[3]
And Artemis slew Orion in Delos.1 They say that he was of
gigantic stature and born of the earth; but Pherecydes says that he was a son of Poseidon
and Euryale.2 Poseidon bestowed on him the power of
striding across the sea.3 He first married Side,4 whom Hera cast into Hades because she rivalled
herself in beauty. Afterwards he went to Chios
and wooed Merope, daughter of Oenopion. But Oenopion made him drunk, put out
his eyes as he slept, and cast him on the beach. But he went to the smithy of Hephaestus,
and snatching up a lad set him on his shoulders and bade him lead him to the sunrise.
Being come thither he was healed by the sun's rays, and having recovered his sight he
hastened with all speed against Oenopion.
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1 See Hom. Od. 5.121-124; Hor. Carm. 3.4.70ff.
2 The same account of Orion's parentage was given by Hesiod, whom Pherecydes probably followed. See Eratosthenes, Cat. 32; Hyginus, Ast. ii.34.
3 Some thought that Orion waded through the sea （so Verg. A. 10.763ff.）, others that he walked on the top of it （so Eratosthenes, Cat. 32; Scholiast on Nicander, Ther. 15; Hyginus, Ast. ii.34）.
4 As Side means “pomegranate” in Greek, it has been supposed that the marriage of Orion to Side is a mythical expression for the ripening of the pomegranate at the season when the constellation Orion is visible in the nightly sky. See W. Pape, Worterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen （Brunswick, 1884）, ii.1383.
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. Includes Frazer's notes.
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