Cyrene- Greek SpiritSpirit · Nymph"Queen of Libya"

The Fearless Huntress

Cyrene was a Thessalian nymph of the Lapiths, daughter of King Hypseus and the naiad Chlidanope. She had no interest in the loom or the company of women at the hearth. Instead she guarded her father's flocks from wild beasts with bronze javelin and sword, roaming the mountains of Thessaly alone and afraid of nothing. Pindar says she fought the animals one after another, giving her herds no rest from her protection nor herself rest from the hunt.

On Mount Pelion, Apollo watched her wrestle a lion barehanded. Struck with admiration and desire, the god sought counsel from the centaur Chiron, asking who she was and whether it would be proper to pursue her. Chiron, amused by Apollo's feigned ignorance — for what could the far-seeing god not know? — prophesied the union. He foretold that Apollo would carry Cyrene across the sea to Libya, where she would become queen and bear him a son.

Journey to Libya

Apollo carried Cyrene in his golden chariot across the Mediterranean to the coast of Libya. Aphrodite greeted the god and his bride at the shore, laying gentle hands on the bridal bed and blessing their union. Apollo established Cyrene as queen and guardian of the land, and the city of Cyrene was named for her.

Mother of Aristaeus

From this union Cyrene bore Apollo a son, Aristaeus. Gaia and the Horae received the infant on their laps and nurtured him with nectar and ambrosia, making him immortal. He grew to become the god of beekeeping and pastoral craft, educated by Chiron and the Muses. In Virgil's Georgics, when Aristaeus lost his bees — punishment, Proteus revealed, for his part in the death of Eurydice — it was to his mother Cyrene he turned. She received him in her underwater palace beneath the river Peneus and directed him to Proteus, and from the old sea-god he learned both the cause of his loss and the cure.