Oenone

A Phrygian naiad, the daughter of the river god Cebren. She was abducted by Paris in the Ida mountain range and became his first consort. By him she had a son, Corythus. Oenone had learned from Rhea the art of prophecy, and warned Paris not to sail to fetch Helen. Although she was unable to convince him, she told him that, in case he were wounded, he should come to her for she alone could heal him.

When Paris was mortally wounded by a poisoned arrow fired by Philoctetes in the Trojan War he sent for her. Because of his infidelity she refused to heal him, or could not, and Paris returned to Troy where he died. But Oenone repented and hastened after him with the healing drugs but arrived too late. Overcome with grief and remorse she hanged herself. According to others she threw herself from a tower, or jumped on Paris' funeral pyre.

References

Sources

  • Parthenius of Nicaea. Of the Sorrows of Love, 4.
  • Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library iii, 12.6.
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus. Fall of Troy x, 411.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.
  • Strabo. Geography xiii, p. 596.