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March 8
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Greek Mythology II: Heroes

The House of Cadmus

Daily history and lit
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Readings
• "The Dragon's Teeth" from "Tanglewood Tales" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Book 2: 833–875 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• Book 3: 1–137 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• Book 3: 253–315 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• Dionysus (Bacchus) from "The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome" by E.M. Berens
• Book 4: 416–562 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• Book 4: 563–603 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• Book 3: 511–733 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• "The World Is Too Much With Us" by William Wordsworth (optional)
• Chapter 3 from "The Birth of Tragedy" by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (optional)

The Large Olympian Air

Wordsworth and Nietzsche seek myth’s exuberant cure in Greece’s Olympian air.
In our course on the Greek and Roman gods, we heard Edith Hamilton quote a William Wordsworth sonnet. Before we dive into the world of heroes, let us begin by reading his sonnet ourselves.
Wordsworth was a Romantic poet who rejected his mythless industrial age. He felt out of tune with nature, lost in the endless getting and spending. He'd have rather believed as the pagans did, if he could have glimpsed their world. Here’s his sonnet:
William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— / Little we see in Nature that is ours; / We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; / The winds that will be howling at all hours, / And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; / For this, for everything, we are out of tune; / It moves us not. Great God!
I'd rather be / A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; / So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, / Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; / Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; / Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Many others like Wordsworth have admired the vitality of the Greeks. It's hard not to be drawn in by ancient Greece and its myths.
"The Greeks," Nietzsche said, "knew and felt the terrors and horrors of existence." They never lied to themselves; not even in myth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Here only an exuberant, even triumphant life speaks to us, in which everything existing is deified, whether good or bad. The spectator will stand bewildered before this fantastic exuberance of life…
[He will] ask himself what magic potion these madly merry men could have used for enjoying life, so that, wherever they turned their eyes, Helena, the ideal image of their own existence "floating in sweet sensuality," smiled upon them.
The point of myth, the point of our studies, is not explanation but exuberance. We seek a cure for mythlessness so that we may be mad, merry, and triumphant.
We want to see Proteus rising and hear old Triton’s horn. We want to visit the house of Zeus and breathe its large Olympian air. In the next chapter, we will explore the rise of heroes in the time of the gods...

Europa (Hawthorne)

A playful white bull wins Europa's trust and carries her away across the sea.
Europa was a Phoenician princess, daughter of King Agenor, and namesake of the European continent.
This myth is a favorite of writers and artists alike. We'll read two versions, starting with one from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Tanglewood Tales," a children's book from 1853. See if you can spot where the scene turns…
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, the three sons of King Agenor, and their little sister Europa (who was a very beautiful child), were at play together near the seashore in their father's kingdom of Phoenicia.
They had rambled to some distance from the palace where their parents dwelt, and were now in a verdant meadow, on one side of which lay the sea, all sparkling and dimpling in the sunshine, and murmuring gently against the beach.
The three boys were very happy, gathering flowers, and twining them into garlands, with which they adorned the little Europa. Seated on the grass, the child was almost hidden under an abundance of buds and blossoms, whence her rosy face peeped merrily out.
Just then, there came a splendid butterfly, fluttering along the meadow; and [the boys] set off in pursuit of it. Europa, who was a little wearied with playing all day long, did not chase the butterfly with her brothers, but sat still where they had left her.
Soon, she heard something trample on the grass, not far from her, and, peeping out from the heap of flowers, beheld a snow-white bull. Never before did a bull have such bright and tender eyes, and such smooth horns of ivory, as this one.
And the bull ran little races, and capered sportively around the child; so that she quite forgot how big and strong he was, and soon came to consider him as innocent a creature as a pet lamb.
Thus, frightened as she at first was, you might by and by have seen Europa stroking the bull's forehead with her small white hand, and taking the garlands off her own head to hang them on his neck and ivory horns.
Then she pulled up some blades of grass, and he ate them out of her hand, not as if he were hungry, but because he wanted to be friends with the child, and took pleasure in eating what she had touched.
He frisked about the meadow, now here, now there, making sprightly leaps, with as little effort as a bird expends in hopping from twig to twig. "Come back, pretty creature!" she cried. "Here is a nice clover blossom."
And then it was delightful to witness the gratitude of this amiable bull, and how he was so full of joy and thankfulness that he capered higher than ever. He came running, and bowed his head before Europa.
And not only did the bull bend his neck, he absolutely knelt down at her feet, and made such intelligent nods, and other inviting gestures, that Europa understood what he meant just as well as if he had put it in so many words.
Making one bound (for this little princess was as active as a squirrel), there sat Europa on the beautiful bull, holding an ivory horn in each hand, lest she should fall off.
"Softly, pretty bull, softly!" she said, rather frightened at what she had done. "Do not gallop too fast."
[The bull] began a race to that part of the flowery plain where her three brothers were. Europa screamed with delight; and Phoenix, Cilix, and Cadmus stood gaping at the spectacle.
As the bull wheeled about to take another gallop across the meadow, the child waved her hand, and said, "Good-bye," playfully pretending that she was now bound on a distant journey. "Good-bye," shouted Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, all in one breath.
But, together with her enjoyment of the sport, there was still a little remnant of fear in the child's heart; so that her last look at the three boys was a troubled one, and made them feel as if their dear sister were really leaving them forever.
And what do you think the snowy bull did next? Why, he set off, as swift as the wind, straight down to the seashore, scampered across the sand, took an airy leap, and plunged right in among the foaming billows.
The white spray rose in a shower over him and little Europa, and fell spattering down upon the water. Then what a scream of terror did the poor child send forth! The three brothers screamed manfully, likewise, and ran to the shore as fast as their legs would carry them.
But it was too late. When they reached the margin of the sand, the treacherous animal was already far away in the wide blue sea. Poor little Europa stretched out one hand towards her dear brothers, while she grasped the bull's ivory horn with the other.
[The boys] gazed at this sad spectacle, through their tears, until they could no longer distinguish the bull's snowy head from the white-capped billows. Nothing more was ever seen of the white bull—nothing more of the beautiful child.

