Hi, my name is Lisa. For Latin we have to make a research competence. The person I need to discuss is Atalanta (Greek Mythology). My question is: with whom did Atalanta have a son named Parthenopaios? I receive two names from various sources, either Hippomenes or Meleager. Would you please clarify to me which person is the real father of Parthenopaios?
Thanks in advance!
Lisa
Answer
Dear Lisa,
Indeed, both names are correct, because there are two Atalantas, two competing stories.
The first Atalanta was the daughter of a king of Peloponese and was a kind of Artemis figure (virgin and mad about hunting). She was the only woman to join the Argonauts’ expedition and married Meleager.
The other was a top athlete from Beotia who only wanted to marry a man who could run faster than her. That was Hippomenes, who had received help from Aphrodite (a kind of doping case it seems). Because Hippomenes had not thanked the goddess well enough for this, they were punished: blinded by love, they made love in a temple. Then they were turned into wild beasts. In this version Atalanta is mother of a Parthenopaios or Parthenopeia, a child of Hippomenes.
This version, much more famous than the first, was retold by Ovid in the Metamorphoses…
Sincerely,
Désirée Schyns, Faculty of Applied Linguistics University College Ghent, with many thanks to Philippe Noble.
Answered by
Dr Désiree Schyns
Cultural Studies, memory studies (film, graphic novel and novel), literary translation, francophony, translation didactics, literary translation policy, working as a literary translator from French and German, intercultural relations Flanders Netherlands, lit
http://www.ugent.be
.