Cassiphone (Ancient Greek: Κασσιφόνη, romanized: Kassiphónē, lit. 'fratricide'^[1]) is a minor figure in Greek mythology, the daughter of the sorceress-goddess Circe and the Trojan War hero Odysseus. She is mentioned in passing in the works of Lycophron and the Byzantine scholar John Tzetzes.^[2]

Etymology

Cassiphone's name is a compound word that translates to "brother killer", from the words κάσις (kásis) meaning both "brother" and "sister",^[3] and φόνος (phónos) meaning "murder, manslaughter".^[4]

Mythology

Cassiphone is alluded to in obscure lines in Hellenistic poet Lycophron's Alexandra, with an explanation provided in the commentary of Byzantine scholar John Tzetzes, who is the only one to mention her name; she is most likely a late classical or Hellenistic invention, whose only purpose is to expand on the myth of Telegonus.^[1] Lycophron writes:^[5]

When he^{[lower-alpha 1]} is dead, Perge, hill of the Tyrrhenians, shall receive his ashes in the land of Gortyn; when, as he breathes out his life, he shall bewail the fate of his son^{[lower-alpha 2]} and his wife,^{[lower-alpha 3]} whom her husband shall slay and himself next pass to Hades, his throat cut by the hands of his sister,^{[lower-alpha 4]} the own cousin of Glaucon and Apsyrtus.^{[lower-alpha 5]}

— Lycophron, Alexandra 805–811

According to Tzetzes, Cassiphone is the daughter Odysseus had by Circe with whom he spent one year together during his travels to get back home to Ithaca following the end of the Trojan War. The story of the Telegony goes that when her full-brother Telegonus left in search of his father he accidentally ended up killing him, having not recognised him. Telegonus then married Odysseus's widow Penelope, while Circe married Telemachus, Odysseus's son by Penelope.^[7] According to Lycophron and Tzetzes, Circe then brought Odysseus back to life who proceeded to wed Cassiphone to Telemachus, her half-brother.^[8][9] Telemachus then killed Circe after a quarrell with her,^{[lower-alpha 6]} prompting Cassiphone to kill Telemachus as she avenged her mother.^[1][10]

See also

• Cain
• Osiris myth
• Perses of Colchis

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

• Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
• Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica translated by Edward P. Coleridge, B.A. London, George Bell and Sons publishers. 1889. Text available at Internet Archive.
• Bell, Robert E. (1991). Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 0-87436-581-3.
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, The Myths of Hyginus. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
• Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Online version at Perseus.tufts project.
• Lycophron, Alexandra, in Callimachus, Lycophron, Aratus. Hymns and Epigrams. Lycophron: Alexandra. Aratus: Phaenomena. Translated by A. W. Mair, G. R. Mair. Loeb Classical Library 129. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921.
• Marcus Tullius Cicero, Nature of the Gods from the Treatises of M.T. Cicero translated by Charles Duke Yonge (1812-1891), Bohn edition of 1878. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
• Patsi-Garin, Emmy (1969). Επίτομο λεξικό Ελληνικής Μυθολογίας [Epitomic Dictionary of Greek Mythology] (in Greek). Athens: Χάρη Πάτση publications.
• Roscher, Wilhelm Heinrich (1894). Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie [Detailed dictionary of Greek and Roman mythology] (in German). Vol. 2. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
• Smith, William (1873). A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London, UK: John Murray, printed by Spottiswoode and Co. Online text available at perseus.tufts.