Callisto- Greek FigureMortal · Nymph"Companion of Artemis"

The Vow and the Deception

Callisto was an Arcadian nymph, daughter of King Lycaon. She was a companion of Artemis and had sworn the goddess's vow of virginity. Zeus desired Callisto but knew she would refuse any man's approach. He disguised himself as Artemis and came to her in the form of her own mistress. When Callisto welcomed him, Zeus revealed himself and forced himself upon her. The encounter left Callisto pregnant, a secret she desperately tried to conceal. It was the bath that betrayed her — when the hunting band stripped to swim in a stream, her companions saw she was with child. Artemis, enraged at the broken vow, banished her.

The Bear

Ovid says Hera transformed Callisto out of jealousy after she gave birth to her son Arcas. Apollodorus gives the act to Artemis. In either version, Callisto was condemned to wander the Arcadian wilderness in bear form, still carrying her human mind inside an animal body. She lived in terror of the hunters she had once been, and fled from the wolves and bears that were now her kin.

Mother and Son

Callisto's son Arcas was raised apart from her and grew to become a hunter. When he was a young man, he encountered a bear in the forest that came toward him without fear — his own mother, whom he did not recognize. As Arcas raised his spear, Zeus snatched both mother and son from the earth and placed them among the stars: Callisto became Ursa Major, and Arcas became Ursa Minor or the star Arcturus in Boötes.

Hera was furious that her rival had been honored in the heavens. She went to Oceanus and Tethys and asked them to bar the Bear from ever bathing in their waters. They agreed, and so Ursa Major circles the pole without rest, never touching the waters below.