Dryope

A daughter of king Dryops, or, according to others, of Eurytus. While she tended the flocks of her father on Mount Oeta, she became the playmate of the hamadryades, who taught her to sing hymns to the gods and to dance. On one occasion she was seen by Apollo, who, in order to gain possession of her, metamorphosed himself into a tortoise. The nymphs played with the animal, and Dryope took it into her lap. The god then changed himself into a serpent, which frightened the nymphs away, so that he remained alone with Dryope.

Soon after she married Andraemon, the son of Oxylus, but she became, by Apollo, the mother of Amphissus, who, after he had grown up, built the town of Oeta, and a temple to Apollo. Once, when Dryope was in the temple, the hamadryades carried her off and concealed her in a forest, and in her stead there was seen in the temple a well and a poplar. Dryope now became a nymph, and Amphissus built a temple to the nymphs, which no woman was allowed to approach.

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References

Sources

  • Antoninus Liberalis, 32.
  • Ovid. Metamorphoses ix, 325 ff.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.
  • Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Δρυόπη.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.