Meleager was a Calydonian prince as the son of
Althaea and the
vintner King
Oeneus or according to some, of the god
Ares. He was the brother of
Deianeira,
Toxeus,
Clymenus,
Periphas,
Agelaus (or
Ageleus),
Thyreus (or
Phereus or
Pheres),
Gorge,
Eurymede and
Melanippe. Meleager was the father of
Parthenopeus by
Atalanta but he married
Cleopatra, daughter of
Idas and
Marpessa. They had a daughter,
Polydora, who became the bride of
Protesilaus, who left her bed on their wedding-night to join the expedition to
Troy.
Calydonian boar hunt . When Meleager was born, the
Moirai (the Fates) predicted he would only live until a piece of wood, then burning in the family hearth, was consumed by fire. Overhearing them, Althaea immediately doused and hid it. Oeneus sent Meleager to gather up heroes from all over Greece to
hunt the Calydonian boar that had been terrorizing the area and rooting up the vines, as Oeneus had omitted
Artemis at a festival in which he honored the other gods. In addition to the heroes he required, he chose
Atalanta, a fierce huntress, whom he loved. According to one account of the hunt, when
Hylaeus and
Rhoecus, two
centaurs, tried to rape Atalanta, Meleager killed them. Then Atalanta wounded the boar and Meleager killed it. He awarded her the hide since she had drawn the first drop of blood. Meleager's uncles
Toxeus, the "archer", and
Plexippus grew enraged that the prize was given to a woman. Meleager killed them in the following argument. He also killed
Iphicles and
Eurypylus for insulting Atalanta. When Althaea found out that Meleager had killed her brothers, she placed the piece of wood that she was given by the Fates (the one that the Fates foretold that, once engulfed with fire, would kill Meleager) upon the fire, thus fulfilling the prophecy and killing Meleager, her own son.
Meleager's sisters who mourned his death excessively were turned into
guineafowl (
meleagrides).
Afterlife In the
underworld, he was the only shade that did not flee
Heracles, who had come after
Cerberus. In
Bacchylides' Ode V, Meleager is depicted as still in his shining armor, so formidable, in Bacchylides' account, that Heracles reached for his bow to defend himself. Heracles was moved to tears by Meleager's account; Meleager had left his sister
Deianira unwedded in his father's house, and entreated Heracles to take her as his bride; here
Bacchylides breaks off his account of the meeting, without noting that in this way Heracles in the underworld chooses a disastrous wife. According to
Pliny the Elder's
Natural History, Book 37, Chapter 11,
Sophocles believed that
amber is produced in the countries beyond India, from the tears that are shed for Meleager, by the birds called "meleagrides". ==Influences==