Daughter of Evenus, wooed by Apollo but carried off by Idas son of Aphareus in a winged chariot he had received from Poseidon.1
Apollodorus traces her line to Ares: Demonice bore Evenus to Ares, and Evenus begat Marpessa. She was wooed by Apollo, but Idas, son of Aphareus, carried her off in a winged chariot he had received from Poseidon. Pursuing in his own chariot, her father Evenus came to the river Lycormas; when he could not overtake them he slaughtered his horses and threw himself into the stream, which thereafter was called the Evenus after him.2
Idas came to Messene, where Apollo fell in with him and would have robbed him of the maiden. As the two fought for her hand, Zeus parted them and granted Marpessa herself the choice of which she would wed. Because she feared that Apollo might desert her once her youth was gone, she chose Idas for her husband.3
Homer names her "fair-ankled Marpessa, child of Evenus," wife of Idas, mightiest of men then upon the earth, who even took up his bow against Phoebus Apollo for her sake. Her father and honoured mother had called her Alcyone in their halls, because her mother, in a grief like the halcyon-bird's, wept when Apollo who works afar had snatched her child away. By Idas she bore Cleopatra, who married Meleager.4
Pausanias confirms the marriage and offspring, Idas had by Marpessa a daughter Cleopatra who married Meleager, and reports the scene worked upon the chest of Cypselus at Olympia, where the hexameter inscription tells how Idas brings back, not against her will, fair-ankled Marpessa daughter of Evenus, whom Apollo had carried off.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
