Arethusa (Boeotia)

Mythology

Arethusa's story survives mainly through a fragment of the Michigan papyrus, which attributes the tale to Hesiod, though it is considered part of the pseudo-Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. The damaged text identifies Arethusa as the daughter of Hyperes, though it does not specify whether this is Hyperes of Troezen or Hyperes of Boeotia. It records that she slept by the shore of the Euripus Strait with a man whose name begins with 'P' and contains the diphthong 'ei'; scholars generally restore this as Poseidon. This interpretation is supported by Hyginus and Stephanus of Byzantium, who state that Poseidon and Arethusa became parents of the hero Abas, and by Hesychius of Alexandria, who notes that one of Poseidon's epithets was Euripios. After her tryst with Poseidon, the goddess Hera transformed Arethusa at a place beginning with chi, identified as Chalcis. The fragment's poor condition leaves ambiguous what Hera changed her into and why, but the presence of a large spring called Arethusa in Chalcis leads to the deduction that she became that spring. Hera's motivation is uncertain: she may have punished Arethusa for a hubristic remark or comparison, or she may have acted out of mercy to save her from some threat, similar to Athena's transformation of Corone. Arethusa's son Abas named his daughter Arethusa after his mother.