Текст книги "The Library of Greek Mythology"

Автор книги: Apollodorus

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

After Paris, Hecuba gave birth to some daughters, Creousa, Laodice, Polyxene, and Cassandra. Apollo wanted to sleep with Cassandra and promised to teach her the art of prophecy;* but after she had learned it, she refused to sleep with him. In response, Apollo deprived her prophecies of all power to convince. Afterwards, Hecuba had eight sons, Deiphobos, Helenos, Pammon, Polites, Antiphos, Hipponoos, Polydoros, and Troilos—she is said to have borne this last to Apollo.

And by other women Priam had further sons, Melanippos, Gorgythion, Philaimon, Hippothoos, Glaucos, Agathon, Chersidamas, Evagoras, Hippodamas, Mestor, Atas, Doryclos, Lycaon, Dryops, Bias, Chromios, Astygonos, Telestas, Evandros, Cebriones, Mylios, Archemachos, Laodocos, Echephron, Idomeneus, Hyperion, Ascanios, Democoon, Aretos, Deiopites, Clonios, Echemmon, Hypeirochos, Aigeoneus, Lysithoos, and Polymedon, and also some daughters, Medusa, Medesicaste, Lysimache, and Aristodeme.

⁶Hector married Andromache, daughter of Eetion, and Alexander married Oinone, daughter of the River Cebren. Oinone had learnt the art of prophecy from Rhea, and warned Alexander not to sail for Helen; but when she failed to convince him, she told him to come to her if he were ever wounded,* for she alone could cure him. When he had abducted Helen from Sparta and Troy was under attack, he was struck by an arrow that Philoctetes had shot from the bow of Heracles, and made his way back to Oinone on Mount Ida. But she was bitter at the wrong she had suffered and refused to cure him. So Alexander was carried off to Troy, where he died; and when Oinone had a change of heart and brought the remedies for his cure, she found him already dead and hanged herself.

10. The Asopids

Aiacos in Aegina

The River Asopos was a son of Oceanos and Tethys, or, according to Acousilaos, of Pero and Poseidon, or, according to some accounts, of Zeus and Eurynome. Metope, who was herself a daughter of the River Ladon, married Asopos and bore him two sons, Ismenos and Pelagon, and twenty daughters, one of whom, Aegina, was carried off by Zeus. Asopos set out to find her, and arriving in Corinth, he learned from Sisyphos* that her abductor was Zeus. When Asopos tried to pursue him, Zeus sent him back to his own stream by hurling thunderbolts at him (and because of that, coals are collected to this very day from the waters of the Asopos). Zeus took Aegina away to the island that was then known as Oinone, but is now named Aegina after her, where he slept with her and had a son, Aiacos, by her. Because Aiacos was alone on the island, Zeus turned the ants into people* for him; and he married Endeis, daughter of Sceiron, who bore him two sons, Peleus and Telamon. Pherecydes says, however, that Telamon was a friend of Peleus rather than a brother, and that he was in fact a son of Actaios and Glauce, daughter of Cychreus. Afterwards Aiacos had intercourse with Psamathe, daughter of Nereus, who turned herself into a seal* in the hope of escaping his embraces, and he fathered a son, Phocos.

Of all men Aiacos was the most pious, and for that reason, when Greece was gripped by infertility because of Pelops (who had made war against Stymphalos, king of the Arcadians, and finding himself unable to conquer Arcadia, had feigned friendship with the king and then killed and dismembered him and scattered his limbs), oracles from the gods proclaimed that Greece would be delivered from its present afflictions if Aiacos offered prayers on its behalf; and when he offered the prayers, Greece was delivered from its barrenness.* After his death, Aiacos is honoured in the realm of Pluto also and guards the keys of Hades.*

The exile of Peleus and Telamon

Because Phocos excelled in the games, his brothers, Peleus and Telamon, plotted against him; and when Telamon was selected in the lot, he killed his brother* by hurling a discus at his head while they were exercising together, and then, with the help of Peleus, he carried the body away and hid it in a wood. But the murder was discovered and they were exiled from Aegina by Aiacos.

