In Greek mythology, Meleager (,[Homer, Iliad 9.529–99] Meleager is also mentioned as one of the Argonauts.[Apollodorus, 1.9.16]
Biography
Meleager was a Calydonian prince as the son of Althaea and the
vintner King
Oeneus[Apollodorus, 1.9.16; Antoninus Liberalis, 2 as cited in Nicander Metamorphoses] or according to some, of the god
Ares.
[Apollodorus, 1.8.2; Hyginus, Fabulae 14 & 171] He was the brother of
Deianira,
Toxeus,
Clymenus,
Periphas,
Agelaus (or
Ageleus), Thyreus (or
Phereus or
Pheres), Gorge,
Eurymede and
Melanippe.
[Antoninus Liberalis, 2 as cited in Nicander Metamorphoses][Hesiod, Ehoiai fr. 98 as cited in Berlin Papyri, No. 9777]
Meleager was the father of Parthenopeus by Atalanta[Hyginus, Fabulae 70 & 99] but he married Cleopatra, daughter of Idas and Marpessa.[Kerenyi 1959: Genealogical table F, p. 372.] They had a daughter, Polydora, who became the bride of Protesilaus, who left her bed on their wedding-night to join the expedition to Troy.
Mythology
Calydonian boar hunt
When Meleager was born, the
Moirai (the Fates) predicted he would only live until a piece of wood, then burning in the family hearth, was consumed by fire. Overhearing them, Althaea immediately doused and hid it.
[Hyginus, Fabulae 171; Apollodorus, 1.8.2]
Oeneus sent Meleager to gather up heroes from all over Greece[Apollodorus, 1.8.2] to hunt the Calydonian boar that had been terrorizing the area and rooting up the vines, as Oeneus had omitted Artemis at a festival in which he honored the other gods. In addition to the heroes he required, he chose Atalanta, a fierce huntress, whom he loved.[Euripides, Frg. 520, noted by Karl Kerenyi, The Heroes of the Greeks, 1959:119 note 673.] According to one account of the hunt, when Hylaeus and Rhaecus, two , tried to rape Atalanta, Meleager killed them. Then Atalanta wounded the boar and Meleager killed it. He awarded her the hide since she had drawn the first drop of blood.
Meleager's uncles Toxeus, the "archer",[There were two further brothers, Thyreus, the "porter", and Klymenos, the "famous"—though Meleager is by far the most renowned of the four—and two sisters, Gorge and Deianira (Kerenyi 1959:199 and Genealogical table G, p. 375).] and Plexippus grew enraged that the prize was given to a woman. Meleager killed them in the following argument.[Hyginus, Fabulae 244] He also killed Iphicles and Eurypylus for insulting Atalanta. When Althaea found out that Meleager had killed her brothers, she placed the piece of wood that she had stolen from the Fates (the one that the Fates predicted, once engulfed with fire, would kill Meleager) upon the fire, thus fulfilling the prophecy and killing Meleager, her own son.[Hyginus, Fabulae 239 & 249] Meleagrids who mourned his death excessively were turned into guineafowl ( meleagrides).[Hyginus, Fabulae 174]
Afterlife
In the
underworld, his was the only shade that did not flee
Heracles, who had come after
Cerberus. In
Bacchylides' Ode V, Meleager is depicted as still in his shining armor, so formidable, in Bacchylides' account, that Heracles reached for his bow to defend himself. Heracles was moved to tears by Meleager's account; Meleager had left his sister
[Or perhaps his half-sister, if Dionysus was the real father of Deianira, as Apollodorus, 1.8.1, would have it; Oeneus himself was "to judge by his name a double of the wine-god", as Kerenyi observes (Kerenyi 1959:199).] Deianira unwedded in his father's house, and entreated Heracles to take her as his bride;
[Scholia on Iliad 21.194, noted by Kerenyi 1959:180 note 103.] here
Bacchylides breaks off his account of the meeting, without noting that in this way Heracles in the underworld chooses a disastrous wife.
According to Pliny the Elder's Natural History, Book 37, Chapter 11, Sophocles believed that amber is produced in the countries beyond India, from the tears that are shed for Meleager, by the birds called "meleagrides".
Influences
Among the Romans, the heroes assembled by Meleager for the Calydonian hunt provided a theme of multiple nudes in striking action, to be portrayed frieze-like on
Sarcophagus.
Meleager's story has similarities with the Scandinavian Norna-Gests þáttr.
Family tree
Gallery
File:Giulio Romano - Meleager et Atalanta.jpg| Meleager et Atalanta, after Giulio Romano
File:Meleagros Antikensammlung Berlin Sk215.jpg|Statue of Meleager modeled after Skopas
File:Calydonian hunt Musei Capitolini MC917.jpg|Meleager sarcophagus
File:Jacob Jordaens - Meleager and Atalanta, 1620-1650.jpg| Meleager and Atalanta (17th century) by Jacob Jordaens
File:S03 06 01 021 image 2609.jpg|Volterra, Italy. Etruscan cinerary urn; Hunt of Maleager, Volterra. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection
File:S03 06 01 020 image 2583.jpg|Meleager, Scopas' influence. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection
File:Flemish - Meleager and Atalanta Setting Out to Hunt the Calydonian Boar - Walters 829 - View C.jpg| Meleager and Atalanta Setting Out to Hunt the Calydonian Boar, tapestry, Walters Art Museum
File:Meleagrosz-tál.jpg|Meleager plate
File:Meleagrosz-tál (2).jpg|Meleager plate (detail)
File:BLW Meleager.jpg| Renaissance sculpture of Meleager by Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, who was known by his contemporaries as L'Antico. V&A Museum.
Sources
External links
