A Boeotian stranger, son of Megareus of Onchestus, who outran the swift virgin Atalanta with three golden apples given him by Venus and so won her as his wife.1
Hippomenes came as a stranger to the cruel race, having first condemned the headlong young men who staked their lives on winning the swift huntress, and asked why any man would seek a wife at such a risk. But when he saw Atalanta's face and her body stripped for the running, he was struck dumb, and prayed instead to be her suitor. He declared his lineage to her: his father was Megareus of Onchestus, and Neptune his ancestor, so that he was no unworthy match.2
He prayed to Venus, who came to his aid, plucking three golden apples from her own sacred tree near Tamasus in Cyprus. She gave them to him unseen and taught him their use. In the race he dropped them one by one before Atalanta's feet; each time she turned aside to gather the gleaming fruit, and so lost the ground that let Hippomenes reach the goal first and claim her.3
Hyginus tells it more plainly: Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus, had killed many suitors and fixed their heads in the stadium, until she was at last defeated by Hippomenes, son of Megareus and Merope. He had received from Venus three apples of exceptional beauty and instruction in their use, and by casting them down he slowed the girl as she stooped to gather them, and so overcame her.4
Won by his trick, Hippomenes forgot to give Venus her due thanks, and the slighted goddess turned benefactor into avenger: she drove the pair, inflamed, to couple within a wooded sanctuary — the temple that famed Echion had once raised to the Mother of the gods. For defiling the shrine the Great Mother changed them, tawny manes veiling their smooth necks and their fingers curving into claws, into a lion and lioness, yoked thereafter to draw her chariot.5
Hyginus sets the offense and its punishment differently: having forgotten his thanks, Hippomenes lay with Atalanta in the shrine of Jove Victor on Mount Parnassus while sacrificing, and Jupiter for that profanation turned them into a lion and lioness — beasts to whom the gods deny the union of love.6
In Apollodorus the same transformation into lions falls instead upon Melanion, who in his main account is Atalanta's husband: out hunting, the pair entered a precinct of Zeus, took their fill of love, and were changed into lions. He keeps Melanion, not Hippomenes, as the victorious suitor, recording Hippomenes only as the Euripidean variant name.7
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
