Merope- Greek GodDeity · Nymph"Queen of Corinth"

The Mortal Marriage

Merope was one of the seven Pleiades, daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione. Her sisters each took gods as lovers — Zeus and Poseidon among them — but Merope alone married a mortal: Sisyphus, the cunning king of Corinth. As his queen she was his accomplice. She bore him sons, among them Glaucus, grandfather of Bellerophon.

When Thanatos finally claimed Sisyphus and bore him to the underworld, the king had already laid his plan. He instructed Merope to leave his body unburied in the courtyard, to pour no libations and make no offerings at his tomb. This was calculated sacrilege — the dead required proper rites to find peace, and a soul left unhonored had grounds for complaint. In the underworld, Sisyphus went before Persephone and pleaded: his impious wife had abandoned his memory, left him dishonored among the shades. Would the queen of the dead permit him to return and compel her to perform the rites? Persephone, moved by what seemed a just grievance, released him. Sisyphus had no intention of going back. Merope's feigned neglect was the hinge of the entire deception, and he lived on in Corinth until Hermes finally dragged him down for good.

The Faintest Star

When the Pleiades were placed among the stars — set in the sky by Zeus to save them from Orion's relentless pursuit — Merope took her place among her sisters but shone with diminished light. She was the faintest star in the cluster, and the reason, according to Hyginus, was shame: she alone had married beneath her sisters' station, taking a mortal husband while they had lain with gods. The Pleiades show only six stars to the naked eye, though tradition always names seven — one sister hiding her face. Aratus counted six visible; the seventh was lost to sight.