Actaeon

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(Redirected from Aktaion)

Image:Aktation, Nordisk familjebok.png In Greek mythology, Actaeon (or Aktaion), son of Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a hunter who suffered the wrath of Artemis.

Artemis was bathing in the woods near Boeotian Orchomenos when the hunter Actaeon stumbled across her, thus seeing her naked. He stopped and stared, amazed at her ravishing beauty. Once seen, Actaeon was punished by Artemis: she forbade him speech — if he tried to speak, he would be changed into a stag — for the unlucky profanation of her virginity's mystery. Upon hearing the call of his hunting party, he cried out to them and immediately was changed into a stag. His own hounds then turned upon him and tore him to pieces. The hounds were so upset with their master's death, that Chiron made a statue so lifelike the hounds thought it was Actaeon.

There are various other versions: Apollodorus states that his offence was that he was a rival of Zeus for Semele (who was also his aunt), while in Euripedes Bacchae he boasts that he is better hunter than Artemis.

ὁρᾷς τὸν Ἀκτέωνος ἄθλιον μόρον,

ὃν ὠμόσιτοι σκύλακες ἃς ἐθρέψατο

διεσπάσαντο, κρείσσον' ἐν κυναγίαις

Ἀρτέμιδος εἶναι κομπάσαντ', ἐν ὀργάσιν.

Look at Actaeon's wretched fate

who by the man-eating hounds he had raised,

was torn apart, better at hunting

than Artemis he had boasted to be, in the meadows.

Diodorus Siculus has it that Actaeon wanted to marry Artemis. Other authors say the hounds were Artemis' own.

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