[6]
Now Hector married Andromache, daughter of Eetion,
1
and Alexander married Oenone, daughter of the river Cebren.
2
She had learned from Rhea the art of prophecy, and warned Alexander not to sail to fetch Helen; but failing to persuade him, she told him to come to her if he were wounded, for she alone could heal him. When he had carried off Helen from
Sparta and
Troy was besieged, he was shot by Philoctetes with the bow of Hercules, and went back to Oenone on Ida. But she, nursing her grievance, refused to heal him. So Alexander was carried to
Troy and died. But Oenone repented her, and brought the healing drugs; and finding him dead she hanged herself.
The Asopus river was a son of Ocean and Tethys, or, as Acusilaus says, of Pero and Poseidon, or, according to some, of Zeus and Eurynome. Him Metope, herself a daughter of the river Ladon, married and bore two sons, Ismenus and Pelagon, and twenty daughters, of whom one, Aegina, was carried off by Zeus.
3
In search of her Asopus came
to
Corinth, and learned from Sisyphus that the ravisher was Zeus.
4
Asopus pursued him, but Zeus, by hurling thunderbolts, sent him away back to his own streams;
5
hence coals are fetched to this day from the streams of that river.
6
And having conveyed Aegina to the island then named Oenone, but now called
Aegina after her, Zeus cohabited with her and begot a son Aeacus on her.
7
As Aeacus was alone in the island, Zeus made the ants into men for him.
8
And Aeacus married Endeis, daughter of Sciron, by whom he had two sons, Peleus and Telamon.
9
But Pherecydes says that Telamon was a friend, not a brother of Peleus, he being a son of Actaeus and Glauce, daughter of Cychreus.
10
Afterwards
Aeacus cohabited with Psamathe, daughter of Nereus, who turned herself into a seal to avoid his embraces, and he begot a son Phocus.
11
Now Aeacus was the most pious of men. Therefore, when
Greece suffered from infertility on account of Pelops, because in a war with Stymphalus, king of the Arcadians, being unable to conquer
Arcadia, he slew the king under a pretence of friendship, and scattered his mangled limbs, oracles of the gods declared that
Greece would be rid of its present calamities if Aeacus would offer prayers on its behalf. So Aeacus did offer prayers, and
Greece was delivered from the dearth.
12
Even after his death
Aeacus is honored in the abode of Pluto, and keeps the keys of Hades.
13
As Phocus excelled in athletic sports, his brothers Peleus and Telamon plotted against him, and the lot falling on Telamon, he killed his brother in a match by throwing a quoit at his head, and with the help of Peleus carried the body and hid it in a wood. But the murder being detected, the two were driven fugitives from
Aegina by Aeacus.
14