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 ...

, Delphyne () is the name given, by some accounts, to the monstrous serpent killed by

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient Classical antiquity, classical world. The A ...

. Although, in

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

and later accounts, the Delphic monster slain by Apollo is usually said to be the male serpent Python, in the earliest known account of this story, the ''Homeric Hymn to Apollo'' (6th century BC), the god kills a nameless she-serpent ('' drakaina''), subsequently called Delphyne. According to the ''

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

'',

was named after Delphyne.

Mythology

The ''Homeric Hymn'' describes the serpentess as "the bloated, great she-dragon, a fierce monster wont to do great mischief to men upon earth, to men themselves and to their thin-shanked sheep; for she was a very bloody plague", and says that "whosoever met the dragoness, the day of doom would sweep him away". According to the Hymn, she was the foster mother of the serpentine monster Typhon, who was given to the dragoness, "an evil to an evil" (''κακῷ κακόν''), by his mother

Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; ; in Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Oly ...

. Typhon was to eventually battle

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

for supremacy of the cosmos. The ''Hymn'' goes on to describe how, while building his oracular temple at Delphi, Apollo encountered the she-serpent near a "sweet flowing spring". Apollo shot the dragoness with an arrow from his bow, and the monster: : rent with bitter pangs, lay drawing great gasps for breath and rolling about that place. An awful noise swelled up unspeakable as she writhed continually this way and that amid the wood: and so she left her life, breathing it forth in blood.

Apollonius of Rhodes Apollonius of Rhodes ( ''Apollṓnios Rhódios''; ; fl. first half of 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek author, best known for the ''Argonautica'', an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Go ...

(early 3rd century BC), says that Apollo "slew with his bow the monster Delphyne", "beneath the rocky ridge of Parnassus", and that the victory was cheered by the "Corycian nymphs", who were associated with the Corycian cave on the slopes of Parnassus above Delphi.

Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...

(c. 46 AD – 120 AD), refers to the monster who "fought with Apollo for the oracle at Delphi" as female, and says that although it was recorded that at one time the oracle at Delphi was made "desolate and unapproachable" by a dragoness, in fact, "it was the desolation that attracted the creature rather than that the creature caused the desolation". Delphyne also appears in Apollodorus' account (1st or 2nd century AD) of Typhon's battle with Zeus, where she is called both a "she-dragon" (''drakaina'') and a "half-bestial maiden". According to Apollodorus, Typhon managed to cut away Zeus' sinews from his body. Typhon then hid the severed tendons in the Corycian cave in Cilicia (a different cave than the one above Delphi), and set the dragoness Delphyne, to guard over them. The (2nd-century AD?) geographical poet Dionysius Periegetes mentions a coil of the serpent Delphyne leaning against Apollo's sacrificial tripod. Nonnus in his '' Dionysiaca'' says that Apollo first killed Delphyne and then he went to live at Olympus. Delphyne shares several similarities with Typhon's mate, the monstrous Echidna. Like Apollodorus' Delphyne, Echidna was half-maid and half-snake, and both were a "plague" (''πῆμα'') to men. Both were also intimately connected to Typhon, and associated with the Corycian cave.

Name

The name Delphyne means "womb" (''δελφύς''), and probably arose by

back-formation Back-formation is the process or result of creating a neologism, new word via Morphology (linguistics), morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes ...

from Delphi. Other related forms of the name: Delphyna (female) and Delphynes (male), were, apparently, also used for the Delphian dragon. For example, according to the 7th-century chronicler John of Antioch, some said the Pythian Games were held in honor of the male serpent Delphynes, while others said the heroine (''hêrôis'') Delphyne.Ogden 2013a, pp. 179; Fontenrose
p. 15 n. 4
According to Ogden 2013a, p. 187, this perhaps reflected a tradition which turned the dragoness into a woman.

Notes

References

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

, '' The Eumenides'' in ''Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes.'' Vol 2. Cambridge, MA.

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

. 1926
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Anonymous, ''Homeric Hymn to Apollo'', in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
*

, ''Apollonius Rhodius: the Argonautica'', translated by Robert Cooper Seaton, W. Heinemann, 1912
Internet Archive
*

Callimachus Callimachus (; ; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which ...

, ''Callimachus and Lycophron with an English translation by A. W. Mair; Aratus, with an English translation by G. R. Mair'', London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921
Internet Archive
* 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
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy, ''Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins'',

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 1959. . * Gantz, Timothy, ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2). * Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004,
Google Books
*

Hesiod Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...

, ''

Theogony The ''Theogony'' () is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogy, genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Homeric Greek, epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one ...

'', in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Hyginus, Gaius Julius
''The Myths of Hyginus''
Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. * Lane Fox, Robin, ''Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer'', Vintage Books, 2010. . * Nonnus, '' Dionysiaca''; translated by Rouse, W H D, I Books I–XV.

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

No. 344, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1940
Internet Archive
* Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott. ''

A Greek-English Lexicon A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient ...

''. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Ogden, Daniel (2013a), ''Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds'', Oxford University Press, 2013. . * Ogden, Daniel (2013b), ''Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and early Christian Worlds: A sourcebook'', Oxford University Press. . *

, ''Moralia, Volume V: Isis and Osiris. The E at Delphi. The Oracles at Delphi No Longer Given in Verse. The Obsolescence of Oracles''. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt.

No. 306. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.
Online version at Harvard University Press
*

, ''Moralia, Volume XII: Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon. On the Principle of Cold. Whether Fire or Water Is More Useful. Whether Land or Sea Animals Are Cleverer. Beasts Are Rational. On the Eating of Flesh''. Translated by Harold Cherniss, W. C. Helmbold.

No. 406. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957. {{ISBN, 978-0-674-99447-8}
Online version at Harvard University Press
Dragons in Greek mythology Mythological hybrids Female legendary creatures Deeds of Apollo