⁷Telamon went to the court of Cychreus in Salamis. Cychreus, the son of [Poseidon and] Salamis, daughter of Asopos, had gained the throne by killing a snake which was devastating the island; and when he died without offspring, he left the throne to Telamon. And Telamon married Periboia, daughter of Alcathous, son of Pelops; and because Heracles had prayed that he would have a male child and after his prayers an eaglehad appeared, Telamon called the son who was born to him Aias*He then accompanied Heracles on his expedition against Troy, and received as a prize Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, who bore him a son, Teucros.

Peleus in Phthia, Calydon, and Iolcos

¹Peleus for his part fled to Phthia, to the court of Eurytion,

13

son of Actor, and was purified by him and received from him his daughter, Antigone, and a third of the country; and a daughter, Polydora, was born to him, who became the wife of Boros, son of Perieres. ²From there he went with Eurytion to join the hunt for the Calydonian boar, but as he threw a javelin at the boar, he struck Eurytion instead, and accidentally killed him. So he went into exile again, leaving Phthia for Iolcos, where he arrived at the court of Acastos and was purified by him. ³And he competed at the games held in honour of Pelias, wrestling with Atalante.

Astydameia, the wife of Acastos, fell in love with Peleus and sent him a message proposing an assignation. When she was unable to persuade him, she sent word to his wife saying that he was intending to marry Sterope, the daughter of Acastos; and when his wife heard this, she hanged herself. Astydameia also made false accusations to her husband against Peleus, claiming that he had tried to seduce her. When he heard this, Acastos, who was unwilling to kill a man whom he had purified, took him hunting on Mount Pelion. There they competed in the chase, and Peleus cut out the tongues of the animals caught by him and put them in his pouch, while Acastos and his companions picked up his prey and made fun of Peleus, alleging that he had failed to catch anything. He produced the tongues, however, and told them that he had killed as many beasts as he had tongues. When Peleus fell asleep on Mount Pelion, Acastos left him, concealing his sword* in a pile of cow dung, and returned home. On arising, Peleus tried to find his sword, and while he was doing so, he was caught by the Centaurs; and he would shortly have lost his life if he had not been saved by Cheiron, who also searched for his sword and restored it to him.

The marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and early life of Achilles

⁴Peleus married Polydora, daughter of Perieres, who bore a son, Menesthios, nominally to Peleus, but in reality to the River Spercheios.* ^sLater he married Thetis, the daughter of Nereus. Zeus and Poseidon had competed for her hand, only to withdraw when Themis had prophesied that the son born to her would be more powerful than his father. It is said by some, however, that when Zeus was set on having intercourse with her, he was told by Prometheus* that the son she would bear to him would become the ruler of heaven; while according to others,* Thetis was unwilling to have intercourse with Zeus because she had been brought up by Hera, and in his anger at this, Zeus wanted to marry her to a mortal. Now Peleus had been advised by Cheiron to seize her and keep a firm grip on her; however, she changed her shape, so he lay in wait and caught hold of her, and though she changed now into fire, now into water, now into a wild beast, he never loosened his grip until she had returned to her original form. And he married her on Mount Pelion, and the gods celebrated his wedding there with feasting and songs. Cheiron gave Peleus an ashwood spear, and Poseidon gave him two horses,* Balios and Xanthos, of immortal stock.

⁶When Thetis gave birth to a child by Peleus, she wanted to make it immortal, and in secret from Peleus, she used to bury it in the fire by night to destroy the mortal element in its nature that came from its father, and rubbed it by day with ambrosia. But Peleus kept a watch on her, and shouted out when he saw the child squirming in the fire; and Thetis, frustrated in her purpose, abandoned her infant son and went back to the Nereids.* Peleus delivered the child to Cheiron, who took him in, and fed him on the entrails of lions and wild boars and the marrow of bears, and named him Achilles—his former name was Ligyron—because he had notapplied his lips*to a breast.

⁷After this, Peleus sacked Iolcos with the help of Jason and the Dioscuri, and slaughtering Astydameia,* the wife of Acastos, he cut her body limb from limb and led his army into the city through her remains.

⁸When Achilles was nine years old, Calchas declared that Troy could not be taken without him, but Thetis—who knew in advance that he was fated to be killed if he joined the expedition—disguised him in women’s clothing and entrusted him to Lycomedes* in the semblance of a young girl. While he was growing up at his court, Achilles had intercourse with Deidameia, the daughter of Lycomedes, and a son, Pyrrhos, was born to him, who was later called Neoptolemos.* Achilles’ whereabouts were betrayed, however, and Odysseus, searching for him at the court of Lycomedes, discovered him by causing a trumpet to be sounded.* And so it came about that Achilles went to Troy.