Never Return Without Her

Agenor turns Europa's disappearance into a command that empties his palace forever.
Having seen their sister Europa stolen away across the sea by the white bull, Cadmus and his brothers Phoenix and Cilix raced home to tell their father, King Agenor, of her plight. Upon hearing their tale, he was filled with rage.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Cadmus and his two brothers came crying home and told [their father, King Agenor] how a white bull had carried off their sister. The king was quite beside himself with grief and rage.
Although it was now twilight, and fast growing dark, he bade them set out instantly in search of her. "Never shall you see my face again," he cried, "unless you bring me back my little Europa, to gladden me with her smiles and her pretty ways."
As King Agenor said this, his eyes flashed fire, and he looked so terribly angry that the poor boys did not even venture to ask for their suppers, but slunk away out of the palace, their mother Queen Telephassa following them.
Cadmus, Phoenix, Cilix, and Thasus clustered round Queen Telephassa, grasping her skirts, and begging her to lean upon their shoulders whenever she felt weary.
The last that they saw of King Agenor, he came to the door, with a servant holding a torch beside him, and called after them into the gathering darkness: "Remember! Never ascend these steps again without the child!"
"Never!" sobbed Queen Telephassa; and the three brothers and Thasus answered, "Never! Never! Never! Never!"
And they kept their word. Year after year, King Agenor sat in the solitude of his beautiful palace, listening in vain for their returning footsteps, hoping to hear the familiar voice of the queen, and the cheerful talk of [his sons], and the sweet, childish accents of little Europa in the midst of them.
In the next lesson, we’ll read the classical Roman version by Ovid. We’ll find out who this bull really is and what becomes of Europa…

Europa (Ovid)

Ovid shows Jove designing a disguise that converts Europa's fear into trust.
We've read Hawthorne's family-focused tale of Europa being carried away by a white bull; the bull is Jove (Zeus to the Greeks) in disguise.
He appears gentle to gain Europa’s trust, then abducts her by swimming away. Let's revisit the same story from Ovid's "Metamorphoses," comparing it to Hawthorne's version.
Ovid
Jove laid aside his glorious dignity; he assumed the semblance of a bull and mingled with the bullocks in the groves.
His colour was white as virgin snow, untrod, unmelted by the watery Southern Wind; his neck was thick with muscles, dewlaps hung between his shoulders.
His polished horns, so small and beautifully set, appeared the artifice of man, fashioned as fair and more transparent than a lucent gem.
His forehead was not lowered for attack, nor was there fury in his open eyes; the love of peace was in his countenance.
When she beheld his beauty and mild eyes, the daughter of Agenor was amazed; yet, daring not to touch him, she stood apart until her virgin fears were quieted.
Then she drew near and, with fragrant flowers in her hand, offered them to his gentle mouth; and the loving god, in his great joy, kissed her sweet hands, unable to wait her will.
Jove then began to frisk upon the grass, or laid his snow-white side on the smooth sand, yellow and golden.
As her courage grew he gave his breast one moment for caress, or bent his head for garlands newly made, wreathed for his polished horns.

