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"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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