Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Leto, daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, bore glorious children to Zeus: Apollo the far-shooter and Artemis who delights in arrows. The Homeric Hymn places Artemis’s birth at Ortygia and Apollo’s at rocky Delos, where Leto rested against the mass of Mount Cynthus near a palm tree by the streams of Inopus. Before Delos received her, Leto wandered in labor. Many lands and islands refused her, fearing the power of the son she would bear. Delos alone agreed—but only after extracting a solemn promise: that Apollo would honor the barren island above all others and establish his temple and cult there. Leto swore by the gods that Delos would be Apollo’s most beloved seat. Even then birth was delayed. Hera, jealous of Leto’s pregnancy by Zeus, kept Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, away on Olympus. The other goddesses—among them Rhea, Themis, Dione, Amphitrite, and Ichnaean Themis—gathered on Delos and sent Iris to fetch Eileithyia secretly, promising a great necklace. When Eileithyia set foot on Delos, labor seized Leto at once. She cast her arms about the palm, knelt on the soft meadow, and the earth laughed beneath her. Apollo leaped forth to the light. The goddesses washed him, wrapped him in a white garment, and Themis fed him nectar and ambrosia. The newborn immediately burst his swaddling bands, claimed the lyre, the bow, and prophecy as his portion, and declared that he would announce the unerring will of Zeus to mortals. Apollodorus’s related strand has Hera hunting Leto over the whole earth until she reaches Delos; there Leto first bears Artemis, who then acts as midwife for Apollo. The Hymn’s Delian narrative remains the fullest classical telling of the wanderings, the bargain with Delos, Hera’s obstruction of Eileithyia, and Apollo’s instantaneous claim of divine offices. Ortygia in the Hymn is treated as a sister birthplace for Artemis, not as a wholly separate Ephesian cult legend.