Europa Across the Middle Sea

Europa mounts the gentle bull; her sea crossing becomes a European origin story.
Jupiter has disguised himself as a bull to steal away the unsuspecting Europa. We know this story does not end well. Let us see how Ovid finishes it.
Ovid
The royal maid, unwitting what she did, at length sat down upon the bull's broad back, trusting his gentleness.
Then, by degrees, the god moved from the land and from the shore, placing his feet, that seemed but shining hoofs, in shallow water by the sandy merge.
And not a moment resting he bore her thence across the surface of the Middle Sea, while she, affrighted, gazed upon the shore so fast receding from her sight.
She held his horn with her right hand and, steadied by the left, kept her seat upon his ample back; in the breeze her waving garments fluttered as they went.
The bull carries Europa to Crete. There she becomes queen and bears Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon; the continent "Europe" later takes her name.
Agenor is the Phoenician king and Europa’s father; Telephassa is their mother. Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix are brothers; Thasus is a companion who later settles nearby.
Europa was a Phoenician princess, daughter of King Agenor. Phoenicia was located in modern Lebanon and Syria. Crete is a Greek island to the west; the sea crossing marks Europa's migration from east to west.
By the Classical period, Greeks and Romans looked back at Crete as an origin story (what "Plymouth Rock" is to the United States). They saw themselves as the blessed descendants of Europa and Crete-born Jove.

Cadmus

Cadmus finds his promised homeland only to lose his companions to its guardian dragon.
Jove, disguised as a bull, kidnapped Cadmus’s sister Europa to Crete; their father Agenor ordered Cadmus to find her or never return home.
Unable to find Europa, Cadmus chose exile and went to Apollo's oracle at Delphi, near the Castalian spring, for guidance on where to settle.
Ovid
After wandering in vain to find Europa, Cadmus, son of Agenor, shunned his country and his father's wrath, and consulted the famed oracles of Phoebus Apollo at Delphi.
He inquired what land might grant him refuge and a home, and Phoebus returned an answer that marked the road he must take and the sign that would end it.
Apollo
When a heifer unyoked crosses your path, follow where she leads; where she lies upon the meadow green, there build the walls of a great city, named Boeotia.
Ovid
Scarcely had he descended from the Castalian cave [at Delphi] when he saw an unguarded, gentle-paced heifer without the scars of labor.
He forded the channel the Cephissus wears, passed the fields of Panope, and came to Boeotia, where the slow-paced heifer stood, raised her shapely-horned forehead toward Heaven, and lowed through the air.
She stretched her side upon the tender grass and turned her gaze on the follower of her path; Cadmus gave thanks, kissed the foreign soil, and offered salutations to the fields and uncharted hills.
He gave thanks and prepared a sacrifice, sending his Tyrian companions to fetch water from a sacred spring hidden in an ancient grove.
Ovid
Then he prepared to make a large sacrifice to Jupiter and ordered slaves to seek living springs whose waters might be poured in libation.
There was an ancient grove whose branching trees had never known the desecrating ax; within its undergrowth a low-arched cave, wreathed with oziers, was hollowed deep in jutting rocks.
Beneath that arched roof a beauteous stream welled serene; its holy gloom concealed a dragon, sacred to Mars, who guarded the spring.
This dragon was crested, gorgeous with radiant scales, eyes sparkling like the glow of coals.
Deadly venom had puffed up his bulk; three tongues darted from his jaws, and a triple row of sharp teeth stood ready—terror fashioned in living mail.
Cadmus's men entered the grove; when they down-splashed an urn into the springs, the hidden dragon thrust his azure head out and vented a terrible hissing.
The dragon coiled in rolling knots, sprang and reared, folds twined high, commanding the grove’s far confines.
Prodigious in size, he seized the terrified Phoenicians in sudden rage. He stung some to death, others he crushed in crushing folds, and still others he blasted with his poisonous breath.