Phoenix, son of Amyntor, accompanied him. Phoenix had been blinded by his father when Phthia, his father’s concubine, had falsely accused him of having seduced her;* but Peleus had taken him to Cheiron, who cured his eyes, and had made him king of the Dolopians.

Achilles was also accompanied by Patroclos, son of Menoitios and of Sthenele, daughter of Acastos, or of Periopis, daughter of Pheres, or according to Philocrates, of Polymele, daughter of Peleus. At Opous, during an argument over a game of knucklebones, Patroclos had killed a boy,* Cleitonymos, son of Amphidamas, and had fled with his father to live at the court of Peleus, where Achilles had become his lover.*

11. The kings of Athens

Cecrops and his descendants; the story of Adonis

^lCecrops, who was born from the earth and had the body of

14

a man and a serpent joined into one, was the first king of Athens, and he named the land, which was known as Acte in earlier days, Cecropia after himself. During his time, they say, the gods decided to take possession of cities where each of them would be honoured with his own special cult. So Poseidon was the first to come to Attica, and striking a blow with his trident on the middle of the Acropolis, he caused a sea to appear, which is now known as the Erechtheid Sea.* After Poseidon, Athene arrived; and taking Cecrops as her witness, she claimed possession by planting an olive tree, which is still shown to visitors in the Pandroseion.* When the two of them entered into conflict for possession of the land, Zeus separated them, and appointed as judges, not Cecrops and Cranaos as some have claimed, nor Erysichthon, but the twelve gods. In accordance with their decision, the country was awarded to Athene, because Cecrops had testified that it was she who had first planted the olive tree. So Athene named the city Athens after herself, while Poseidon, in a rage, flooded the Thriasian plain* and submerged Attica under the sea.

²Cecrops married Agraulos, the daughter of Actaios,* and had a son, Erysichthon, who died without offspring, and three daughters, Agraulos, Herse, and Pandrosos. Agraulos in turn had a daughter, Alcippe, by Ares. When Halirrhothios, son of Poseidon and a nymph, Euryte, tried to rape Alcippe, he was caught in the act by Ares and killed by him. Poseidon brought charges against Ares, who was tried on the Areiopagos* before the twelve gods, and was acquitted.

³Herse had a son, Cephalos, by Hermes. Dawn fell in love with him and carried him off; and after having intercourse with him in Sicily, she bore him a son, Tithonos, who in turn had a son, Phaethon,* whose son Astynoos had a son, Sandocos, who left Syria for Cilicia, where he founded a city, Celenderis, and after marrying Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, became the father of Cinyras. Arriving in Cyprus with some followers, Cinyras founded Paphos, where he married Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, and became the father of Oxyporos and Adonis, and had three daughters in addition, Orsedice, Laogore, and Braisia. Victims of Aphrodite’s wrath, his daughters slept with foreigners* and finished their lives in Egypt.

⁴Through the anger of Artemis, Adonis died in a hunt while he was still a young boy, from a wound inflicted by a boar. According to Hesiod, however, he was a son [not of Cinyras but] of Phoenix and Alphesiboia, while according to Panyasis, he was a son of Theias,* king of Assyria, who had a daughter called Smyrna. And this Smyrna, through the wrath of Aphrodite (whom she had failed to honour), conceived a passion for her father, and enlisting the aid of her nurse, shared her father’s bed for twelve nights before he realized who she was. But when he found out, he drew his sword and chased after her. As he caught up with her, she prayed to the gods to be made invisible; and the gods, taking pity on her, turned her into a tree of the kind known as a Smyrna[or myrrh tree]. Ten months later the tree burst open and Adonis, as he is called, was brought to birth. Struck by his beauty, Aphrodite, in secret from the gods, hid him in a chest while he was still a little child, and entrusted him to Persephone. But when Persephone caught sight of him, she refused to give him back. The matter was submitted to the judgement of Zeus; and dividing the year into three parts, he decreed that Adonis should spend a third of the year by himself, a third with Persephone, and the remaining third with Aphrodite (but Adonis assigned his own share also to Aphrodite). Later, however, while he was hunting, Adonis was wounded by a boar and died.

