Arethusa (Ithaca)
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In Greek mythology, Arethusa (/ˌærɪˈθjuːzə/; Ancient Greek: Ἀρέθουσα, romanized: Aréthousa) is a minor figure from Ithaca who is transformed into a fountain bearing her name. Her story survives in scholia on Homer's epic poem the Odyssey.
Mythology
[edit]Arethusa was a woman from the island of Ithaca; other than a son, no other family or lineage of hers is preserved. According to an anonymous scholiast on Homer, Arethusa had a son named Corax (meaning "raven") who was a hunter.[1] One day while hunting a hare, Corax did not notice where the hunt was taking him, so he accidentally fell off a cliff and died. Out of grief for losing her son, the inconsolable Arethusa was transformed into a fountain bearing her name on the spot Corax died, while the rock there took the name of the dead son thereafter.[2][3]
In the Odyssey, after returning home following a long ten-year long journey following the end of the Trojan War and the sacking of the city of Troy, the disguised king Odysseus finds his slave Eumaeus tending the swine which graze next to the rock of Corax and the fountain of Arethusa.[4][5]
Arethusa was a common name for springs in antiquity; today a spring with the same name in Pera Pigadi on Ithaca can be potentially identified with the mythological one, but much of this is speculative.[6]
See also
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References
[edit]- ^ Metta, Demetra. "Μορφές και Θέματα της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Μυθολογίας: Αρέθουσα" [Figures and Themes of Greek Mythology: Arethusa]. www.greek-language.gr (in Greek). Retrieved May 4, 2024.
- ^ Scholia on the Odyssey 408
- ^ Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Arethusa
- ^ Homer, Odyssey 13.379-81
- ^ Greatheed et al. 1809, p. 121.
- ^ Strauch, Daniel (October 1, 2006). "Arethusa". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill's New Pauly. Berlin: Brill Reference Online. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e134010. ISSN 1574-9347. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
Bibliography
[edit]- Dindorf, Wilhelm, ed. (1855). Scholia Graeca in Homeri Odysseam Ex Codicibus Aucta Et Emendata. Vol. II. Typographeo Academico. ISBN 978-5-87561-491-0.
- Greatheed, Samuel; Parken, Daniel; Williams, Theophilus; Conder, Josiah; Price, Thomas; Ryland, Jonathan Edwards; Paxton Hood, Edwin (1809). "Gell's Antiquities of Ithaca". The Eclectic Review. Vol. V.
- Homer (2015). The Odyssey. Translated by Barry P. Powell. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-992588-9.
- Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, edited by August Meineike (1790–1870), published 1849.
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