Philyra (Ancient Greek: Φιλύρα, romanized: Philýra, lit. 'linden-tree') is an Oceanid, one of the 3,000 water-nymph daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. [1]
She is known for having an affair with her uncle, the Titan Cronus, by whom she became the mother of the divine centaur Chiron.
Mythology[]
By the Titan Cronus, Philyra was the mother of the centaur Chiron.[2] Cronus' wife Rhea walked in on them, thereupon Cronus assumed the form of a stallion and galloped away, in order not to be caught by her, hence the half-human, half-equine shape of their offspring;[3][4] this was said to have taken place on Mount Pelion.[5] When she gave birth to her son, she was so disgusted by how he looked that she abandoned him at birth, and implored the gods to transform her into anything other than anthropomorphic as she could not bear the shame of having had such a monstrous child; the gods (specifically Jupiter according to Hyginus) changed her into a linden tree.[6]
Saturn in the guise of a horse being suckled by the nymph Philyra, engraving by Giulio Bonasone ca. 1513–76
Yet in some versions Philyra and Chariclo, the wife of Chiron, nursed the young Achilles;[7] Chiron's dwelling on Pelion where his disciples were reared was known as "Philyra's cave".[8] Chiron was often referred to by the matronymic Philyrides or the like.[9] Two other sons of Cronus and Philyra may have been Dolops[10] and Aphrus, the ancestor and eponym of the Aphroi, i.e. the native Africans.[11]
References[]
- ↑ Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2.1235 citing Pherecydes; Hyginus, Fabulae 138. Compare with Callimachus, Hymn 1 to Zeus 33–36
- ↑ Apollodorus 1.2.4; Hyginus, De astronomia 2.38.1; Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 7.56.3; Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra 1200.
- ↑ Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2.1231-1237, with scholia on 2.1235 citing Pherecydes & 1.554
- ↑ Virgil, Georgics 3.92-94
- ↑ Callimachus, Hymn 4 to Delos 104 ff.
- ↑ Hyginus, Fabulae 138
- ↑ Pindar, Pythian Odes 4.102 ff; scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4.813
- ↑ Pindar, Nemean Odes 3.43; Callimachus, Hymn 4 to Delos 118; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 48.40
- ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 1002; Pindar, Pythian Odes 3.1; Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.554; Argonautica Orphica 450; Virgil, Georgics 3.549
- ↑ Hyginus, Fabulae Preface
- ↑ Suida, Suda Encyclopedia s.v. Aphroi