General Notes

[FAMILY.FTW]

MEROPE was one of the Pleiades. In the constellation of the Pleiades she is the seventh and least visible star because she was ashamed of having had intercourse with a mortal man. This mortal was Sisyphus, and Merope should have been ashamed not so much that he was mortal but because of the type of mortal he was. He was the son of Aeolus and Enarete, and brother of Cretheus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, and Macareus. He eventually reigned in Corinth, since Medea gave him the sovereignty when she left. He promoted commerce and helped make the city important. He was of bad character however, as Merope was soon to discover. She bore him Glaucus, Ornytion, Thersander, and Halmus. Sisyphus meanwhile had twin sons by his niece Tyro, but she killed them at their birth. Of Merope's sons we know Glaucus best, not only as the father of Bellerophon but also as the breeder of flesh-eating mares. When Sisyphus was on his deathbed, he begged Merope not to bury him. She complied, and when he got to the underworld he complained that he was neglected and needed to return to the upper world to punish his wife. Once there he refused to return, and Hermes, transporter of the dead, had to carry him back by force. [Apollodorus 1.9.3,3.10.1; Ovid, Fasti 4.175; Homer, Iliad 6.153; Eustathius on Homer's Iliad 1155; Pausanias 2.4.3, 6.20.9, 9.34.5; Hyginus, Fables 60.]