The Dragon's Teeth

Cadmus turns a dead dragon's teeth into the first citizens of Thebes.
Cadmus, wondering at the delay, entered the grove in a lion skin, saw their bodies, and fought the dragon; stones failed, but his spear finally pinned its neck to an oak. As he did so, Athena (Minerva) arrived to give Cadmus guidance.
Ovid
Athena commanded Cadmus to sow the dragon’s teeth in mellowed soil, from which another race of men might spring; he obeyed and furrowed the land to scatter the dreadful seed.
Marvelous yet true, the clods began to move; first a spear-point showed above the furrows, then helmeted heads nodding their cones, and shoulders, breasts, and arms burdened with spears.
Largely grew the shielded crop of men; as in joyful theaters when curtains roll upward from the floor, faces appear first, then bodies, forms rising by slow degrees upon painted cloth.
The earth-born soldiers immediately turned on each other; after the brief civil fight, only five survived, with one of them, Echion, calling for peace.
These five joined Cadmus as allies; together they founded the city later known as Thebes, the first city in Greece, and the setting for the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Bacchus, Hercules and others.
Where Athens has come to represent philosophy and democracy, Thebes has come to represent curse, fate, and civil war. We'll return to Thebes to explore our hardest questions and darkest tragedies.

Semele

Juno turns a trusted nurse's face and a jealous doubt into a fatal suggestion.
We now return to Juno (Hera to the Greeks) as she contends with another of her husband's affairs—this time with a mortal woman!
This mortal was the beautiful Semele, princess of Thebes. Jove was wandering the mortal world when he saw Semele and pursued her. As her pregnant belly grew, Juno discovered their affair.
Ovid
Now a fresh occasion was added to Juno’s grief, and, wild with jealousy of Semele, her tongue, ever ready to serve her rage, let loose a torrent of abuse.
Hera (juno)
Away! Away with words! Why should I speak of it? Let me attack her! Let me ruin that jade! Am I not Juno, the supreme of Heaven? Queen of the flashing scepter?
Am I not the sister and wife of Jove omnipotent? Great beauty gives her great confidence, but I shall weave such a web that even the bolt of Jove can’t save her.
Let the Gods deny that I am Saturn's daughter, if her shade does not descend, stricken, to the Stygian wave.
Ovid
Juno rose quickly from her shining throne, and, hidden in a cloud of fiery hue, descended to the home of Semele.
Encompassed by the cloud, she transformed her whole appearance to counterfeit old Beroe, an Epidaurian nurse who tended Semele.
Her tresses changed to gray, her smooth skin wrinkled, and her step grew feeble as she moved with trembling limbs;—her voice quavered as an ancient dame's.
When at length the name of Jove was mentioned, Juno, sly and artful, feigned doubt that Jupiter could truly be her lover:
Hera (juno)
When Jove comes to pledge his love to you, implore him to appear in all his majesty and glory, even as he does before his stately queen. Have him caress you as a God.

The Fatal Boon

An unbreakable divine promise destroys Semele and produces a twice-born god.
Furious at the infidelity of her husband, Juno came to Semele disguised as her trusted nurse and convinced her to ask Jupiter to reveal his true form to her to prove his godhood.
Ovid
With artful words the goddess worked upon the trusting mind of Semele. When Jove came to visit, Semele begged of him a boon that only hastened her sad death.
Semele
Please will you give me whatever I ask for?
Zeus (jupiter)
Whatever your wish, it shall not be denied; and that your heart shall suffer no distrust, I swear by that Deity, the Waves of the deep Stygian Lake,—oath of the Gods.
Ovid
Overjoyed in her misfortune, proud that she prevailed, and pleased to have secured from him a promise that could only cause her own disaster, Semele addressed almighty Jove...
Semele
Come unto me in all the splendour of your glory, just as your might is shown to your wife, Juno, goddess of the skies.
Ovid
Fain would he silence her disastrous tongue; but his promise was bound. He sadly mounted to the lofty skies, and by his potent nod assembled there the deep clouds; and the rain began to pour, and thunderbolts resounded.
He strove to mitigate his power, and took not the dread flames that once repelled the hundred-handed Hecatonchires. Instead he took other bolts, forged by the Cyclopes with a gentler heat.
Sad and reluctant, he appeared to her. Her mortal form could not endure the shock, and she was burned to ashes in his sight.
After Semele was set ablaze, Jove took her womb and fastened it to his thigh, carrying her pregnancy to term, and “giving birth” to Bacchus (Dionysus to the Greeks).
Baby Bacchus had to be hidden from Juno. He was first given to his aunt, Ino, and then to the nymphs of Nysa, and then to the aged satyr Silenus, son of Pan, who took it upon himself to raise this mysterious child…

