4.
When Telephassa died, Cadmus buried her, and after being hospitably received by the
Thracians he came to Delphi to inquire about
Europa. The god told him not to trouble about Europa, but to be guided by a cow, and to
found a city wherever she should fall down for weariness.1 After receiving such an oracle he journeyed through Phocis; then falling in with a cow among the herds of
Pelagon, he followed it behind. And after traversing Boeotia, it sank down where is now the city of Thebes. Wishing to sacrifice the cow to Athena, he sent
some of his companions to draw water from the spring of Ares. But a dragon, which some
said was the offspring of Ares, guarded the spring and destroyed most of those that were
sent. In his indignation Cadmus killed the dragon, and by the advice of Athena sowed its
teeth. When they were sown there rose from the ground armed men whom they called
Sparti.2 These slew each other, some in a chance brawl,
and some in ignorance. But Pherecydes says that when Cadmus saw armed men growing up out
of the ground, he flung stones at them, and they, supposing that they were
being pelted by each other, came to blows. However, five of them survived, Echion, Udaeus,
Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelorus.3
[2]
But Cadmus, to atone for the slaughter, served Ares for
an eternal year; and the year was then equivalent to eight years of our reckoning.4
After his servitude Athena procured for him the kingdom, and Zeus gave him to wife
Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. And all the gods quitted the sky, and feasting
in the Cadmea celebrated the marriage with hymns.5 Cadmus gave her a robe and the necklace wrought by
Hephaestus, which some say was given to Cadmus by Hephaestus, but Pherecydes says that it
was given by Europa, who had received it from Zeus.6 And to Cadmus were
born daughters, Autonoe, Ino, Semele, Agave, and a son Polydorus.7 Ino was married to Athamas, Autonoe to Aristaeus, and
Agave to Echion.
[3]
But Zeus loved Semele and bedded with
her unknown to Hera.8 Now Zeus had agreed to do for her
whatever she asked, and deceived by Hera she asked that he would come to her as he came
when he was wooing Hera. Unable to refuse, Zeus came to her bridal chamber in a chariot,
with lightnings and thunderings, and launched a thunderbolt. But Semele expired of fright,
and Zeus, snatching the sixth-month abortive child9 from the fire, sewed it in his thigh. On the death of Semele the other
daughters of Cadmus spread a report that Semele had bedded with a mortal man, and had
falsely accused Zeus, and that therefore she had been blasted by thunder. But at the
proper time Zeus undid the stitches and gave birth to Dionysus, and entrusted him to
Hermes. And he conveyed him to Ino and Athamas, and persuaded them to rear him as a
girl.10 But Hera indignantly drove them mad, and Athamas
hunted his elder son Learchus as a deer and killed him,11 and Ino threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron,12 then carrying it with the dead child she sprang into the deep. And
she herself is called Leucothea, and the boy is called Palaemon, such being the names they
get from sailors; for they succour storm-tossed mariners.13 And the Isthmian games were instituted by Sisyphus in
honor of Melicertes.14 But Zeus eluded the wrath of Hera by turning Dionysus into a
kid,15 and Hermes took him and brought him to the nymphs
who dwelt at Nysa in Asia, whom Zeus afterwards changed into stars and named
them the Hyades.16
[4]
Autonoe and Aristaeus had a son Actaeon, who was bred by Chiron to be a hunter and then
afterwards was devoured on Cithaeron by his own dogs.17 He perished in that way, according to Acusilaus, because Zeus
was angry at him for wooing Semele; but according to the more general opinion, it was
because he saw Artemis bathing. And they say that the goddess at once transformed him into
a deer, and drove mad the fifty dogs in his pack, which devoured him unwittingly. Actaeon
being gone, the dogs sought their master howling lamentably, and in the search they came
to the cave of Chiron, who fashioned an image of Actaeon, which soothed their grief.
“ [ The names of Actaeon's dogs from the . . . . So
Now surrounding his fair body, as it were that of a beast,
The strong dogs rent it. Near Arcena first.
. . . . after her a mighty brood,
Lynceus and Balius goodly-footed, and Amarynthus. —
And these he enumerated continuously by name.
And then Actaeon perished at the instigation of Zeus.
For the first that drank their master's black blood
Were Spartus and Omargus and Bores, the swift on the track.
These first ate of Actaeon and lapped his blood.
And after them others rushed on him eagerly . . . .
To be a remedy for grievous pains to men. ]
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