The Pleiades: Daughters of Atlas (and Orion’s Pursuit)

Catalogue ID: 05-local-and-lesser/081-pleiades-atlas-daughters

Cycle: Local and lesser — astral aetiology / Atlasid nymphs

Version line: Hesiodic / Apollodorean / astral handbook (Eratosthenes / Hyginus)

Sources: Hesiod, *Works and Days* 383–384, 618–622; *Theogony* 215–216 (context of night-born astral nymphs); Apollodorus, *Library* 3.10.1; Eratosthenes, *Catasterismi* 14 (Pleiades); Hyginus, *Astronomica* 2.21; *Fabulae* 192; Aratus, *Phaenomena* 254–267

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/05-local-and-lesser/081-pleiades-atlas-daughters.md

Characters

Artemis — mistress whose band the sisters join in some versions
Celaeno — Pleiad
Chrysothemis — Pleiad; mother of Dardanus; sometimes the veiled star
Cleopatra — Pleiad
Hesperides — father; Titan who holds the sky
Lacedaemon — famous sons of Pleiads
Maia — Pleiad; mother of Hermes by Zeus
Merope — Pleiad; wife of Sisyphus; often the dimmest star
Orion — hunter who pursued them; set as constellation in pursuit
Philotes — lover of several; agent of catasterism
Pleione — Oceanid mother
Sisyphus — mortal husband of Merope
Sterope — Pleiad
Taygete — Pleiad; mother of Lacedaemon by Zeus

Places

Assembly — Electra’s grief in the veil variant
Mount Helicon — birth or haunt associated with Maia and the sisters
Underworld — catasterism and farmer’s calendar sign

Themes

Narrative

The Pleiades are seven daughters of Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione (or Aethra), born on Cyllene or in Arcadian / Boeotian notices: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope (Asterope), and Merope. They are companions of Artemis in some tellings. Orion the hunter pursued them (and their mother); they prayed for rescue, and Zeus (or the gods) set them among the stars as the cluster that rises and sets for the farmer’s calendar—Hesiod’s signal for harvest and ploughing. Astral myth explains why only six shine brightly: Merope, who alone married a mortal (Sisyphus), hides her face in shame; or Electra, mother of Dardanus, veiled herself when Troy fell. Maia becomes mother of Hermes by Zeus; Electra of Dardanus (and sometimes Iasion); Taygete of Lacedaemon by Zeus; others bear lines to Poseidon or other gods. The pursuit by Orion remains the dominant aetiology of their flight into heaven: eternally ahead of the hunter in the sky, they rise before him and set in the same order. Catalogue the Pleiades as Atlas and Pleione’s seven—Artemis’s companions, Orion’s quarry, Zeus’s star-cluster, and mothers of Hermes and early Peloponnesian / Trojan stems.