Dionysus

Wine turns a woodland discovery into Dionysus's traveling religion.
E.m. Berens
Bacchus (Dionysus to the Greeks) passed an innocent and uneventful childhood, roaming through the woods and forests, surrounded by nymphs, satyrs, and shepherds.
During one of these rambles, he found a fruit growing wild, of a most refreshing and cooling nature. This was the vine, from which he learnt to extract juice and form a most exhilarating beverage.
After his companions had partaken freely of it, they felt their whole being pervaded by an unwonted sense of pleasurable excitement, and gave full vent to their overflowing exuberance, by shouting, singing, and dancing.
Their numbers were soon swelled by a crowd, eager to taste a beverage productive of such extraordinary results, and anxious to join in the worship of a divinity to whom they were indebted for this new enjoyment.
Bacchus, on his part, seeing how agreeably his discovery had affected his immediate followers, resolved to extend the boon to mankind in general.
He saw that wine, used in moderation, would enable man to enjoy a happier, and more sociable existence, and that, under its invigorating influence, the sorrowful might, for a while, forget their grief and the sick their pain.
He accordingly gathered round him his zealous followers, and they set forth on their travels, planting the vine and teaching its cultivation wherever they went.

Pentheus Defies Bacchus

Pentheus hears firsthand proof of Bacchus's divinity and rejects it anyway.
Soon, the world was intoxicated with adoration for this new god—Bacchus (Dionysus to the Greeks). Even the warlike citizens of Thebes (“proud descendants of the Dragon”) were swept up in the worship of an effeminate god.
But Pentheus, king of Thebes, disdained these new followers. He watched as his city sunk into moral decay. His people were overcome by wine and music, and his sisters slipped away nightly to Mount Cithaeron, where they joined women-only orgies. Pentheus was outraged.
Pentheus
What madness! Sons of Mars, brave descendants of the Dragon, has frenzy undone you? Shall clashing brass, drunken cries, and obscene revels overcome those whom neither sword nor trumpet could affright?
And you, young men of prime, whose vigour equals mine—cast down your ivy sceptres, take up arms, strip your brows of leaves! Remember your stock.
If Thebes must fall, let war and fire cast it down, not a soft youth with ringlets steeped in myrrh, clothed in gold and purple. Make way for me!
I will compel him to confess his father is a fraud and all his rites deceit. Away! Bring me this leader of rioters in chains!
The servants returned, not with Bacchus, but with one of his attendants, Acoetes, hands bound. Pentheus demanded that the young man speak.
Acoetes
My name is Acoetes. Born poor, I became a sailor, master of the stars and winds. Once, on a voyage, my men found a boy of wondrous beauty, heavy with wine and sleep.
I knew him as a god. I pleaded, but the crew mocked me, seized him, and steered away from Naxos, though he begged for home.
Then the ship stood still; ivy bound the oars; Bacchus crowned with vine leaves revealed himself, phantoms of beasts around him.
One by one the sailors leapt into the sea, transformed to dolphins. I alone was spared. Gently the god said, ‘Fear not—steer for Naxos.’ When we landed, I served at his altars with Bacchic rites.
Pentheus
A parlous tale. Away with him! Drag him to torture, hurl him into night!

Pentheus at Cithaeron

Pentheus becomes the sacrifice that secures the Bacchants' triumph.
Ovid
Yet the chains fell off Acoetes, the doors flew open. Still raging, Pentheus went himself to Mount Cithaeron, where the Bacchants raised their songs. Like a warhorse roused by trumpet, his fury burned.
From a treeless plain he spied the rites. His mother saw him first, and, frenzied and drunk, didn't recognise him. She cast her thyrsus and cried, "Come, sisters! A great boar has strayed into our fields!"
They rushed upon him. He fled, begging mercy, confessing his sin. He cried to his aunts, but they tore his arms away.
His mother, Agave, blind with frenzy, seized his head and held it high, shouting: “Victory! The victory is ours!”
And as autumn winds strip leaves from a tree, so swiftly were his limbs torn apart.
Now, frightened by this terrible event, the women of Thebes celebrate the new Bacchantian rites; and they revere the sacred altars, heaped with frankincense.
City after city fell under Bacchus's influence, until at last he was welcomed into Olympus and took his place among the gods.

