[3]
Cleopatra was married to Phineus, who had by her two
sons, Plexippus and Pandion. When he had these sons by Cleopatra, he married Idaea,
daughter of Dardanus. She falsely accused her stepsons to Phineus of corrupting her
virtue, and Phineus, believing her, blinded them both.1 But when the Argonauts sailed past with Boreas, they punished
him.2
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1 See above, Apollod. 1.9.21. The story of Phineus and his sons is related by the Scholiast on Sophocles （Antigone, 981）, referring to the present passage of Apollodorus as his authority. The tale was told by the ancients with many variations, some of which are noticed by the Scholiast on Sophocles （Antigone, 981）. According to Soph. Ant. 969ff., it was not their father Phineus, but their cruel stepmother, who blinded the two young men, using her shuttle as a dagger. The names both of the stepmother and of her stepsons are variously given by our authorities. See further Diod. 4.43ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xii.69 （who refers to Asclepiades as his authority）; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.178; Hyginus, Fab. 19; Serv. Verg. A. 3.209; Scholiast on Ovid, Ibis 265, 271; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 9, 124 (First Vatican Mythographer 27; Second Vatican Mythographer 124). According to Phylarchus, Aesculapius restored the sight of the blinded youths for the sake of their mother Cleopatra, but was himself killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt for so doing. See Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos i.262, p. 658, ed. Bekker; compare Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.54(96); Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1. Both Aeschylus and Sophocles composed tragedies entitled Phineus. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 83, 284ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 311ff.
2 Here Apollodorus departs from the usual tradition, followed by himself elsewhere （Apollod. 1.9.21）, which affirmed that the Argonauts, instead of punishing Phineus, rendered him a great service by delivering him from the Harpies.
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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