Corone (crow)

{{Infobox character

| name = Corone

| gender = Female

| image = File:Neptuno e Coronis (1724) - Francisco Vieira Lusitano.png

| caption = Neptune and Corone, 1724, by Vieira Lusitano.

| species = Human, then crow

| title = Princess

| significant_other =

| relatives = Coronaeus (father)

| lbl21 = Homeland

| data21 = Phocis

}}

In Greek and Roman mythology, Corone ({{langx|grc|Κορώνη|Korṓnē|crow}}Liddell & Scott [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=korw/nh κορώνη] {{IPA|el|korɔ̌ːnɛː|pron}}) is a young woman who attracted the attention of Poseidon, the god of the sea, and was saved by Athena, the goddess of wisdom. She was a princess and the daughter of Coronaeus. Her brief tale is recounted in the narrative poem Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid. Several other myths surround the crow about its connection to Athena.

Mythology

= Poseidon =

According to Ovid, one day as Corone was walking by the seashore, the sea-god Poseidon saw her and attempted to seduce her. When his efforts failed, he attempted to rape her instead. However, Corone fled from his rapacious advances, crying out to men and gods. While no man heard her, "the virgin goddess feels pity for a virgin"; Pallas Athena transformed her into a crow.{{cite book| author= Ovid| title= Metamorphoses| pages= [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D2%3Acard%3D531 2.569–88]| via= perseus.tufts.edu| accessdate= }}{{sfn|Sax|2003|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jYDxAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 45–46]}}

An unspecified time later, she recounted her woes during a conversation with the raven, Lycius, who had similar grievances of his own. She also cited her resentment that her place as Athena's bird-servant had been usurped and taken over by the owl, the metamorphosed Nyctimene, because that transformation was punitive.Hyginus. Fabulae [https://topostext.org/work/206#204 204], [https://topostext.org/work/206#253 253]

Ovid himself does not mention her by name and simply calls her cornix, or "the crow", in Latin. Instead her name proper is attested by an anonymous Greek paradoxographer.Paradoxographers anonymous, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=eTUOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA222 222]

= Other narratives about Athena and crows =

The relation between Athena and the crow is not always amicable. In one myth, after Hephaestus tried to assault Athena and the infant Erichthonius was born from his semen that fell on the earth, Athena put the child in a box and gave it to the daughters of Cecrops, instructing them not to open the box before she returned. The maidens disobeyed her, and the crow flew to Athena bearing the news. Athena, angered over the ill news the crow had brought her, cursed it to never be able to fly over the Acropolis of Athens again.{{sfn|Sax|2003|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jYDxAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 45–46]}}{{sfn|Harding|2007|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=KH4T9CBXwEEC&pg=PA28 28]}} The narrative featuring Poseidon seems to have developed as an elaboration of this version, as otherwise it has no starting-point in a historical cult of Athena and the crow.{{sfn|Forbes Irving|1990|page=230}}

In one of Aesop's fables, a crow invites a dog to a banquet and makes a sacrifice to Athena. The dog remarks that this is no use, as Athena dislikes her. The crow then answers that Athena might not like her, but she will sacrifice to her nonetheless in an effort to make amends with the goddess.{{sfn|Sax|2003|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jYDxAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 45-46]}}Aesop, Fables [http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford/320.htm 320]

A fragment from the Hellenistic poet Callimachus implies the existence of a story, not surviving, where the crow warned the owl (Nyctimene?) against tale-bearing, lamenting that the wrath of Athena is a terrible thing.Callimachus. Hecale frag [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/callimachus-hecale/2022/pb_LCL129.77.xml?result=1&rskey=z0LMqH 73] [=260.30–43 Pf., Vienna Tablet]{{sfn|Gale|2000|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=R3tBmgI-zesC&pg=PA132 132]}}

The traveller Pausanias wrote that in Corone, a small town in Messenia in southwestern Peloponnese, a statue of Athena held in her outstretched hand a crow instead of the accustomed owl.{{sfn|Sax|2003|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jYDxAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 45–46]}}Pausanias. Description of Greece [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+4.34.6&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 4.34.6]

Later literature

John Gower took up the tale for use in his Confessio Amantis, with particular emphasis on her delight in her escape:

With feathers of a coaly black,
Out of his arms, like bolt from bow,
She flew in likeness of a crow:
And this, to her, was more delight -
To keep her maiden treasure white
Beneath a feather cloak of black -
Than, pearly-skinned, to lose and lack
What never can return again.{{cite book |last1=Gower |first1=John |title=Confessio amantis (The lover's shrift : Gower, John : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming |date=1963 |pages=206–207 |url=https://archive.org/details/confessioamantis00gowe/page/276/mode/2up |language=en}}

References

Bibliography

{{cite book | author = Callimachus | author-link = Callimachus | title = Hecale, Hymns, Epigrams | translator = Dee L. Clayman | series = Loeb Classical Library 129 | location = Cambridge, MA | publisher = Harvard University Press | date = 2022}}
{{cite book | title = Metamorphosis in Greek Myths | first = Paul M. C. | last = Forbes Irving | publisher = Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press | date = 1990 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=URvXAAAAMAAJ | isbn = 0-19-814730-9 | location = Oxford, New York, Toronto | series = Oxford Classical Monographs}}
Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. [https://topostext.org/work/206 Online version at the Topos Text Project.]
{{cite book | title = Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic | first = Monica R. | last = Gale | publisher = Cambridge University Press | date = November 9, 2000 | isbn = 0-511-03071-1 | location = Cambridge, New York | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=R3tBmgI-zesC}}
{{cite book | title = Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs | first = Laura | last = Gibbs | publisher = Oxford University Press (World's Classics) | location = Oxford | date = 2002}}
{{cite book | date = October 31, 2007 | isbn = 978-0-203-44834-2 | publisher = Routledge | location = London, New York | title = The Story of Athens: The Fragments of the Local Chronicles of Attika | first = Phillip | last = Harding | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=KH4T9CBXwEEC}}
{{cite book | first1 = Henry George | last1 = Liddell | first2 = Robert | last2 = Scott | title = A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie | location = Oxford | publisher = Clarendon Press | date = 1940 | author1-link = Henry Liddell | author2-link = Robert Scott (philologist)}} [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057 Online version at Perseus.tufts project.]
{{cite book | author-link = Pausanias (geographer) | author = Pausanias | title = Description of Greece | translator1 = W.H.S. Jones | translator2 = H.A. Ormerod | location = Cambridge, MA | publisher = Harvard University Press | date = 1918}} in 4 Volumes.
Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses translated by Brookes More (1859–1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.]
Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses. Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0029 Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library].
{{cite book | title = Crow | first = Boria | last = Sax | publisher = Reaktion Boos LTD | location = London, UK | date = April 4, 2003 | isbn = 1-86189-194-6 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jYDxAQAAQBAJ}}
{{cite book | title = Paradoxographoe | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=eTUOAAAAYAAJ | author-link = Anton Westermann | first = Anton | last = Westermann | publisher = Harvard College Library | date = 1839 | location = London}}