Chelōné
(
Χελώνη). A nymph who was the only one of the deities that
did not attend the nuptials of Zeus and Heré, and who even made the celebration a
subject of ridicule. Hermes thereupon precipitated her into a river, on the banks of which her
mansion was situated, and transformed her into a tortoise, under which shape she was doomed to
perpetual silence, and to the necessity of always carrying her dwelling about with her. The
Greek for a tortoise is
χελώνη, and hence the fable arose.