The First Women of Old (Homer’s The Odyssey, Book 11 – Part 8)

Then verily did I first see Tyro, sprung of a noble sire, who said that she was the child of noble Salmoneus, and declared herself the wife of Cretheus, son of Aeolus.

She loved a river, the divine Enipeus, far the fairest of the floods that ran upon the earth, and she would resort to the fair streams of Enipeus.

And it came to pass that the girdler of the world, the Earth-Shaker, put on the shape of the god and lay by the lady at the mouths of the whirling stream.

Then the dark wave stood around them like a hillside bode, and hid the god and the mortal woman.

And he undid her maiden girdle and shed a slumber over her.

Now when the god had done the work of love, he clasped her hand and spake and hailed her: "Woman, be glad in our love.

And when the year comes round that thou shalt give birth to glorious children, for not weak are the embraces of the gods.

And do thou keep and cherish them.

And now go home and hold thy peace, and tell it not.

But behold, I am Poseidon, Shaker of the Earth." Therewith he plunged beneath the heaving deep.

And she conceived and bare Pelias and Neleus, who both grew to be mighty men, servants of Zeus.

Pelias dwelt in wide Iolcus and was rich in flocks.

And that other abode in sandy Pylos.

And the queen of women bare yet other sons to Cretheus, even Aeson and Pheres, and Amythaon, whose joy was in chariots.

And after her I saw Antiope, daughter of Asopus.

And her boast was that she had slept even in the arms of Zeus, and she bare two sons, Amphion and Zethus, who founded the first place of the seven-gated Thebes.

And they made of it a fenced city, for they might not dwell in spacious Thebes unfenced, for all their valiancy.