Laelaps

That is, the storm-wind, which is personified in the legend of the dog of Procris which bore this name. Procris had received this extremely swift animal as a present, either from Artemis or Minos, and afterwards left it to her husband Cephalus. When the Teumessian Fox was sent as a punishment to the Thebans, to which they had to sacrifice a boy every month, and when Creon had requested Amphitryon to deliver the city of the monster fox, Cephalus sent out the dog Laelaps against the fox.

The dog overtook the fox, but since the fox was destined never to be caught, the conflicting fates of the two animals perplexed Zeus, so he turned them both to stone. The image was shown in the neighborhood of Thebes.

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References

Sources

  • Hyginus. Fabulae, 189; Poetical Astronomy ii, 35.
  • Ovid. Metamorphoses vii, 771.
  • Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library ii, 4.6.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

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