Three early kings: Cranaos, Amphictyon, and Erichthonios

⁵When Cecrops died, Cranaos [became king]. He was born from the earth, and it was during his reign that Deucalion’s flood is said to have taken place. He married a woman from Lacedaimon, Pedias, daughter of Mynes, who bore him Cranae, Cranaichme, and Atthis. This Atthis died while still a young girl, and Cranaos named the country Attica after her.

⁶Cranaos was driven out by Amphictyon, who took over the throne. Some call him a son of Deucalion, while others say that he was born from the earth. When he had ruled for twelve years, Erichthonios drove him out. Some say that Erichthonios was a son of Hephaistos and Atthis, daughter of Cranaos, while according to others, he was born to Hephaistos and Athene,* in the following way. Athene visited Hephaistos, wanting to fashion some arms. But Hephaistos, who had been deserted by Aphrodite, yielded to his desire for Athene and began to chase after her, while the goddess for her part tried to escape. When he caught up with her at the expense of much effort (for he was lame), he tried to make love with her. But she, being chaste and a virgin, would not permit it, and he ejaculated over the goddess’s leg. In disgust, she wiped the semen away with a piece of wool* and threw it to the ground. As she was fleeing, Erichthonios came to birth from the seed that had fallen on the earth. Athene reared the child in secret from the other gods, wishing to make him immortal; and placing him in a chest, she entrusted it to Pandrosos, the daughter of Cecrops, telling her not to open it. Out of curiosity, however, the sisters of Pandrosos opened it, and beheld a snake* lying coiled beside the baby; and according to some, they were destroyed by the snake itself, while according to others, they were driven mad through the anger of Athene and hurled themselves from the Acropolis. After Erichthonios had been brought up by Athene herself within her sanctuary,* he expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens. He erected the wooden image of Athene* on the Acropolis, and founded the festival of the Panathenaia;* and he married Praxithea, a naiad nymph, who bore him a son, Pandion.

Pandion I and his children; Icarios and Erigone; Tereus, Procne, and Philomela

⁷When Erichthonios died, he was buried in the same precinct of Athene, and Pandion became king. It was during his reign that Demeter and Dionysos came to Attica. But Demeter was welcomed by Celeos at Eleusis,* and Dionysos by Icarios, who received a vine-cutting from the god and learned the art of wine-making. Wanting to pass the god’s blessings on to mankind, Icarios visited some shepherds, who, after a taste of the drink, enjoyed it so much that they drank it down in quantities without water, and then, imagining that they had been poisoned, killed Icarios. When day came and they were sober again, they buried him. While his daughter, Erigone, was searching for her father, a pet dog named Maira, which had accompanied him, revealed his dead body to her; and in her grief for her father, she hanged herself.

⁸Pandion married his mother’s sister, Zeuxippe, and fathered two daughters, Procne and Philomela, and twin sons, Erechtheus and Boutes. When war broke out with Labdacos* over the boundaries of the land, he summoned Tereus, son of Ares, to his assistance from Thrace, and after he had brought the war to a successful conclusion with his help, he gave Tereus his own daughter, Procne, in marriage. Tereus had a son, Itys, by her, but he conceived a passion for Philomela also, and raped her; and telling her that Procne was dead, he hid her away in the country* and cut out her tongue. But she wove characters into a robe and used these to reveal her sufferings to Procne. After recovering her sister, Procne killed her son, Itys, boiled him, and served him as a meal to her unknowing husband; and then she fled in all haste with her sister. When Tereus realized what had happened, he snatched up an axe and set out in pursuit. Finding themselves overtaken as they reached Daulis in Phocis,* the sisters prayed to the gods to be turned into birds. Procne became a nightingale, and Philomela a swallow;* and Tereus, who was also transformed into a bird, became a hoopoe.

¹When Pandion died, his sons divided the paternal inheritance

15

between them, Erechtheus taking the kingdom, and Boutes the priesthood of Athene and Poseidon Erechtheus.* And Erechtheus married Praxithea, the daughter of Phrasimos and Diogeneia, daughter of Cephisos, and had three sons, Cecrops, Pandoros, and Metion, and four daughters, Procris, Creousa, Chthonia, and Oreithuia, who was carried off by Boreas.

