Pleione

Pleione was a nymph in Greek mythology, a daughter of Oceanus, and the wife of the Titan Atlas. She is known above all as the mother of the seven Pleiades, the sisters who became the star cluster of that name. Ancient writers disagree about the parentage of the Hyades and of Hyas, who are linked with her family.

Origins and Family

Parentage and Lineage

Apollodorus calls Pleione a daughter of Oceanus (Library 3.10.1), and the Latin writer Hyginus likewise names her as the daughter of Oceanus (Astronomica 2.21). Ovid is more explicit: Oceanus married the Titan Tethys, and from them was born Pleione, who was joined to Atlas and bore the Pleiades (Fasti 5.81–84). That makes her one of the Oceanids, the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. Hesiod lists the Oceanids in the Theogony (346–366) but does not name Pleione among them, and no surviving source gives her any other parents.

Marriage to Atlas

Pleione was the wife of Atlas, a son of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene (Hesiod, Theogony 507–511). After the war of the gods, Zeus condemned Atlas to hold up the broad sky at the edge of the earth, in front of the Hesperides (Theogony 517–520). Apollodorus says that Atlas and Pleione had seven daughters, born at Cyllene in Arcadia (Library 3.10.1).

Children of Pleione and Atlas

The Pleiades

Apollodorus names the seven daughters (Library 3.10.1):

• Alcyone
• Merope
• Celaeno
• Electra
• Sterope (also known as Asterope)
• Taygete
• Maia

Hesiod, in a fragment quoted by a scholiast on Pindar, gives the same seven names and calls Atlas their father. Most of them became mothers by gods. Zeus fathered Hermes by Maia (Library 3.10.2), Lacedaemon by Taygete (3.10.3) and Dardanus by Electra (3.12.1); Poseidon had children by Celaeno and Alcyone (3.10.1). Merope married the mortal Sisyphus, and Sterope was the wife of Oenomaus in one account and the mother of Oenomaus by Ares in another (Library 3.10.1; Hyginus, Astronomica 2.21). Hesiod uses the sisters as a calendar in the Works and Days: the harvest begins when the Pleiades rise, and ploughing when they set (383–384).

The Hyades and Hyas

In the accounts that survive in full, Pleione is not the mother of the Hyades. Hyginus reports two accounts of them (Astronomica 2.21). In the first, Musaeus makes the Hyades daughters of Atlas and Aethra, another daughter of Oceanus, and sisters of a brother named Hyas. Hyas was killed by a lion while hunting, and five of his sisters died of grief for him; they were called Hyades for that reason. In the second, Alexander says the Hyades were daughters of Hyas and Boeotia, while the Pleiades were the daughters of Pleione and Atlas. Ovid also makes Hyas the son of Atlas and Aethra, a daughter of Oceanus; Hyas was killed by a lioness, and his mother, his sisters and Atlas mourned him (Fasti 5.169–182).

Myths Involving Pleione

The Pursuit by Orion

Hyginus gives the one account in which Pleione herself appears in action. As she travelled through Boeotia with her daughters, the hunter Orion, who was in their company, tried to force himself on her. She fled, and Orion followed for seven years without catching her. Zeus pitied the girls and placed them among the stars, and Orion still seems to chase them toward the western horizon (Astronomica 2.21). Hyginus says that the early astronomers drew the Pleiades apart from the Bull, as the daughters of Pleione and Atlas. Hesiod already speaks of the Pleiades plunging into the misty sea to escape the strength of Orion (Works and Days 619–620), though he names no mother in that passage.

The Missing Pleiad

Hyginus notes that the Pleiades are called seven, though no one can see more than six. He explains that six of the sisters lay with immortals, three with Zeus, two with Poseidon and one with Ares, while Merope married the mortal Sisyphus, and so her star is dimmer (Astronomica 2.21). He adds another account, that Electra withdrew from the group in grief after the fall of Troy and the destruction of the line of her son Dardanus. Ovid gives the same two explanations (Fasti 4.169–178). In none of these accounts is the missing star Pleione.

Pleione Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 346–366 and 507–520; Hesiod, Works and Days 383–384 and 619–620; Hesiod, fragment on the Pleiades (quoted by a scholiast on Pindar, Nemean 2); Apollodorus, Library 3.10.1–3 and 3.12.1; Hyginus, Astronomica 2.21; Ovid, Fasti 4.169–178 and 5.81–84, 5.169–182.

See Also: Atlas, The Pleiades, Orion, Hyades, Hyas, Oceanus, Tethys