Women Honored, Women Destroyed (Homer’s The Odyssey, Book 11 – Part 10)

And I saw Leda, the famous bedfellow of Tyndareus, who bare Tyndareus two sons, hardy of heart: Castor tamer of steeds, and Polydeuces the boxer.

These twain yet live, but the quickening earth is over them.

And even in the nether world they have honor at the hand of Zeus.

And they possess their life in turn, living one day and dying the next.

And they have gotten worship even as the gods.

And after her I beheld Iphimedeia, bedfellow of Aloeus, who said that she had lain with Poseidon, and she bare children twain, but short of life were they, godlike Otus and far-famed Ephialtes.

Now these were the tallest men that Earth the grain-giver ever reared, and far the goodliest after renowned Orion.

At nine seasons old they were of breadth nine cubits, and nine fathoms in height.

They it was who threatened to raise even against the immortals in Olympus the din of stormy war.

They strove to pile Ossa on Olympus, and on Ossa Pelion with the trembling forest leaves, that there might be a pathway to the sky.

Yea, and they would have accomplished it, had they reached the full measure of manhood.

But the son of Zeus, whom Leto of the fair locks bare, destroyed the twain, ere the down had bloomed beneath their temples, and darkened their chins with the blossom of youth.

And Phaedra and Procris I saw, and fair Ariadne, the daughter of wizard Minos, whom Theseus on a time was bearing from Crete to the hill of the sacred Athens.

Yet had he no joy of her, for Artemis slew her ere that in Sea Girt Dia, by reason of the witness of Dionysus.