Procris and Cephalos; Oreithuia and her children

Chthonia was married to Boutes, Creousa to Xouthos, and Procris to Cephalos, son of Deion. In return for a golden crown, Procris went to bed with Pteleon;* and when she was caught by Cephalos, she fled to Minos, who fell in love with her and urged her to have intercourse with him. Now if a woman had intercourse with Minos, it was impossible for her to come out alive; for Minos had been unfaithful with so many women that Pasiphae had put a spell on him, and whenever he slept with another woman, Minos discharged harmful beasts* into her genitals, and the women died as a result. But Minos had a fast-running dog* and a javelin that never missed its mark, and to obtain these, Procris gave him a drink from the Circaean root* to prevent him from causing her any harm, and then went to bed with him. Afterwards, however, through fear of Pasiphae, she returned to Athens. Becoming reconciled with Cephalos, she accompanied him when he went hunting (for she was herself a skilful hunter). But as she was chasing a beast in the thicket, Cephalos threw his javelin without realizing that she was there, and hit Procris, causing her death. He was tried for this in the Areiopagos and condemned to perpetual exile.

²While Oreithuia was playing by the River Ilissos, Boreas carried her off* and had intercourse with her; and she gave birth to two daughters, Cleopatra and Chione, and two winged sons, Zetes and Calais, who sailed with Jason and met their death while pursuing the Harpies* (or according to Acousilaos, were killed by Heracles* on Tenos). ³Phineus married Cleopatra, and had two sons by her, Plexippos and Pandion. After having these sons by Cleopatra, he married Idaia, daughter of Dardanos, and when she came to Phineus with false allegations that her stepsons had tried to seduce her, Phineus believed her and blinded them both. The Argonauts, as they sailed by with Boreas, punished him for this.*

Eumolpos, and the war with Eleusis; the exile of Pandion II

⁴Chione had intercourse with Poseidon. In secret from her father, she gave birth to Eumolpos, and to escape discovery, threw the child into the sea. But Poseidon recovered him, and taking him to Ethiopia, entrusted him to Benthesicyme (a daughter of his by Amphitrite) to bring up. When he was of age, the husband of Benthesicyme gave him one of their two daughters as a wife; but he tried to rape his wife’s sister, and for that reason, he was banished from the land. Accompanied by his son Ismaros, he went to Tegyrios, king of Thrace, who offered his daughter in marriage to Eumolpos’ son. Later when he plotted against Tegyrios and was detected, he fled to the Eleusinians* and made friends with them. Subsequently, on the death of Ismaros, he was summoned back by Tegyrios, and on his return, he resolved their former differences, and succeeded him on the throne.

When war broke out between the Athenians and the Eleusinians, and the Eleusinians asked him to come to their aid, he fought as their ally with a large force of Thracians. Erechtheus consulted the oracle about how the Athenians could achieve victory, and the god declared that they would be successful in the war if he slaughtered one of his daughters. And when he slaughtered the youngest, the others killed themselves too; for they had sworn a pact, some people said, to die together. In the battle that followed the sacrifice, Erechtheus killed Eumolpos; ⁵but Poseidon destroyed Erechtheus* and his house, and Cecrops, the eldest of the sons of Erechtheus, then became king. He married Metiadousa, daughter of Eupalamos, and fathered a son, Pandion. And Pandion ruled after Cecrops, but he was expelled by the sons of Metion in a revolt, and went to the court of Pylas in Megara, where he married the king’s daughter, Pylia. Later he was even made king of the city; for Pylas, after killing his father’s brother Bias, transferred the kingdom to Pandion,* while he himself departed to the Peloponnese with some of his people and founded the city of Pylos.*

Aigeus and the conception of Theseus

During his time in Megara, Pandion had the following sons, Aigeus, Pallas, Nisos, and Lycos (though some claim that Aigeus was a son of Scyrios, who was passed off by Pandion as his own son). ⁶After the death of Pandion, his sons marched on Athens, expelled the sons of Metion, and divided the kingdom into four; but Aigeus held all the power. He married as his first wife Meta, daughter of Hoples, and as his second, Chalciope, daughter of Rhexenor. When he failed to have a child, he grew afraid of his brothers, and went to Pytho* to ask the oracle how he could have children. The god replied:

The bulging mouth of the wineskin,* most excellent of men, Untie it not until you have arrived at the height of Athens.

