One of the four Hesperides named by Apollodorus at Ladon's watch — Aegle, Erythia, Hesperia, and Arethusa — whose name is the singular of the collective western nymphs; Apollonius calls the same sister Hespere when she becomes a poplar after the dragon's death.1
In Apollodorus' account of the eleventh labour, the golden apples of the Hesperides are guarded by Ladon and by four named nymphs, among them Hesperia — the 'western one' whose plural name already denotes the whole sisterhood in Hesiod and in the collective node `hesperides`.2
Apollonius shows the garden after Heracles has killed the serpent: Hespere became a poplar, Erytheis an elm, and Aegle a willow, their forms still visible in the trunks. The shorter three-name roll does not contradict the four-name roll so much as abbreviate it — Arethusa is absent from this episode, but Apollodorus' full quartet stands for the apple-guardians in the atlas.3
Ovid uses Hesperia for the western lands and for unrelated nymphs — the Hesperian Naiads who buried Phaethon, or the daughter of Cebrenus whom Aesacus loved — none of whom are merged with this evening sister of the golden apples.4
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story