Corythus (son of Paris)
In Greek mythology, Corythus (Ancient Greek: Κόρυθος, romanized: Kóruthos) is a minor Trojan man, the son of Prince Paris by either Oenone or rarely Helen of Troy, both women he was married to. Corythus arrived at Troy in the mid of the decade-spanning Trojan War and there he charmed and was charmed by Helen, thus incurring Paris' wrath and jealousy. In the end, the angry Paris killed him, not knowing Corythus was his son.
Family
In ancient sources, Corythus is consistently the son of the Trojan prince Paris (also called Alexander), either by his first wife Oenone before he left her for Helen,[1] or by Helen herself. As the son of Helen, he had three full-siblings, brothers Bunomus and Idaeus and sister Helen.[2][3]
Mythology
In the versions where Corythus is the son of Helen and Paris, he is said to have died alongside his brothers after a roof in their house in Troy collapsed on them.[2] They were all buried with due ceremony. The poet Alexander described him as 'fruit of marriage-rape' and 'the herdsman's evil brood'.[4] The parentage of Corythus as the son of Helen has been credited to Nicander.[5]
But in most authors, Corythus was a son of the nymph Oenone, Paris' previous wife before he deserted her for the love of Helen, queen of Sparta.[6] The jealous and hurt Oenone sent Corythus to the Trojan court,[7][8] with the instructions to do stir some trouble and do ill to Helen by making Paris jealous,[9][10] or alternatively Corythus went to Troy to help the effort against the Greeks.[4][11] Corythus, who had grown to be even more good-looking than his father,[12] was received very warmly by Helen and even fell in love with her.[4] Paris grew envious, so he slew Corythus after seeing him sitting next to Helen in her bedroom, not knowing this was his own son;[13][14] Oenone then cursed Paris to be wounded severely by the Achaeans so that he would be at her need and ask for her.[9] When that day came, Oenone refused to help Paris and so he died. Later she repented and hung herself.[15]
Lycophron makes an obscure reference to Oenone sending Corythus to 'inform about the land', and him being a spy or traitor, alluding apparently to a little-known version in which the Greeks found Troy thanks to Corythus' information.[5][15]
See also
Other stories with unwitting kinslaying include:
References
- ^ Grimal 1987, s.v. Oenone.
- ^ a b Dictys Cretensis 5.5
- ^ Bell 1991, s.v. Helen (2).
- ^ a b c Parthenius, Love Sorrows 34
- ^ a b Gantz 1993, pp. 638–9.
- ^ Zingg, Reto (October 1, 2006). "Corythus". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill's New Pauly. Translated by Christine F. Salazar. Basle: Brill Reference Online. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e620850. ISSN 1574-9347. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
- ^ Lycophron, Alexandra 57–9
- ^ Tzetzes on Lycophron 57
- ^ a b Conon, Narrations 23
- ^ Smith 1873, s.v. Corythus 2.
- ^ Grant & Hazel 2004, p. 144.
- ^ March 2014, p. 135.
- ^ Hard 2004, p. 444.
- ^ Avery 1962, s.v. Corythus 2.
- ^ a b Fowler 2000, p. 528.
Bibliography
- Avery, Catherine B., ed. (1962). New Century Classical Handbook. New York, US: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
- Bell, Robert E. (1991). Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-Clio. ISBN 9780874365818.
- Conon, Fifty Narrations, surviving as one-paragraph summaries in the Bibliotheca (Library) of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, translated from the Greek by Brady Kiesling. Online text available at topos.text.
- Dictys Cretensis, from The Trojan War. The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian, translated by Richard McIlwaine Frazer Jr. (1931-), Indiana University Press. 1966. Online text at topos.text.
- Fowler, Robert L. (2000). Early Greek Mythography. Vol. 2: Commentary. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-814741-1.
- Gantz, Timothy (1993). Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. Vol. II. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-4410-X.
- Grant, Michael; Hazel, John (August 2, 2004). Who's Who in Classical Mythology. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26041-8.
- Grimal, Pierre (1987). The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-13209-0.
- Hard, Robin (2004). The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology". Routledge. ISBN 9780415186360.
- Lycophron, Alexandra (or Cassandra) in Callimachus and Lycophron with an English translation by A. W. Mair ; Aratus, with an English translation by G. R. Mair, London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921. Internet Archive.
- March, Jennifer R. (May 31, 2014). Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Oxbow Books. ISBN 978-1-78297-635-6.
- Parthenius, Love Romances translated by Sir Stephen Gaselee (1882-1943), S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 69. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1916. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
- Smith, William (1873). A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London, UK: John Murray, printed by Spottiswoode and Co. Online version at the Perseus.tufts library.
- Tzetzes, John, Scholia to Lycophron's Alexandra, marginal notes by Isaak and Ioannis Tzetzes and others, from the Greek edition of Eduard Scheer (Weidmann 1881) (downloadable at archive.org, translated by CHATGPT 4.0 with more speed than accuracy, with prompts and work-arounds by Bruce Hartzler and a few manual improvements (?) by Brady Kiesling. Online text available at topos.text.