Erigŏné
(
Ἠριγόνη).
1.
The daughter of Icarius. Her father having been taught by Bacchus the culture of the grape,
and having made wine, gave of it to some shepherds, who, thinking themselves poisoned by the
draught, killed him. When they came to their senses, they buried him; and his daughter
Erigoné, being guided to the spot by her father's faithful hound Maera, hanged
herself through grief (
Apollod. iii. 14.7;
Hyg. Fab. 130). Zeus translated the father and
daughter, along with the faithful Maera, to the skies; Icarius became
Boötes, and Erigoné,
Virgo; while the hound
was changed, according to Hyginus, into
Procyon; but, according to the
scholiast on Germanicus, into the
Canis Maior, which is therefore styled by
Ovid (
Fast. iv. 939)
Canis Icarius.
2.
The daughter of Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra, and mother of Penthilus by Orestes (Pausan.
ii. 18, 5).