Book 1
4.3
And Artemis slew Orion in Delos.See Hom. Od. 5.121-124; Hor. Carm. 3.4.70ff. They say that he was of gigantic stature and born of the earth; but Pherecydes says that he was a son of Poseidon and Euryale.The same account of Orion's parentage was given by Hesiod, whom Pherecydes probably followed. See Eratosthenes, Cat. 32; Hyginus, Ast. ii.34. Poseidon bestowed on him the power of striding across the sea.Some thought that Orion waded through the sea (so Verg. A. 10.763ff.), others that he walked on the top of it (so Eratosthenes, Cat. 32; Scholiast on Nicander, Ther. 15; Hyginus, Ast. ii.34). He first married Side,As Side means “pomegranate” in Greek, it has been supposed that the marriage of Orion to Side is a mythical expression for the ripening of the pomegranate at the season when the constellation Orion is visible in the nightly sky. See W. Pape, Worterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen (Brunswick, 1884), ii.1383. whom Hera cast into Hades because she rivalled herself in beauty. Afterwards he went to Chios and wooed Merope, daughter of Oenopion. But Oenopion made him drunk, put out his eyes as he slept, and cast him on the beach. But he went to the smithy of Hephaestus, and snatching up a lad set him on his shoulders and bade him lead him to the sunrise. Being come thither he was healed by the sun's rays, and having recovered his sight he hastened with all speed against Oenopion.
