Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Oenone (;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

: Οἰνώνη ''Oinōnē''; "wine woman") was the first wife of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

of Troy, whom he abandoned for Helen. Oenone was also the ancient name of an island, which was later named after

Aegina Aegina (; ; ) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina (mythology), Aegina, the mother of the mythological hero Aeacus, who was born on the island and became its king. ...

, daughter of the river god

Asopus Asopus (; ''Āsōpos'') is the name of four different rivers in Greece and one in Turkey. In Greek mythology, it was also the name of the God (male deity), gods of those rivers. Zeus carried off Aegina (mythology), Aegina, Asopus' daughter, and ...

Biography

Oenone was a mountain

nymph A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, land ...

Mount Ida In Greek mythology, two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida, the "Mountain of the Goddess": Mount Ida in Crete, and Mount Ida in the ancient Troad region of western Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey), which was also known as the '' Phrygian Ida' ...

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; , ''Phrygía'') was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Ph ...

, a mountain associated with the Mother Goddess

Cybele Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya'' "Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian: ''Kuvava''; ''Kybélē'', ''Kybēbē'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest ...

and the Titaness Rhea. Her gift of prophecy was learned from Rhea.

Apollodorus Apollodorus ( Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: :''Note: A ...

3.12.6
/ref> Her father was either the river-gods,

Cebren In Greek mythology, Cebren (Ancient Greek: Κεβρην) was a Greek river-god, whose river was located near Troy. He was the son of Oceanus and Tethys and he was the father of Asterope and Hesperia, who are sometimes considered to be the same ...

or Oeneus. Her name links her to the gift of wine.

Mythology

Paris, son of the king

Priam In Greek mythology, Priam (; , ) was the legendary and last king of Troy during the Trojan War. He was the son of Laomedon. His many children included notable characters such as Hector, Paris, and Cassandra. Etymology Most scholars take the e ...

and the queen

Hecuba Hecuba (; also Hecabe; , ) was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War. Description Hecuba was described by the chronicler John Malalas, Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "dark, good eyes ...

, fell in love with Oenone when he was a shepherd on the slopes of

, having been exposed in infancy (owing to a prophecy that he would be the means of the destruction of the city of Troy) and rescued by the herdsman

Agelaus Agelaus or Agelaos (Ancient Greek: Ἀγέλαος) is, in Greek mythology, the name of various individuals. *Agelaus, father of Antheus of Lyctus. He fought in the army of Dionysus during his campaigns in India. *Agelaus, an Arcadia (region), A ...

. The couple married, and Oenone gave birth to a son,

Corythus Corythus is the name of six mortal men in Greek mythology. *Corythus, son of Marmarus, and one of the court of Cepheus. He wounded Pelates during the battle at the wedding feast of Perseus and Andromeda. *Corythus, an Italian king and father, i ...

. When Paris swore he would never desert her, Oenone (through her gift of prophecy) informed him that - whilst his love for her was true now - he would later sail across the sea to find another lover and bring ruin to his family. Paris, perhaps disturbed or afraid, always attempted to dismiss her warnings. Her prediction came true when Paris abandoned her, returning to his birth parents in Troy and sailing across the Aegean for Helen, the queen of Sparta. Out of revenge for Paris's betrayal, she sent Corythus to guide the Greeks to Troy. Another version has it that she used her son to drive a rift between Paris and Helen, but Paris, not recognizing his own son, killed him. One of the only extensive surviving narrations of Oenone and Paris is

Quintus Smyrnaeus Quintus Smyrnaeus (also Quintus of Smyrna; , ''Kointos Smyrnaios'') was a Greek epic poet whose ''Posthomerica'', following "after Homer", continues the narration of the Trojan War. The dates of Quintus Smyrnaeus' life and poetry are disputed: by ...

, ''

Posthomerica The ''Posthomerica'' () is an epic poem in Greek hexameter verse by Quintus of Smyrna. Probably written in the 3rd century AD, it tells the story of the Trojan War, between the death of Hector and the fall of Troy, Ilium (Troy). The poem is an ab ...

'', Book X, ll. 259–489, which tells the return of the dying Paris to Oenone. Mortally wounded by

Philoctetes Philoctetes ( ''Philoktētēs''; , ), or Philocthetes, according to Greek mythology, was the son of Poeas, king of Meliboea (Magnesia), Meliboea in Thessaly, and Demonassa or Methone (Greek myth), Methone. He was a Greek hero, famed as an archer ...

