Polydora, daughter of Peleus, lay with the heaven-fed river Spercheus and bore him Menesthius, though in name she bore the boy to Borus son of Perieres, who openly wedded her with countless bride-gifts.1
Homer fixes Polydora in the muster of the Myrmidons. The first of Achilles' companies is led by Menesthius of the flashing corselet, son of Spercheus the heaven-fed river: fair Polydora, daughter of Peleus, bore him to the tireless stream, a woman couched with a god, but in name she bore him to Borus, son of Perieres, who openly wedded her when he had given gifts of wooing past counting. Her child belongs at once to a river-god and, before men, to a mortal husband.2
Apollodorus first knows her as a daughter born in the house of Peleus. When Peleus fled to Phthia and was purified by Eurytion son of Actor, he received from him the daughter Antigone and a third of the land; and a daughter Polydora was born to him, who was wedded by Borus, son of Perieres. Here the genealogist agrees with Homer that she is Peleus' daughter and Borus' bride.3
Yet Apollodorus elsewhere reverses the marriage. There Peleus married Polydora, daughter of Perieres, by whom he had a putative son Menesthius, though in fact Menesthius was the son of the river Spercheus. By this reckoning she is no child of Peleus but his wife, and a daughter of Perieres himself — so that the same woman is cast now as Peleus' daughter wedded to Borus, now as Perieres' daughter wedded to Peleus, while in both her son by the river stays constant.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