Ino and the Furies

Juno descends into Hades to commission a Fury against Ino's family.
The renown of Bacchus grew in Thebes. His aunt Ino was proud of the nephew she had raised. Her boasts angered Juno, who turned to the Furies for her vengeance.
In “Athamas & Ino” from Book 4 of the Metamorphoses, Juno descends into the Underworld to summon Tisiphone.
Tisiphone is one of the Furies or Dirae (known to the Greeks as the Erinyes). The Furies are daughters of Night (Nyx), dwelling by Pluto’s gates, serpents in their hair, blood-smeared torches in their hands.
They avenge broken oaths and, above all, blood crime within a family. But they can also cause destruction and kin-murder, as we’ll see in this story…
Ovid
A sloping path, under the shadow of mournful yews, descended in utter silence to the depths—to the infernal place where the languid Styx exhaled its vapors.
There the shades of the dead, leaving their urns, drifted down; ghostly forms gathered; and far and wide those dreary regions were ruled by Horror and bleak Cold.
Arriving, the ghosts did not know the road to the Stygian city gates, nor the melancholy palace where swarthy Pluto dwelt, though a thousand streets and ways ran to that city.
Gates swung outward on every side; and as the sea, rising unseen, swallowed the world's unnumbered streams, so that realm folded in the souls of men and was never filled.
The shadowy spirits moved about—bloodless, boneless, bodiless—thronged the place of judgment, or haunted the mansion of the Utmost Tyrant, or tended to various tasks as in their former ways. The multitude condemned were confined to pains fitted to their crimes.
To this abode, driven by rage and hate, Juno, daughter of Saturn, descended from her celestial dwelling and submitted herself to that dread realm.
No sooner had she crossed the sorrowful gates than the threshold groaned beneath her immortal weight, and Cerberus, lifting his three faces, gave forth triple howls.
In Hades, we're briefly introduced to famous sinners: Tityus, stretched across nine acres while vultures tear at him; Sisyphus, pushing a stone uphill forever…
We also see Tantalus, with food and water always out of reach; Ixion, chained to a spinning wheel; and the Belides (Danaids), forced to carry water in leaky jars forever.
Ovid
Juno called to the sisters begotten of Night—implacable, terrific Furies. They sat before the adamantine prison doors, combing black vipers from their horrid hair. When, amid surrounding night-shades, they recognized her, those deities rose.
Juno beseeched that the House of Cadmus should stand no longer, and that the sister Furies plunge proud Athamas into crime. Entreaty she mingled with command.
When Juno ceased, the Fury Tisiphone tossed her locks, flinging back from her face the crawling snakes, and [told Juno that her decree would be done.]
Rejoicing, Juno hastened to the clouds; and, before she entered her celestial home, Iris, child of Thaumas, sprinkled her with purifying water.

Tisiphone's Revenge

Tisiphone turns a royal household's minds against itself before the sea transforms its survivors.
Ovid
Without delay, Tisiphone, revengeful, took a torch smeared with blood; she wore a robe dripping crimson; coiled with twisting snakes she left her dire abode—attended by Madness, Terror, Fear, and Woe.
When she reached the destined house, the doorposts shrank from her; the maple doors turned ashen-gray; the Sun, amazed, fled.
Athamas and Ino saw and, terrified by these prodigies, tried to flee; but suddenly the baneful Fury barred their way—there she stood, arms outstretched, alive with writhing vipers.
She shook her hair: the serpents hissed, clung upon her shoulders, glided round her temples, darted their fangs, and vomited corruption. Plucking two snakes from the midst, she hurled them with pestilential hand upon Athamas and Ino.
Though the vipers struck their breasts, no wound harmed their mortal parts—only their minds were struck with wild rage, incited to mad violence and crime.
She lifted a monstrous draught—a liquid poison brewed of foam once gathered at Cerberus’ mouth, the venom of Echidna, aimless delusions, crimes, tears, hatred, homicidal lust, and the dark vapors of foolish minds.
As they trembled, she flung that mad concoction upon them; it seared their inmost vitals. Thrice within a circling sweep she waved her torch—and added flame to flame.
Then, sure her task was done, the Fury sped back to the void where Pluto reigned. At once Athamas, enraged, shouted in his palace, "Ho, my lads! Spread out your nets! A savage lioness and her twin whelps lurk in the wood!"
In his madness Athamas believed his wife a savage beast. He followed her and quickly snatched from her bosom her smiling babe, Learchus, holding forth his tiny arms, and whirled him in the air and dashed him upon the rocks, cracking the infant bones.
Ino, roused to frenzy (who could tell whether grief or the scattered poison fired her?), yelled aloud; with hair torn and tangled, running mad, she carried swiftly in her clutching arms her little Melicertes—and began to shout to Bacchus.
A crag jutted over the deep, its base hollowed by many waves, where even rain could not ripple the pool; high above, the rugged summit overhung the open sea.
There Ino, with frenzy-born strength, climbed fearlessly; with her burden in her arms, she leaped into the whitening foam.
Ino leaped into the open sea with her babe. Venus, witness to the tragedy, called upon Neptune to make the mother and child immortal. Ino became the sea-goddess named Leucothea, and her son became Palaemon, protector of sailors.

