Amphitrite- Greek GodDeity"Queen of the Sea"

The Reluctant Queen

Amphitrite was one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the old sea god Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. When Poseidon saw her dancing with her sisters on the island of Naxos, he desired her at once. But Amphitrite fled his advances, hiding in the ocean's depths near Atlas at the world's western edge. Poseidon sent every creature of the deep to search for her. It was a dolphin who found her, hidden among the grottoes at the rim of the world, and spoke so persuasively of the god's devotion that she at last relented and returned to become his bride. In gratitude, Poseidon set the dolphin among the stars as the constellation Delphinus.

As queen of the seas, Amphitrite ruled beside Poseidon from their golden palace beneath the Aegean. She rode through the deep on a chariot drawn by hippocamps, dolphins flanking her, trident in hand. She bore him Triton, the merman herald whose great conch shell calms or raises the waves at his parents' command, and daughters Rhode and Benthesicyme. Throughout the Odyssey, ships sail "across Amphitrite" — her name and the sea itself made one.

The Transformation of Scylla

Amphitrite's composure broke once. When the beautiful nymph Scylla attracted Poseidon's attention, Amphitrite poisoned the pool where her rival bathed with terrible herbs. Scylla waded in and was transformed into the six-headed monster that would haunt the narrow strait between Sicily and Italy, perched on her cliff face opposite the whirlpool Charybdis, each head lunging to snatch sailors from passing ships. When Odysseus sailed between the twin terrors, Scylla took six of his crew from the deck, snatching them from the benches while they screamed his name. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the sorceress Circe poisons the pool herself, jealous of the sea god Glaucus's love for Scylla.