overhearing them, Althaea immediately doused and hid it.[5]

Oeneus sent Meleager to gather up heroes from all over Greece[6] to hunt the Calydonian Boar that had been terrorizing the area and rooting up the vines, as Oeneus had omitted Artemis at a festival in which he honored the other gods. In addition to the heroes he required, he chose Atalanta, a fierce huntress, whom he loved.[7] According to one account of the hunt, when Hylaeus and Rhaecus, two centaurs, tried to rape Atalanta, Meleager killed them. Then Atalanta wounded the boar and Meleager killed it. He awarded her the hide since she had drawn the first drop of blood.

Meleager's brother Toxeus, the "archer",[8] and Plexippus (Althaea's brother) grew enraged that the prize was given to a woman. Meleager killed them in the following argument. He also killed Iphicles and Eurypylus for insulting Atalanta. When Althaea found out that Meleager had killed her brother and one of her sons, Althaea placed the piece of wood that she had stolen from the Fates (the one that the Fates predicted, once engulfed with fire, would kill Meleager) upon the fire, thus fulfilling the prophecy and killing Meleager, her own son. The women who mourned his death were turned into guineafowl (Meleagrides).

In the Homeric version, Meleager was instead slain by the god Apollo.[9]

Afterlife

In Hades, his is the only shade that does not flee Heracles, who has come after Cerberus. In Bacchylides' Ode V, Meleager is still in his shining armor, so formidable, in Bacchylides' account, that Heracles reaches for his bow to defend himself. Heracles is moved to tears by Meleager's account; Meleager has left his sister[10] Deianira unwedded in his father's house, and entreats Heracles to take her as bride;[11] here Bacchylides breaks off his account of the meeting, without noting that in this way Heracles in the Underworld chooses a disastrous wife.

Influences

Among the Romans, the heroes assembled by Meleager for the Calydonian hunt provided a theme of multiple nudes in striking action, to be portrayed frieze-like on sarcophagi.

Meleager's story has similarities with the Scandinavian Norna-Gests þáttr.

In Rick Riordan's book series, The Heroes of Olympus, Frank Zhang, Son of Mars, is told by Juno that he will only live as long as a piece of firewood has burnt to ash. This is most likely inspired by Meleager's curse.

Family tree

DorusAetolusPronoePhorbus
XanthippePleuronCalydonAeolia
SteropeStratoniceLaophonteAgenorEpicasteCleoboeaProtogeneiaAres
EurytePorthaonDemoniceThestiusEurythemisOxylus
OeneusAlthaeaToxeusEvippusPlexippusEurypylusLeda
PeriphasToxeusDeianiraGorgePerimedePhoenixOeclesHypermnestra
ClymenusMelanippeThoasAstypalaeaPoseidonPolyboeaIphianeiraAmphiaraus
MothoneAgelausAncaeusEurypylusClytie
ThyreusEurymedeHeraclesChalciope
MeleagerThessalus

Notes

  1. ↑ Wells, John C. (2009). "Meleager". Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. London: Pearson Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  2. ↑ Homer, Iliad IX, 529-99.
  3. ↑ Hyginus. Fabulae 14.3, 171; Apollodorus. Bibliotheca Book 1.8.2 .
  4. ↑ Kerenyi 1959: Genealogical table F, p. 372.
  5. ↑ Hyginus, Fabula 171; pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 1.8.2.
  6. ↑ pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 1.8.2.
  7. ↑ Euripides, Frg. 520, noted by Karl Kerenyi, The Heroes of the Greeks, 1959:119 note 673.
  8. ↑ There were two further brothers, Thyreus, the "porter", and Klymenos, the "famous"—though Meleager is by far the most renowned of the four—and two sisters, Gorge and Deianira (Kerenyi 1959:199 and Genealogical table G, p. 375).
  9. ↑ Homer. Iliad, Book 9.533, 567
  10. ↑ Or perhaps his half-sister, if Dionysus is the real father of Deianira, as pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 1.8.1, would have it; Oineos himself, "to judge by his name a double of the wine-god", Kerenyi observes (Kerenyi 1959:199).
  11. ↑ Scholia on Iliad 21.194, noted by Kerenyi 1959:180 note 103.

Sources

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