Epitome

When Telegonus learned from Circe that he was a son of Ulysses, he sailed in search of him. And having come to the island of Ithaca, he drove away some of the cattle, and when Ulysses defended them, Telegonus wounded him with the spear he had in his hands, which was barbed with the spine of a sting-ray, and Ulysses died of the wound.[*](Compare Oppian, Halieut. ii.497-500; Scholia Graeca in Homeri Odysseam, ed. G. Dindorf, vol. i. p. 6; Hom. Od. 11.134; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.133, p. 1676; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. vi.32; Philostratus, Her. iii.42; Parthenius, Narrat. 3; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 794; Scholiast on Aristoph. Plutus 303; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii.21.48ff.; Hor. Carm. 3.29.8; Hyginus, Fab. 127; Ovid, Ibis 567ff.; Dictys Cretensis vi.14ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 2.44. The fish (τρυγών), whose spine is said to have barbed the fatal spear, is the common stingray (Trygon pastinaca), as I learn from Professor D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, who informs me that the fish is abundant in the Mediterranean and not uncommon on our southern coasts. For ancient descriptions of the fish he refers me to Oppian, Halieut. ii.470ff. (the locus classicus); Ael., Nat. Anim. i.56; Nicander, Ther. 828ff. According to Aelian, the wound inflicted by the stingray is incurable. Hercules is said to have lost one of his fingers by the bite of a stingray (Ptolemy Hephaest., Nov. Hist. ii. in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, p. 184). Classical scholars, following Liddell and Scott, sometimes erroneously identify the fish with the roach. The death of Ulysses through the wound of a stingray is foreshadowed in the prophecy of Tiresias that his death would come from the sea (Hom. Od. 11.134ff.). According to a Scholiast on Hom. (Scholia Graeca in Homeri Odysseam, ed. G. Dindorf, vol. i. p. 6), Hyginus, and Dictys Cretensis, Ulysses had been warned by an oracle or a dream to beware of his son, who would kill him; accordingly, fearing to be slain by Telemachus, he banished him to Cephallenia (Dictys Cretensis vi.14). But he forgot his son Telegonus, whom he had left behind with his mother Circe in her enchanted island. The death of Ulysses at the hands of his son Telegonus was the subject of a tragedy by Sophocles. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 105ff. )

But when

But some say that Penelope was seduced by Antinous and sent away by Ulysses to her father Icarius, and that when she came to Mantinea in Arcadia she bore Pan to Hermes.[*](A high mound of earth was shown as the grave of Penelope at Mantinea in Arcadia. According to the Mantinean story, Ulysses had found her unfaithful and banished her the house; so she went first to her native Sparta, and afterwards to Mantinea, where she died and was buried. See Paus. 8.12.5ff. The tradition that Penelope was the mother of Pan by Hermes (Mercury) is mentioned by Cicero, De natura deorum iii.22.56. According to Duris, the Samian, Penelope was the mother of Pan by all the suitors (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 772). The same story is mentioned also by Serv. Verg. A. 2.44, who says that Penelope was supposed to have given birth to Pan during her husband's absence, and that when Ulysses came home and found the monstrous infant in the house, he fled and set out afresh on his wanderings.)

However others say that she met her end at the hands of Ulysses himself on account of Amphinomus,[*](Amphinomus was one of the suitors of Penelope; his words pleased her more than those of the other suitors, because he had a good understanding. See Hom. Od. 16.394-398. He was afterwards killed by Telemachus (Hom. Od. 12. 89ff.). The suspicion that Penelope was unfaithful to her husband has no support in Homer.) for they allege that she was seduced by him.