's arrow, he begged Oenone to heal him with her herbal arts, but she refused and cast him out with scorn, to return to Helen's bed, and Paris died on the lower slopes of Ida. Then, overcome with remorse, Oenone, the one whole-hearted mourner of Paris, threw herself onto his burning funeral pyre, which the shepherds had raised. A fragment of

Bacchylides Bacchylides (; ''Bakkhulides''; – ) was a Greek lyric poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets, which included his uncle Simonides. The elegance and polished style of his lyrics have been noted in Bacchylidea ...

suggests that she threw herself off a cliff, in the ''Bibliotheke'' it is noted "when she found him dead she hanged herself", and Lycophron imagines her hurtling head first from the towering walls of Troy. Her tragic story makes one of the ''Love Romances'' of

Parthenius of Nicaea Parthenius of Nicaea () or Myrlea () in Bithynia was a Greeks, Greek Philologist, grammarian and poet. According to the ''Suda'', he was the son of Heraclides and Eudora, or according to Hermippus of Berytus, his mother's name was Tetha. He was take ...

, where she jests to the messenger that Paris should have asked Helen to heal him but sets out to save her former husband all the same. Still, she arrives too late, and ends her life out of grief.

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

includes an imagined reproachful letter from Oenone to Paris in his ''

Heroides The ''Heroides'' (''The Heroines''), or ''Epistulae Heroidum'' (''Letters of Heroines''), is a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroin ...

'', a text that has been extended by a number of spurious post-Ovidian interpolations, which include an elsewhere unattested rape of Oenone by Apollo.

In literature

Thomas Heywood Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was an English playwright, actor, and author. His main contributions were to late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. He is best known for his masterpiece ''A Woman Killed with Kindness'', a ...

wrote the

epyllion A sleeping Theseus.html" ;"title="Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus">Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus is the topic of an elaborate ecphrasis in Catullus 64, the most famous extant epyllion. (Roman copy of a 2nd-century BCE Greek original; :it:Vil ...

br>''Oenone and Paris''
(1594) in

rhyme royal Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyme, rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English literature, English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a mo ...

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

included "The Death of Paris" in '' The Earthly Paradise.'' Lawrence Binyon published ''Paris and Oenone'', a one-act closet tragedy in

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metre (poetry), metrical but rhyme, unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th cen ...

, in 1906.

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...

adapted the source material of Smyrnaeus for "The Death of Oenone" (1892), distilling its tragic essence. This was Tennyson's second poem on the subject; his previous attempt, "

Oenone In Greek mythology, Oenone (; Ancient Greek: Οἰνώνη ''Oinōnē''; "wine woman") was the first wife of Paris of Troy, whom he abandoned for Helen. Oenone was also the ancient name of an island, which was later named after Aegina, daughter ...

", was critically panned when first published in 1833. The poem was practically rewritten between then and 1842 and the revised version has been described as exquisitely beautiful.Notes to Poetical Works of Lord Tennyson, Collins, published ca. 1940 In Racine's ''

Phèdre ''Phèdre'' (; originally ''Phèdre et Hippolyte'') is a French dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris. Composition and premiere With ...

'', the name Oenone is given to

Phaedra Phaedra may refer to: Mythology * Phaedra (mythology), Cretan princess, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, wife of Theseus Arts and entertainment * Phaedra (Cabanel), ''Phaedra'' (Cabanel), an 1880 painting by Alexandre Cabanel *House of Phaedra ...

's nurse, a character who also commits suicide.

Notes

References

, ''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. ISBN 0-674-99135-4
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
* Graves, Robert, ''The Greek Myths'', Harmondsworth, London, England, Penguin Books, 1960. * Graves, Robert, ''The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition.'' Penguin Books Limited. 2017. * Parthenius, ''Love Romances'' translated by Sir Stephen Gaselee (1882–1943), S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 69. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1916.
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* Parthenius, ''Erotici Scriptores Graeci, Vol. 1''. Rudolf Hercher. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1858
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library

External links

{{Authority control Children of Greek river gods Women of Apollo Mythological rape victims Women of the Trojan war Mythological people from Anatolia