Atalanta

Family: Arcadia · Role: heroine · First appears: Fable 73

Life events

• Meleager kills the boar and presents its head to Atalanta as the victory prize.(Fable73 · 📍 Calydon)
  • With: Meleager
  • “His son Meleager leads the chase, and, having killed the monster, presents its head to his mistress, Atalanta”
• Plexippus and Toxeus seize Atalanta’s prize, so Meleager kills both uncles.(Fable73 · 📍 Calydon)
  • With: Meleager Plexippus Toxeus
  • “And {then} from her they take the present, {and} from him the right {of disposing} of the present. The warlike[67] {prince} did not brook it, and, indignant with swelling rage, he said, ‘Learn, ye spoilers of the honour that belongs to another, how much deeds differ from threats;’ and, with his cruel sword, he pierced the breast of Plexippus, dreading no such thing. Nor suffered he Toxeus”
• The oracle warns Atalanta that marriage will destroy her.(Fable91)
  • “Upon her consulting the oracle about a husband, the God said to her, ‘Thou hast no need, Atalanta, of a husband; avoid obtaining a husband. And yet thou wilt not avoid it, and, while {still} living, thou wilt lose thyself.’”
• Atalanta makes suitors race for marriage, with death for the slow.(Fable91)
  • “‘I am not,’ says she, ‘to be gained, unless first surpassed in speed. Engage with me in running. Both a wife and a wedding shall be given as the reward of the swift; death {shall be} the recompense of the slow. Let that be the condition of the contest.’”
• Atalanta falls in love with Hippomenes after Cupid strikes her for the first time.(Fable91)
  • With: Hippomenes Cupid
  • “Thus she said; and as one inexperienced, and smitten by Cupid for the first time, not knowing what she is doing, she is in love, and {yet} does not know that she is in love.”
• Hippomenes defeats Atalanta by using Venus’s golden apples and wins the prize.(Fable91 · 📍 Tamasenian field)
  • With: Hippomenes
  • “And that my narrative may not be more tedious than that race, the virgin was outrun, and the conqueror obtained the prize.”
• Cybele transforms Hippomenes and Atalanta into lions after they defile her sanctuary.(Fable91)
  • With: Hippomenes Cybele
  • “This he entered, and he defiled the sanctuary by a forbidden crime. The sacred images turned away their eyes, and the Mother {of the Gods}, crowned with turrets,[61] was in doubt whether she should plunge these guilty ones in the Stygian stream. That seemed {too} light a punishment. Wherefore yellow manes cover their necks so lately smooth; their fingers are bent into claws, of their shoulders are made fore-legs;[62] their whole weight passes into their breasts.”

Fable 73

• courtship with Meleager “Her the Calydonian hero both beheld, and at the same moment sighed for her, against the will of the God”
• parent: Iasius “Atalanta was the daughter of Iasius”
• child: Parthenopæus “She was the mother of Parthenopæus, by Meleager”
• with Meleager (interaction) “Immediately he gives her the skin as the spoil, thick with the stiffening bristles, and the head remarkable for the huge tusks.”
• with Jason (interaction) “Receive, Nonacrian Nymph, the spoil that is my right; and let my glory be shared by thee.”

Fable 91

• courtship with Hippomenes “Thus she said; and as one inexperienced, and smitten by Cupid for the first time, not knowing what she is doing, she is in love, and {yet} does not know that she is in love.”
• parent: Schœneus “the daughter of Schœneus regards him with a benign countenance”
• with Cybele (Cybele causes the transformation of Hippomenes and Atalanta into lions.) “Venus, to punish his subsequent ingratitude towards her, raises his desires to such a pitch, that he incurs the resentment of Cybele, by defiling her shrine with the embraces of his mistress; on which they are both transformed into lions, and thenceforth draw the chariot of the Goddess.”
• with Cybele (interaction) “Venus, to punish his subsequent ingratitude towards her, raises his desires to such a pitch, that he incurs the resentment of Cybele, by defiling her shrine with the embraces of his mistress; on which they are both transformed into lions, and thenceforth draw the chariot of the Goddess.”

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