"Then I saw Alkmene, the wife of
Amphitryon, who also bore to Zeus indomitable Herakles; and Megara
who was daughter to great King Kreon, and married the redoubtable son
of Amphitryon.
"I also saw fair Epikaste mother
of king Oedipus whose awful lot it was to marry her own son without
suspecting it in her noos. He married her after having killed
his father, but the gods proclaimed the whole story to the world;
whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief for the spite the
gods had borne him; but Epikaste went to the house of the mighty
gatekeeper Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and the avenging
spirits haunted him as for an outraged mother - to his ruing bitterly
thereafter.
"Then I saw Chloris, whom Neleus
married for her beauty, having given priceless presents for her. She
was youngest daughter to Amphion son of Iasos and king of Minyan
Orkhomenos, and was Queen in Pylos. She bore Nestor, Chromios, and
Periklymenos, and she also bore that marvelously lovely woman Pero,
who was wooed by all the country round; but Neleus would only give
her to him who should raid the cattle of Iphikles from the grazing
grounds of Phylake, and this was a hard task. The only man who would
undertake to raid them was a certain excellent seer
[mantis], but the will of heaven was against him, for
the rangers of the cattle caught him and put him in prison;
nevertheless when a full year had passed and the same season
[hôra] came round again, Iphikles set him at
liberty, after he had expounded all the oracles of heaven. Thus,
then, was the will of Zeus accomplished.
"And I saw Leda the wife of
Tyndarus, who bore him two famous sons, Castor breaker of horses, and
Pollux the mighty boxer. Both these heroes are lying under the earth,
though they are still alive, for by a special dispensation of Zeus,
they die and come to life again, each one of them every other day
throughout all time, and they have the rank of gods.
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