Chelone (mythology)
Nymph transformed into a tortoise for missing Zeus' wedding.
Chelone is an insolent nymph in Greek mythology who lived by a running river. She is notable for her transformation into a tortoise, an animal that lives in the shell it constantly carries, after refusing to leave her house to attend Zeus' wedding. The myth is known through the works of several authors, including Aesop.
Quick Facts
- Type
- Nymph
- Transformation
- Tortoise
- Associated deities
- Zeus
- Hera
- Hermes
Facts from the source article.
Did You Know?
- The noun χελώνη is the ancient Greek word for both the land tortoise and the sea turtle.
- The word is traditionally considered to derive from an Indo-European root gʰel(H)-ewH- denoting turtles and tortoises.
- It has been suggested that χελώνη must be a loanword from a non-Indo-European language, a theory that Beekes supports.
Mythology
The river nymph Chelone snubbed the wedding of Zeus and Hera, refusing to leave her home when Hermes invited everyone. Offended by her disrespect, Hermes came down from Mount Olympus and hurled Chelone and her riverside house into the water. He turned her into a lazy tortoise, forever forced to carry her home on her back. The same story appears in the Vatican Mythographers. Aesop’s fable tells a similar tale: the tortoise skipped Zeus’s wedding, claiming she loved her own house, so Zeus punished her by making her haul it everywhere. Pausanias notes that the mountain near Mount Cyllene, where Hermes made a lyre from a tortoise shell, was called Chelydorea, meaning “flayed tortoise.”
More in Metamorphoses Into Animals in Greek Mythology
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced