Delphyne
In
Mythology
The Homeric Hymn describes the serpentess as "the bloated, great she-dragon, a fierce monster wont to do great mischief to men upon earth, to men themselves and to their thin-shanked sheep; for she was a very bloody plague",[3] and says that "whosoever met the dragoness, the day of doom would sweep him away".[4] According to the Hymn, she was the foster mother of the serpentine monster Typhon, who was given to the dragoness, "an evil to an evil" (κακῷ κακόν), by his mother Hera.[5] Typhon was to eventually battle Zeus for supremacy of the cosmos.[6] The Hymn goes on to describe how, while building his oracular temple at Delphi, Apollo encountered the she-serpent near a "sweet flowing spring".[7] Apollo shot the dragoness with an arrow from his bow,[8] and the monster:
- rent with bitter pangs, lay drawing great gasps for breath and rolling about that place. An awful noise swelled up unspeakable as she writhed continually this way and that amid the wood: and so she left her life, breathing it forth in blood.[9]
Delphyne shares several similarities with Typhon's mate, the monstrous Echidna.[18] Like Apollodorus' Delphyne, Echidna was half-maid and half-snake,[19] and both were a "plague" (πῆμα) to men.[20] Both were also intimately connected to Typhon, and associated with the Corycian cave.[21]
Name
The name Delphyne means "womb" (δελφύς),
Notes
- Simonides (c. 500 BC), although possibly earlier iconographic evidence exists for a male Delphic dragon, see Ogden 2013a, p. 43.
- ^ Suda, delta,210, pi,3137.
- ^ Hymn to Apollo (3) 300–304.
- ^ Hymn to Apollo (3) 356.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 836–838.
- ^ Hymn to Apollo (3) 285–300.
- ^ Hymn to Apollo (3) 300–304, 357.
- ^ Hymn to Apollo (3) 358–362.
- ^ Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2.705–707; Fontenrose, pp. 78. For the nymphs associated with the cave, see Aeschylus, Eumenides 22.
- ^ Plutarch, Moralia 988A (XII pp. 504–507).
- ^ Plutarch, Moralia 414A (V pp. 372, 373). Ogden 2013a, p. 42 with n. 95, notes that "It is not clear how this should be integrated with Plutarch's discussions of Python elsewhere."
- ^ Apollodorus, 1.6.3.
- ^ Ogden 2013a, p. 44; Fontenrose, p. 95.
- ^ Ogden, 2013a, p. 42; Hard, p. 84; Fontenrose, p. 94.
- ^ Ogden 2013a, p. 178; Fontenrose, p. 15 n. 4 (which adds the caveat "if the text is right").
- ^ Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 13.19
- ^ Fontenrose, pp. 94–97 argues that Echidna and Delphyne (along with Ceto and possibly Scylla) were different names for the same creature.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 295-305; Ogden 2013a, p. 44; Fontenrose, p. 95.
- ^ Hymn to Apollo (3) 304: πῆμα; Hesiod, Theogony 329: πῆμ᾽.
- ^ Fontenrose, pp. 408–409. Ogden 2103b, p. 23, speculates that in Apollodorus' account "we might imagine" that Delphyne was, like Echidna, Typhon's consort, and that the connection of Delphyne's name with "womb" might imply that, like Echidna, she was also a "prolific progenitrix of dragons".
- ^ Ogden 2013a, p. 44; Liddell and Scott, δελφύς.
- ^ Ogden 2013a pp. 154–155. Lane Fox, p. 288, says that the name "Delphyne is unique in Greek myths but it can be given a Hittite derivation."
- ^ Ogden 2013a, p. 42 with n. 97; Hard, pp. 145; 620 n. 9; Fontenrose, pp. 14–15 n. 4.
- ^ Ogden 2013a, pp. 179; Fontenrose, p. 15 n. 4. According to Ogden 2013a, p. 187, this perhaps reflected a tradition which turned the dragoness into a woman.
References
- Aeschylus, The Eumenides in Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes. Vol 2. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1926. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Anonymous, Homeric Hymn to Apollo, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollonius Rhodius: the Argonautica, translated by Robert Cooper Seaton, W. Heinemann, 1912. Internet Archive.
- Callimachus, Callimachus and Lycophron with an English translation by A. W. Mair ; Aratus, with an English translation by G. R. Mair, London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921. Internet Archive
- Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, ISBN 9780520040915.
- Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3(Vol. 2).
- Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360. Google Books.
- Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Hyginus, Gaius Julius, The Myths of Hyginus. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
- ISBN 9780679763864.
- Nonnus, Dionysiaca; translated by Rouse, W H D, I Books I–XV. Loeb Classical Library No. 344, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1940. Internet Archive
- A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
- Ogden, Daniel (2013a), Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 9780199557325.
- Ogden, Daniel (2013b), Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and early Christian Worlds: A sourcebook, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-992509-4.
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