Castor

Family: Argonauts · Role: hero · First appears: Book I 1

Life events

• The speaking beam foretold that Circe must purge Apsyrtus’s murder and commanded prayers to find her.(Book IV 5)
  • With: Polydeuces Circe
  • “For it proclaimed that they should not escape the paths of an endless sea nor grievous tempests, unless Circe should purge away the guilt of the ruthless murder of Apsyrtus; and it bade Polydeuces and Castor pray to the immortal gods first to grant a path through the Ausonian sea where they should find Circe, daughter of Perse and Helios.”

Book I 1

• parent: Leda “Aetolian Leda sent from Sparta strong Polydeuces and Castor, skilled to guide swift-footed steeds; these her dearly-loved sons she bare at one birth”
• siblings with Polydeuces “these her dearly-loved sons she bare at one birth”

Book II 1

• friends with Polydeuces “Thus he spake in his pride, but fierce anger seized them when they heard it, and the challenge smote Polydeuces most of all. And quickly he stood forth his comrades’ champion, and cried: ‘Hold now, and display not to us thy brutal violence, whoever thou art; for we will obey thy rules, as thou sayest. Willingly now do I myself undertake to meet thee.’ Thus he spake outright; but the other with rolling eyes glared on him, like to a lion struck by a javelin when hunters in the mountains are hemming him round, and, though pressed by the throng, he reeks no more of them, but keeps his eyes fixed, singling out that man only who struck him first and slew him not. Hereupon the son of Tyndareus laid aside his mantle, closely-woven, delicately-wrought, which one of the Lemnian maidens had given him as a pledge of hospitality; and the king threw down his dark cloak of double fold with its clasps and the knotted crook of mountain olive which he carried. Then straightway they looked and chose close by a spot that pleased them and bade their comrades sit upon the sand in two lines; nor were they alike to behold in form or in stature. The one seemed to be a monstrous son of baleful Typhoeus or of Earth herself, such as she brought forth aforetime, in her wrath against Zeus; but the other, the son of Tyndareus, was like a star of heaven, whose beams are fairest as it shines through the nightly sky at eventide.”

Book IV 5

• parent: Tyndareus “the sons of Tyndareus uprose”
• siblings with Polydeuces “the sons of Tyndareus uprose”
• parent: Zeus “by the aid of the sons of Zeus”

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Extracted from the original text of The Argonautica. Made with Rho MD.