Winged son of Boreas the North Wind by Orithyia, daughter of Erechtheus, and brother of Zetes. The two sailed with Jason among the Argonauts and, being winged, drove the Harpies from the blind seer Phineus.1
While Orithyia played by the river Ilissus, Boreas carried her off and lay with her, and she bore the daughters Cleopatra and Chione and the winged sons Zetes and Calais. So Apollodorus reckons the Boreads grandsons of Erechtheus on their mother's side and sons of the North Wind on their father's.2
Apollonius brings the brothers aboard the Argo and dwells on the marvel of them: Zetes and Calais, sons of Boreas, whom Orithyia bore on the verge of wintry Thrace after the wind snatched her from Cecropia as she whirled in the dance by the Ilissus. As they rose they quivered dusky wings upon their ankles, a great wonder to behold, wings that gleamed with golden scales, while their dark tresses shook in the wind.3
Ovid tells that the suit came before the seizure, and that the boys were born wingless. Boreas long courted Orithyia in vain until, falling back on his own nature, he raised his force in fury and swept her by violence to Thrace. There she bore the twins, who grew their eagle's plumage only when golden hair and beard came upon them.4
At Salmydessus in Thrace the Argonauts found Phineus the seer, blinded and tormented by the Harpies, who snatched the food from his table and fouled what they left. When the Harpies pounced on the laid table, Zetes and Calais drew their swords and, being winged, pursued them through the air. Apollodorus holds it was fated that the Harpies should perish by the sons of Boreas and that the sons of Boreas should die when they could not catch a fugitive. Apollonius, by contrast, breaks off the pursuit short of slaughter: Iris swore by Styx that the Harpies would trouble Phineus no more, and the Boreads turned back, so that the islands where they wheeled were called the Isles of Turning.5
On the brothers' death the accounts agree on Heracles and Tenos. Apollonius lays it to him: because they held back the crew from turning to seek the lost Heracles and Hylas, he slew them afterward in sea-girt Tenos, heaped earth over them, and set two columns above, one of which sways at the breath of the blustering north wind. Apollodorus reports the same end on the authority of Acusilaus, that Heracles killed them in Tenos, and Hyginus too says they fell by Heracles' weapons, the stones on their graves moved by their father's blasts.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
