El nacimiento de Orión en Euforión de Calcis y en Ovidio: estudio de los orígenes y la tradición de un mito beocio

Abstract

Ovid ( Fast . V 493-544) narrates the birth of Orion in according to a particular version that goes back at least to Euphorion of Chalcis. This version is incompatible with the archaic conception of Orion’s birth in epics. The article discusses the story from Ovid’s text and from the scholium of the Iliad which contains Euphorion’s version. From a structural perspective, the story contains ritual motifs that may relate to a fertility rite attested in a Hittite text, the so-called Paskuwatti’s ritual against sexual impotence ( CTH 406). The cultic substratum shared by both, European and Asiatic, Aegean banks, suggests the survival of certain features of ritual origin transfigured into some of the mythemes of the story discussed.