Ino

Also known as: Leucothoë · Family: Theban · Role: aunt and nurse · First appears: Fable 34

Ino, also known as Leucothoë, is the sister of Semele, the wife of Athamas, and the aunt and nurse of Bacchus, whom she secretly nurses in his early infancy. Her family connections also include Venus, her grandmother, while at Cithæron she is among the aunts present when Pentheus is torn apart by the Bacchantes.

Later, Juno treats Ino as an enemy because of her bond with Athamas and her care for Bacchus, and Tisiphone poisons them both, driving them into madness. Ino throws herself from a rock into the sea with Melicerta in her arms; Neptune then removes their mortality, changes their forms and names, and makes them sea deities, calling her Leucothoë.

Relationship record

Life events

• Ino secretly nurses Bacchus during his early infancy.(Fable34)
  • With: Bacchus
  • “His aunt, Ino, nurses him privately in his early cradle.”
• Pentheus is torn apart by the Bacchantes, including his mother and aunts.(Fable37 · 📍 Cithæron)
  • With: Pentheus Agave Autonoë
  • “At the sight Agave howls aloud, and tosses her neck, and shakes her locks in the air; and seizing his head, torn off, with her blood-stained fingers, she cries out, ‘Ho! my companions, this victory is our work!’”
• Tisiphone poisons Athamas and Ino, driving them into madness.(Fable44 · 📍 Palace of Athamas)
  • With: Tisiphone Athamas
  • “But these creep along the breasts of Ino and Athamas, and inspire them with direful intent.”
• Ino throws herself and Melicerta into the sea from a rock.(Fable44)
  • With: Melicerta
  • “This Ino climbs (madness gives her strength), and, restrained by no fear, she casts herself and her burden[68] into the deep; the water, struck {by her fall}, is white with foam.”
• Neptune removes their mortality, changes their forms, and makes them sea deities.(Fable44 · 📍 boundless Ionian sea)
  • With: Venus Neptune Melicerta
  • “Neptune yields to her request; and takes away from them {all} that is mortal, and gives them a venerable majesty; and alters both their name and their shape, and calls Palæmon a Divinity,[72] together with his mother Leucothoë.”

Fable 34

• ward: Bacchus (Ino nurses Bacchus.) “His aunt, Ino, nurses him privately in his early cradle.”
• younger kin: Bacchus (Ino is Bacchus’s aunt.) “His aunt, Ino, nurses him privately in his early cradle.”

Fable 37

• married with Athamas “Athamas was the son of Æolus, and being the husband of Ino, was the son-in-law of Cadmus”
• with Pentheus (Ino participates in Pentheus's dismemberment.) “the other is dragged off by the violence of Ino.”

Fable 44

• married with Athamas “Tisiphone, being sent by Juno to the Palace of Athamas, causes him to become mad; on which he dashes his son Learchus to pieces against a wall. He then pursues his wife Ino, who throws herself headlong from the top of a rock into the sea, with her other son Melicerta in her arms:”
• ward: Bacchus “Bacchus was the foster-child of Ino, who was the sister of his mother Semele.”
• siblings with Semele “Bacchus was the foster-child of Ino, who was the sister of his mother Semele.”
• with Venus (interaction) “Venus was the grandmother of Ino, inasmuch as Hermione, or Harmonia, the wife of Cadmus, was the daughter of Mars and Venus.”
• enemies with Juno “Juno beholds her, having her soul elevated with her {children}, and her alliance with Athamas, and the God her foster-child. She cannot brook this, and says to herself, ‘Was the child of a concubine able to transform the Mæonian sailors, and to overwhelm them in the sea, and to give the entrails of the son to be torn to pieces by his mother, and to cover the three daughters of Minyas with newly formed wings? Shall Juno be able to do nothing but lament these griefs unrevenged? And is that sufficient for me? Is this my only power? He himself instructs me what to do. It is right to be taught even by an enemy. And what madness can do, he shows enough, and more than enough, by the slaughter of Pentheus. Why should not Ino, {too}, be goaded by madness, and submit to an example kindred to those of her sisters?’”
• with Tisiphone (interaction) “But these creep along the breasts of Ino and Athamas, and inspire them with direful intent.”
• child: Learchus “He then pursues his wife Ino, who throws herself headlong from the top of a rock into the sea, with her other son Melicerta in her arms”
• younger kin: Bacchus “Bacchus was the foster-child of Ino, who was the sister of his mother Semele.”
• with Juno (interaction) “Why should not Ino, {too}, be goaded by madness, and submit to an example kindred to those of her sisters?”

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