In Greek mythology, Oenone (; ) was the first wife of Paris of Troy, whom he abandoned for Helen. Oenone was also the ancient name of an island, which was later named after Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus.A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Aeacus
Biography Oenone was a mountain nymph on Mount Ida in Phrygia, a mountain associated with the Mother Goddess Cybele and the Titaness Rhea. Her gift of prophecy was learned from Rhea.Apollodorus, 3.12.6 Her father was either the river-gods, CebrenApollodorus, 3.12.6; Parthenius, 4 from Book of Poets of Nicander and the Trojan History of Cephalon of Gergitha; Tzetzes on Lycophron, 57 (Scheer, p. 41). or Oeneus.Tzetzes on Lycophron, 57 (Scheer, p. 41) Her name links her to the gift of wine.
Mythology
Paris, son of king Priam and Hecuba, fell in love with Oenone when he was a shepherd on the slopes of Mount Ida. He had been exposed in infancy owing to a prophecy that he would bring destruction to Troy, but rescued by the herdsman Agelaus. The couple married, and Oenone gave birth to a son, Corythus.Parthenius. Love Romances 34 Paris swore he would never desert her, but Oenone prophesied that - whilst his love for her was true now - he would later abandon her and bring ruin to his family. Paris, perhaps disturbed or afraid, always dismissed her warnings.Parthenius. Love Romances 4
Her prediction came true when Paris returned to his birth parents in Troy and sailed across the Aegean for Helen, the queen of Sparta. Out of revenge, she sent Corythus to guide the Greeks to Troy.Tzetzes on Lycophron, 57 (Scheer, p. 41) Another version has it that she used him to drive a rift between Paris and Helen. Paris, not recognizing his own son, killed him.Conon. Narrations 23
She even sent her son to inform the Greeks of the prophecies required to take Troy: one of the Aeacidae, Pelops' bones, and Heracles' arrows.Lycophron. Alexandra 52–60.
One of the only extensive surviving narrations of Oenone and Paris is Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica, Book 10, 259–489, which tells the return of the dying Paris to Oenone.On-line text of Posthomerica; Alternative text Mortally wounded by Philoctetes's arrow, he begged Oenone to heal him with her herbal arts, but she refused and cast him out with scorn, to return to Helen's bed, and Paris died on the lower slopes of Ida. Then, overcome with remorse, Oenone, the one whole-hearted mourner of Paris, threw herself onto his burning funeral pyre, which the shepherds had raised.Posthomerica. 10.260–410
In Apollodorus' Library, she hanged herself upon finding Paris dead, whilst Lycophron imagines her throwing herself from the walls of Troy.Apollodorus. Bibliotheca 3.12.6Tzetzes, on Lycophron, 65 (Scheer, pp. 42–43). According to Conon's Narrations, Oenone kills the messenger who informed her of Paris' demise.
Her tragic story makes one of the Love Romances of Parthenius of Nicaea, where she jests that Paris ask Helen to heal him. Even so, she sets out to save her husband, but arrives too late, and kills herself.
Ovid includes an imagined reproachful letter from Oenone to Paris in his Heroides,Heroides 5 a text that has been extended by a number of spurious post-Ovidian interpolations, which include an elsewhere unattested rape of Oenone by Apollo.Sergio Casali, reviewing The Cambridge Heroides in The Classical Journal 92.3 (February 1997, pp. 305–314) pp306-07.
In literature Thomas Heywood wrote the epyllion Oenone and Paris (1594) in rhyme royal.
Aphra Behn composed a paraphrase of the fifth book of Ovid's Heroides titled "Oenone to Paris", which was published in 1680 in John Dryden and Jacob Tonson's collection Ovid's Epistles Translated by Several Hands.
William Morris included "The Death of Paris" in The Earthly Paradise.
Lawrence Binyon published Paris and Oenone, a one-act closet tragedy in blank verse, in 1906.
Tennyson adapted the source material of Smyrnaeus for "The Death of Oenone" (1892), distilling its tragic essence.Tennyson dedicated his poem to the classical scholar Benjamin Jowett as "a Grecian tale retold" and in his Memoirs (ii.386) credited it with being "even more strictly classical in form and language than the old", as Wilfred P. Mustard noted in The American Journal of Philology 23.3 (1902), p 318. See "The death of Oenone" This was Tennyson's second poem on the subject; his previous attempt, "Oenone", was critically panned when first published in 1833.Thorn, Michael. (1992) Tennyson, p. 106. New York: St. Martin's Press. The poem was practically rewritten between then and 1842 and the revised version has been described as exquisitely beautiful.Notes to Poetical Works of Lord Tennyson, Collins, published ca. 1940
In Racine's Phèdre, the name Oenone is given to Phaedra's nurse, a character who also commits suicide.
Notes
References Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website. Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths, Harmondsworth, London, England, Penguin Books, 1960. Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition. Penguin Books Limited. 2017. Parthenius, Love Romances translated by Sir Stephen Gaselee (1882–1943), S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 69. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1916. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Parthenius, Erotici Scriptores Graeci, Vol. 1. Rudolf Hercher. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1858. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Tzetzes, John, Lycophronis Alexandra. Vol. II: Scholia Continens, edited by Eduard Scheer, Berlin, Weidmann, 1881. Internet Archive.
External links
OENONE from The Theoi Project