Classical Mythology

(^618) THE GREEK SAGAS: GREEK LOCAL LEGENDS
and Ianthe (for Ianthe was ignorant as yet of the real sex of her lover). The god-
dess heard her prayer: Iphis became a boy and next day married his Ianthe.
ASIA MINOR
DARDANUS
Electra, daughter of Atlas, had two sons by Zeus, Iasion and Dardanus. On the
death of Iasion in Samothrace, Dardanus sailed to the Troad, where Teucer, son
of the river-god Scamander, was king. There Dardanus married the king's
daughter and built a city called by his name. On the death of Teucer, the land
was called Dardania and its inhabitants (as in Homer) Dardani. From Dardanus
was descended the Trojan royal house.
HERO AND LEANDER
Leander, a young man from the city of Abydos on the Asiatic shore of the Helles-
pont, loved Hero, priestess of Aphrodite in Sestos on the European shore. He
swam the Hellespont each night to visit her, guided by a light that she placed
in a tower on the shore. One stormy night the lamp was extinguished, and Le-
ander, bereft of its guidance, drowned. Next day his body was washed up on
the shore near the tower, and Hero in grief threw herself from the tower to join
her lover in death.
BAUCIS AND PHILEMON
This chapter ends with three stories related by Ovid that are almost certainly
not Greek in origin, although the names of the principal characters are Greek.
From Phrygia comes the legend of Baucis and Philemon, a poor and pious old
couple who unwittingly entertained Zeus and Hermes in their cottage. The gods,
who had not been received kindly by anyone else on their visit to the earth,
saved Baucis and Philemon from the flood with which they punished the rest
of Phrygia, and their cottage became the gods' temple (see Color Plate 21). Be-
ing granted one wish each, they prayed that they might together be priest and
priestess of the shrine and die together. And so it happened; full of years, they
simultaneously turned into trees, an oak and a linden.
BYBLIS AND CAUNUS
Byblis, daughter of Miletus, fell in love with her brother, Caunus. Unable either
to forget her love or to declare it, she wrote a letter to Caunus confessing it. In
horror he left Miletus (the city named after his father), and Byblis followed him.
Still unable to achieve her desire, she sank down to the ground in exhaustion
and became a fountain that was called by her name.