⁷Baffled by the oracle, he departed again for Athens, travelling by way of Troezen,* where he stayed with Pittheus, son of Pelops; and Pittheus, grasping the sense of the oracle, made Aigeus drunk and ensured that he went to bed with his daughter, Aithra. On the same night Poseidon slept with her too.* Aigeus gave instructions to Aithra, telling her that if she gave birth to a male child, she should bring him up without telling him who his father was; and, leaving a sword and a pair of sandals under a rock, he said that when her son could roll the rock aside and recover them, she should send her son to him bearing these tokens.

The war with Minos and the origin of the tribute to the Minotaur

Aigeus himself returned to Athens, where he celebrated the games of the Panathenaia. During these games, Androgeos, the son of Minos, defeated all others, and Aigeus sent him to confront the bull of Marathon,* which killed him. According to some accounts, however, as he was travelling to Thebes to take part in the games held in honour of Laios, he was ambushed by his fellow competitors, and murdered out of jealousy. Minos received the news of his death as hi was sacrificing to the Graces in Paros. He cast the garland from his head and silenced the flutes, but completed the sacrifice none the less; that is why, even to this day, they sacrifice to the Graces in Paros without flutes and garlands. ⁸Not long afterwards, being master of the sea, Minos attacked Athens with a fleet; and he captured Megara, which was then under the rule of Nisos, a son of Pandion, and killed Megareus,* son of Hippomenes, who had come from Onchestos to the aid of Nisos. Nisos met his death also, through the treachery of his daughter. For he had a purple hair on the middle of his head, and an oracle had declared that if it were pulled out, he would die; and his daughter Scylla, who had fallen in love with Minos, pulled the hair out. But when Minos had gained control of Megara, he tied the girl by her feet to the prow of a ship and drowned her.*

When the war dragged on and he was unable to capture Athens, Minos prayed to Zeus to grant him vengeance on the Athenians. The city was then afflicted by a famine and a plague. First, obeying an ancient oracle, the Athenians slaughtered the daughters of Hyacinthos, Antheis, Aigleis, Lytaia, and Orthaia, on the grave of Geraistos the Cyclops. (Their father, Hyacinthos,* had come from Lacedaimon to settle in Athens.) But when this had no effect, they asked the oracle how they could be rid of their troubles, and the god replied that they should offer Minos whatever satisfaction he chose. So they sent a deputation to Minos, and allowed him to claim a penalty at his own discretion; and Minos ordered them to send seven boys and seven girls, all unarmed, to serve as food for the Minotaur. Now the Minotaur was confined in a labyrinth,* and anyone who entered it found it impossible to escape, for its maze of winding ways ensured that the way out remained undiscoverable. It was constructed by Daidalos, son of Eupalamos, son of Metion and Alcippe. ⁹For Daidalos was an excellent architect and the first man to invent statues, and he had fled from Athens because he had hurled Talos, the son of his sister Perdix, from the Acropolis. This Talos was his pupil, and he was so gifted that Daidalos was afraid that he would be outshone by him, since Talos, using a snake’s jawbone* that he had found, had managed to saw through a thin piece of wood. After the corpse was discovered, Daidalos was tried in the Areiopagos, and when he was found guilty, went into exile at the court of Minos, †

The labours of Theseus, and his arrival at Athens

^lAithra bore to Aigeus a son, Theseus.* When he was fully

16

grown, he pushed back the rock, recovered the sandals and the sword,* and hurried on foot to Athens; and he cleared the road,* which was beset by evildoers. First, in Epidauros he killed Periphetes, son of Hephaistos and Anticleia, who was referred to as Corynetes* [or the Club-Man] because of the club that he carried; for being weak on his feet, he carried an iron club, and used it to kill passers-by. Theseus seized the club from Periphetes and carried it himself ever after. ²Secondly, he killed Sinis, son of Polypemon and Sylea, daughter of Corinthos. Sinis was referred to as Pityocamptes [or the Pine-Bender]; for living on the Isthmus of Corinth, he forced passers-by to bend pine trees to the ground and hold them down, and when they were too weak to do so, they were hurled into the air* by the trees to meet with a miserable death. Theseus killed him in that very manner.