Encyclopedia > Nephele

  Article Content

Nephele

In Greek mythology, Nephele was a nymph who figured prominently in the story of Phrixus and Helle. She married Athamus but he divorced her for Ino.

Phrixus, son of Athamus and Nephele, along with his twin Helle, were hated by their stepmother, Ino. Ino hatched a devious plot to get rid of the twins, roasting all the towns crop seeds so they would not grow. The local farmers, frightened of famine, asked a nearby oracle for assistance. Ino bribed the the men sent to the oracle to lie and tell the others that the oracle required the sacrifice of Phrixus. Before he was killed though, Phrixus and Helle were rescued by a flying golden ram sent by Nephele, their natural mother. Helle fell off the ram into the Hellespont (whch was named after her) and died, but Phrixus survived all the way to Colchis, where King Aeetes took him in and treated him kindly, giving Phrixus his daughter, Chalciope, in marriage. In gratitude, Phrixus gave the king the golden fleece of the ram, which Aeetes hung in a tree in his kingdom.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Lake Ronkonkoma, New York

... or older. The median age is 37 years. For every 100 females there are 93.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 90.3 males. The median income for a ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 25.3 ms