Doris in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Doris

5 passages from 5 ancient authors that tell of Doris, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Doris was an Oceanid, a sea nymph, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. She was married to Nereus, with whom she had a son, Nerites, and fifty daughters, k... For the story in one place, read our article on Doris.

Hesiod (1)

Hesiod, Theogony 210–264Night's children, Strife's children and the Nereids (210-264)Night bears Doom, Fate and Death, Sleep and the tribe of Dreams, and then Blame, Woe, the Hesperides, the Fates and Nemesis; Strife in turn bears Toil, Forgetfulness, Famine and other sorrows. Pontus begets Nereus, the truthful Old Man of the Sea, and then Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto and Eurybia; Nereus and Doris have fifty daughters, whom the section names.

Apollodorus (1)

Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome 1.2.1–7Zeus and the Titanomachy; the children of the TitansZeus takes Metis as his ally, and she gives Cronus a drug that makes him disgorge the stone and his swallowed children. In the ten-year war the gods win once Zeus frees the prisoners in Tartarus and the Cyclopes give him thunder and lightning, Pluto a helmet and Poseidon a trident; the Titans are shut in Tartarus and the three brothers draw lots for sky, sea and the underworld. The rest of the section lists the offspring of the Titans, of Styx, and of Sea and Earth, ending with the Nereids.

Euripides (1)

Euripides, Hecuba 444–517First choral song; Talthybius finds Hecuba lying on the groundThe Chorus sings of where it will be taken as a slave, to Doris or to Phthia, to Delos or to Athens, and mourns for its children and its country. Talthybius, the Greek herald, comes and finds Hecuba lying on the ground, and tells her that he has come to fetch her to bury her daughter's corpse. Hecuba asks him to tell her how Polyxena died.

Diodorus Siculus (1)

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Books 4 to 6 (the Greek myths) 4.36.1–4.39.4The death of HeraclesHeracles takes the field with the Calydonians against the Thesprotians and, after he kills a serving boy by accident, goes into exile with Deïaneira. At the river Euenus the centaur Nessus attacks her; dying, he gives her a charm, and years later she uses it on a robe to win Heracles back from Iole. The robe consumes Heracles, who has himself burned on a pyre on Mount Oeta; the section closes with the honours paid to him as hero and god.

Lycophron (1)

Lycophron, Alexandra 839–978Alexandra 839–978: Landfalls in Italy and Libya, the builder of the horse, and the exiles in SicilyThe husband seeking his bride passes the scene of an old slaying of a whale, sleeps among foul-smelling beasts and reaches Siris and Lacinium, where the women are to mourn a nine-cubit hero, third in descent from Aeacus and Doris. Other Greeks are wrecked on the Libyan coast at Taucheira, where a blade of the Argo marks a tomb and Triton is given a golden bowl, while a leader and his men from many named towns bewail their lack of funeral rites. One hero, killed by the Pellenians, is buried near Crathis and honoured as a god at Macalla, and the builder of the horse settles at Lagaria, paying for his father's false oath. In Sicily the daughters of Phoenodamas found a shrine, one of them bears a son to the river Crimisus, and he guides the bastard scion of Anchises to the island's farthest bounds.