He had numerous lovers in mythology. This page describes some of his divine consorts. The quotes for this page are still being compiled.
POSEIDON LOVES: AMPHITRITELOCALE: Aegean Sea (Greek Aegean)I) THE WOOING OF AMPHITRITE "Constellation Delphin. Eratosthenes and others give the following reason for the dolphin’s being among the stars. Amphitrite, when Neptunus [Poseidon] desired to wed her and she preferred to keep her virginity, fled to Atlas. Neptunus sent many to seek her out, among them a certain Delphin, who, in his wandering s among the islands, came at last to the maiden, persuaded her to marry Neptunus, and himself took charge of the wedding. In return for this service, Neptunus put the form of a dolphin among the constellations." - Hyginus Astronomica 2.17"The Delphines (Dophins); Poseidon loves them exceedingly, inasmuch as when he was seeking Amphitrite the dark-eyed daughter of Nereus who fled from his embraces, Delphines (the Dolphins) marked her hiding in the halls of Okeanos and told Poseidon; and the god of the dark hair straightway carried off the maiden and overcame her against her will. Her he made his bride, queen of the sea, and for their tidings he commended his kindly attendants and bestowed on them exceeding honour for their portion." - Oppian, Halieutica 1.38 II) AMPHITRITE WIFE OF POSEIDON "And of Amphitrite and the loud-roaring Earth-Shaker [Poseidon] was born great, wide-ruling Triton, and he owns the depths of the sea, living with his dear mother and the lord his father in their golden house, an awful god." - Hesiod, Theogony 930"Great god of the sea [Poseidon], husband of Amphitrite, goddess of the gold spindle." - Pindar, Odes Olympian 6 ep5 "But sea-dwelling dolphins were swiftly carrying great Theseus to the house of his father [Poseidon], god of horses, and he reached the hall of the gods ... And he saw his father's dear wife, august ox-eyed Amphitite, in the lovely house; she put a purple cloak about him and set on his thick hair the faultless garland which once at her marriage guileful Aphrodite had given her, dark with roses [presumably as a wedding gift]." - Greek Lyric IV Bacchylides, Frag 17 "Poseidon married Amphitrite, and had as children Triton and Rhode." - Apollodorus, The Library 1.28 "His [Poseidon's] and Amphitrite’s daughter Benthesikyme (Deep-Waves)." - Apollodorus, The Library 3.201 "From Neptunus [Poseidon] and Amphitrite [was born]: Triton." - Hyginus, Preface "At once a great swarm of dolphins, tumbling forward over the sea, led him [Theseus son of Poseidon] through gently swelling waves to the Nereides. From them he brought back the ring of Minos and a crown ... the crown came from the wife of Neptunus [Amphitrite wife of Poseidon]." - Hyginus, Astronomica 2.5
POSEIDON LOVES: DEMETERLOCALE: Thelpousa, Arkadia (Southern Greece)"Demeter bore this horse [Areion] to Poseidon, after having sex with him in the likeness of an Erinys." - Apollodorus, The Library 3.77 "Her [the goddess Despoine] he [Poseidon] begat with Erinys Tilphosa [Demeter]." - Callimachus, Frag 207 (from Scholiast on Lycophron 1225) "When Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter, she was followed, it is said, by Poseidon, who lusted after her. So she turned, the story runs, into a mare, and grazed with the mares of Ogkios [in Arkadia]; realising that he was outwitted, Poseidon changed into a stallion and enjoyed Demeter. At first, they say, Demeter was angry at what had happened, but later on she laid aside her wrath and wished to bathe in the Ladon ... Demeter, they say, had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not wont to divulge to the uninitiated, and a horse called Areion ... In the Iliad there are verses about Areion himself: ‘Not even if he drive divine Areion behind, the swift horse of Adrastos, who was of the race of the gods.’ In the Thebaid it is said that Adrastos fled from Thebes: ‘Wearing wretched clothes, and with him dark-maned Areion.’ They will have it that the verses obscurely hint that Poseidon was father to Areion, but Antimakhos says that Gaia was his mother." - Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8.25.5 "From Akakesion [in Arkadia] it is four stades to the sanctuary of Despoine ... This Despoine the Arkadians worship more than any other god, declaring that she is a daughter of Poseidon and Demeter. Despoine is her surname among the many, just as they surname Demeter’s daughter by Zeus Kore ... Beyond the grove [of the sanctuary] are altars of Hippios (Horse) Poseidon, as being the father of Despoine." - Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8.37.1 ff "Mount Elaios [in Arkadia] ... has a cave sacred to Demeter surnamed Black. The Phigalians accept the account of the people of Thelpousa about the mating of Poseidon and Demeter, but they assert that Demeter gave birth, not to a horse but to Despoine, as the Arkadians call her. Afterwards, they say, angry with Poseidon and grieved at the rape of Persephone, she put on black apparel and shut herself up in this cavern for a long time. But when the fruits of the earth were perishing, and the human race dying yet more through famine, no god, it seemed, knew where Demeter was hiding, until Pan, they say, visited Arkadia. Roaming from mountain to mountain as he hunted, he came at last to Mount Elaios and spied Demeter, the state she was in and the clothes she wore. So Zeus learnt this from Pan, and sent the Moirai (Fates) to Demeter, who listened to the Moirai and laid aside her wrath, moderating her grief as well." - Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8.42.1 "Concerning the water of the Styx in Arkadia he [Hephaestion] recounts the following: while Demeter was mourning for her daughter, Poseidon intruded on her sorrow and she in anger metamorphosed into a mare; she arrived at a fountain in this form and detesting it she made the water black [NB fountains were sacred to Poseidon]." - Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History Bk3 (as summarized in Photius, Myriobiblon 190) "The corn’s most gracious mother [Demeter], golden-haired, suffered him [Poseidon] as a horse." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.118
POSEIDON LOVES: MEDOUSALOCALE: Erytheia, Red Sea (North Africa)I) THE SEDUCTION OF MEDOUSA "Poseidon, he of the dark hair, lay with one of these [the Gorgon Medousa], in a soft meadow and among spring flowers." - Hesiod, Theogony 270"She [Medousa], it's said, was violated in Minerva's [Athena’s] shrine by the Rector Pelagi (Lord of the Sea) [Poseidon]. Jove’s [Zeus'] daughter turned away and covered with her shield her virgin's eyes. And then for fitting punishment transformed the Gorgo's lovely hair to loathsome snakes." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.786 "As a bird, [Medousa] the snake-tressed mother of the flying steed [Pegasos] [was seduced by Poseidon]." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.119 II) BIRTH OF PEGASOS & KHRYSAOR "The Gorgones who, beyond the famous stream of Okeanos, live in the utmost place toward night, by the singing Hesperides: they are Sthenno, Euryale, and Medousa, whose fate is a sad one, for she was mortal, but the other two immortal and ageless both alike. Poseidon, he of the dark hair, lay with one of these, in a soft meadow and among spring flowers. But when Perseus had cut off the head of Medousa there sprang from her blood great Khrysaor and the horse Pegasos so named from the springs (pegai) of Okeanos, where she was born." - Hesiod, Theogony 270"Bellerophon mounted Pegasos, his winged horse born of Medousa and Poseidon." - Apollodorus, The Library 2.32 "Perseus, with Athene guiding his hand, kept his eyes on the reflection in a bronze shield as he stood over the sleeping Gorgones, and when he saw the image of Medousa, he beheaded her. As soon as her head was severed there leaped from her body the winged horse Pegasos and Khrysaor the father of Geryon. The father of these two was Poseidon." - Apollodorus, The Library 2.42 "Pegasos, a winged horse which sprang from the neck of the Gorgon Medousa when her head was cut off." - Strabo, Geography 8.6.21 "The harvester [Perseus] who delivered of her [Medousa’s] pains in birth of horse [Pegasos] and man [Khrysaor] the stony-eyed weasel whose children sprang from her neck." - Lycophron, Alexandra 840 "From Medusa, daughter of Gorgon, and Neptunus [Poseidon], were born Chrysaor and horse Pegasus." - Hyginus, Fabulae 151 "While deep sleep held fast Medusa and her snakes, he [Perseus] severed her head clean from her neck; and from their mother's blood swift-flying Pegasos and his brother [Khrysaor] sprang ... She [Medousa], it's said, was violated in Minerva's [Athena’s] shrine by the Rector Pelagi (Lord of the Sea) [Poseidon]." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.786 "[Perseus] shore off the snaky swathe of one Medousa, while her womb was still burdened and swollen with young, still in foal of Pegasos; what good if the sickle played the part of childbirth Eileithyia, and reaped the neck of the pregnant Gorgon, firstfruits of a horsebreeding neck?" - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 24.270 "Perseus was ferrying across to the thirsty stretches of Libya ... he dived into the dangerous cave [of the Gorones], reaped the hissing harvest [of Medousa's head] by the rockside, the firstfruits of curling hair, sliced the Gorgon’s teeming throat and stained his sickle red. He cut off the head and bathed a bloodstained in the viperish dew; then as Medousa was slain, the neck was delivered of its twin birth, the Horse [Pegasos] and the Boy [Khrysaor] with the golden sword." - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 31.13
POSEIDON LOVES: APHRODITELOCALE: Aegean Sea (Greek Aegean)Aphrodite's gratitude to Poseidon and their subsequent affair is described by one of the ancient scholia in his discussion about the passage from Homer's Odyssey in which the god secures the release of Aphrodite and Ares from the chains of Hephaistos after they were caught in the act adultery. "[Ares and Aphrodite] went to the bed and there lay down, but the cunning chains of crafty Hephaistos [Aphrodite's husband] enveloped them, and they could neither raise their limbs nor shift them at all; so they saw the truth when there was no escaping. Meanwhile the lame craftsman god approached [and called the gods to see the entrapped lovers] ... and the gods came thronging there in front of the house with its brazen floor ... For Poseidon there was no laughing; he kept imploring the master smith Hephaistos in hopes that he would let Ares go. He spoke in words of urgent utterance: ‘Let him go; I promise that he shall pay in full such rightful penalty as you ask for - pay in the presence of all the gods." - Homer, Odyssey 8.267 "Praise the sea maid [Rhode], daughter of Aphrodite, bride of Helios, [demi-goddess of] this isle of Rhodes." - Pindar, Odes Olympian 7 ep1
POSEIDON LOVES: NERITESLOCALE: Aegean Sea (Greek Aegean)"There is in the sea a shellfish with a spiral shell, small in size but of surpassing beauty, and it is born where the water is at its purest and upon rocks beneath the sea and on what are called sunken reefs. Its name is Nerites: two stories are in circulation touching this creature, and both have reached me; moreover the telling of a short tale in the middle of a lengthy history is simply giving the hearer a rest and sweetening the narrative ... O ne son was born [to Nereus] after all that number of daughters [the Nereides], though he is celebrated in mariners’ tales ... [One] account proclaims that Poseidon was the lover of Nerites, and that Nerites returned his love, and that this was the origin of the celebrated Anteros (Mutual Love). And so, as I am told, of the rest the favourite spent his time with his lover, and moreover when Poseidon drove his chariot over the waves, all together great fishes as well as dolphins and Tritones too, sprang up from their deep haunts and gambolled and danced around the chariot, only to be left utterly and far behind by the speed of his horses; only the boy favourite was his escort close at hand, and before them the waves sank to rest and the sea parted out of reverence to Poseidon, for the god willed that his beautiful favourite should not only be highly esteemed for other reasons but should also be pre-eminent at swimming. But the story relates that Helios the Sun resented the boy’s power of speed and transformed his body into the spiral shell as it now is: the cause of his anger I cannot tell, neither does the fable mention it. But if one may guess where there is nothing to go by, Poseidon and Helios might be said to be rivals.” - Aelian, On Animals 14.28 |
Poseidon Loves 1