Cadmus and Harmonia

Cadmus accepts a serpent's body as a punishment fitted to his family's founding crime.
Cadmus, son of Agenor, left Thebes in old age with his wife Harmonia to live in Illyria, their house having suffered many disasters.
Cadmus reflected. His grandsons Actaeon and Pentheus had been torn apart — the former by his own hounds, the latter by his relatives. His daughter Semele was incinerated by Jupiter’s true form. And his daughter Ino was driven mad, leaping into the sea with her son.
Cadmus blames himself for the family curse. It began, he suspected, when he had killed a serpent sacred to Mars, sowing its teeth to found Thebes. He now wishes to "lengthen like a serpent" if he has offended the gods.
Ovid
Agenor’s son, weighted with sorrow, fled Thebes, the city he had built, as if its disasters wounded him more than his family's fate.
At last he reached the borders of Illyria, exiled with his wife; weighed down with grief and years, their minds returned to the first stroke of disaster upon their house.
Recounting their misfortunes, Cadmus spoke—turning memory into speech—as grief pressed on them in that foreign land.
Cadmus
Was it a sacred dragon my spear impaled, when, coming from Sidon’s gates, I planted in the earth those dragon-teeth—seed I never foresaw?
If, perhaps, it is the gods—whose unerring wrath drives me to this revenge—I ask only this: let me lengthen out like a serpent.
Ovid
Even as he spoke, he saw and felt himself lengthen; his body coiled into a serpent’s form, scales enfolding his hardened skin, and azure macules (spots) in speckled pride enriched his glowing folds.
As he sank upon his breast, his legs joined and tapered into a serpent’s tail; for a time his arms remained, stretched out, while tears ran down his still-human face.
Cadmus
Come here, O hapless one—come, my unhappy wife—while anything of manhood remains; touch me, take my hand, unchanged as yet. Ah, soon this serpent-form will wholly cover me.
Ovid
So he spoke, not thinking to make an end; but suddenly his tongue split twin-forked, and whenever he tried to speak, only a hissing escaped—the only voice that Nature left him.

Harmonia's Choice

Harmonia chooses Cadmus's fate, turning punishment into a shared and gentle exile.
Harmonia
Ah, Cadmus! Cast off that monstrous shape; your feet, shoulders, and hands are gone—your manly form and color gone—all is changed. You, celestial gods, transform me likewise into a serpent’s shape.
Ovid
So her complaint ended. Cadmus gently caressed her with his tongue and slid to her dear bosom, as if he knew his wife; he embraced her and touched her neck.
All their attendants who saw the change were filled with fear; yet when the two appeared as crested snakes in glistening mail, grief was lightened, and the pair departed, enwreathed in twisting coils.
They sought cover in the nearest grove and vanished among the leaves—the two still entwined as they moved in their new, glistening forms.
There these gentle serpents never shun humankind, nor wound, nor strike with poisoned fangs; for they are always conscious of the past.
In an earlier story, Mars’s sacred serpent (dragon) attacked young Cadmus; he killed it and sowed its teeth, spawning the Spartoi.
Cadmus is a hero—his actions founded Thebes—yet in classical thought, desecration brings consequence.
Cadmus accepted his consequences. He asked to repent, taking a serpent’s form. Harmonia chose to follow. Ovid says they slipped into the woods, still gentle and loving.
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