Tyro

In Greek mythology, Tyro (Ancient Greek: Τυρώ) was a Thessalian princess.

Family

Tyro was the daughter of Salmoneus and she married Cretheus, but loved Enipeus. She gave birth to Pelias and Neleus, the twin sons of Poseidon. With Cretheus she had Aeson, Pheres, and Amythaon.[1][2][3]

Mythology

Her father, Salmoneus, was the brother of Athamas and Sisyphus. Tyro was married to Cretheus[4] (also her uncle whom she had three sons, Aeson, Amythaon, Pheres) but she loved Enipeus, a river god. She pursued Enipeus, who refused her advances. One day, Poseidon, filled with lust for Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus and from their union was born Pelias and Neleus, twin boys. Tyro exposed her sons on a mountain to die, but they were found by a herdsman who raised them as his own. When they reached adulthood, Pelias and Neleus found Tyro and killed her stepmother, Sidero, for having mistreated their mother (Salmoneus married Sidero when Alkidike, his wife and the mother of Tyro, died). Sidero hid in a temple to Hera but Pelias killed her anyway, causing Hera's undying hatred of Pelias – and her glorious patronage of Jason and the Argonauts in their long quest for the Golden Fleece. Pelias' half brother Aeson, the son of Tyro and Cretheus, was the father of Jason.[5] Soon after, Tyro married Sisyphus, her paternal uncle and had two children. It was said that their children would kill Salmoneus, so Tyro killed them in order to save her father.[6]

The Cantos

Ezra Pound refers to Tyro in The Cantos. In Canto 2 he takes up her rape by Poseidon:

"And by the beach-run, Tyro,
Twisted arms of the sea-god,
Lithe sinews of water, gripping her, cross-hold,
And the blue-gray glass of the wave tents them,
Glare azure of water, cold-welter, close cover."

In a later Canto (74) Pound connects her to Alcmene, imprisoned in the world of the dead, but in a later paradisal vision he sees her "ascending":

thick smoke, purple, rising
bright flame now on the altar
the crystal funnel of air
out of Erebus, the delivered,
Tyro, Alcmene, free now, ascending

[...] no shades more (Canto 90)[7]

References

  1. ↑ Homer (2009-01-16) [c 800 BCE]. "Book XI: The visit to the dead. 235–260". The Odyssey. Translated by Samuel Butler (10th ed.). Project Gutenberg. EBook #1727. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
  2. ↑ Tzetzes on Lycophron, 175
  3. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4. 68. 2–3
  4. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 11. 236-7, but Hesiod, Catalogue of Women Fragment 30 (Merkelbach-West) says she fought with Salmoneus and was rescued by Zeus and led to the house of Cretheus, where she was raised. Apollodorus (1.9.8) confirms this.
  5. ↑ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.9.8, which adds that Pelias refused thereafter to honor Hera
  6. ↑ Hyginus Fabulae 60 & 239
  7. ↑ Pound, Ezra. The Cantos. New York: New Directions, 1998.


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