The fourth Hesperid in Apollodorus' named roll beside Ladon — Aegle, Erythia, Hesperia, and Arethusa — not to be confused with `arethusa-nymph`, the Sicilian spring pursued by Alpheus (Ovid, Pausanias) or with Homer's spring on Ithaca.1
Apollodorus alone among our seven lenses names an Arethusa among the apple-guardians at Atlas' garden. With Ladon and her three sisters she kept the golden fruit that Earth gave Hera — the same western watch where Heracles came for his eleventh labour.2
The homonym hazard is real: Ovid's Arethusa fled Alpheus from Elis to Ortygia and witnessed Proserpina's rape; Homer knows a spring Arethusa on Ithaca; Hyginus lists other Arethusas among Nereids and in unrelated genealogies. The atlas keeps them apart — `arethusa-hesperid` for Apollodorus' western evening sister, `arethusa-nymph` for the Sicilian spring — per the hazard map topic `hesperid-arethusa-homonym`.3
Apollonius' Argonautica episode at the garden names only Aegle, Erytheis, and Hespere after Ladon's death; Arethusa is absent from that three-name roll but remains in Apollodorus' quartet. The collective `hesperides` node still carries the disputed parentage of the whole brood under topic `hesperides-parentage`.4
⁂
the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story