Myths of Melqart

Languages: Greek, Latin
Origin: Various (Late Roman Empire)
Date: Circa 100-700 C.E.

Description
A compilation of Hellenistic narratives about Melqart, the patron of Tyre, who was identified with the Greek deity Heracles.

Detail of “Hercules’s Dog Discovers Purple Dye” by Peter Paul Rubens (1636)

§1 – Melqart Invents Phoenician Dye (Julius Pollux, Onomasticon)

(Latin)	(English)
Hercules (ut Tyrii tradunt) Hymphae cuiusdam indiginae, cui Tyrus nomen suit, amore captus est.	According to the Tyrians, Hercules [Melqart] was captivated by the love of a certain native nymph, named Tyros.
Hunc vero, ut apud Veteres mos erat, sequebantur canis. Scis etenim quod canes cum Heroibus conciones ingrediebatur	As was customary among the ancients, he was followed by a dog; you know that dogs would often accompany heroes in their adventures.
Canis aute Herculeus, repetem in petra quadam putputam conspicatus, prominentem eius carnem mordicus arripuit, ipsamque carnem comedit, sanguis vero canis labia cruentans, rubore infecit phoeniceo.	Now, Hercules’ dog, while wandering on a certain rock, spotted a shellfish protruding out, grabbed its flesh with its teeth, and ate it. The blood from the flesh colored the dog’s lips with a reddish-purple (literally, “Phoenician”) hue.
Ut autem ad puella Heros perpuenit, haec canis labia insolito color tincta conspiciens, Herculi posthac, nisi ipsi veste caninis labiis speciosiore afferret, congressum negauit.	When the hero reached the girl, she noticed the unusual color on the dog’s lips and declared to Hercules that she would not be with him unless he brought her a garment dyed with a color more beautiful than that on the dog’s lips.
Hercules itaq; animal inventit, cruore collegit, et amicae munus attulit, primus (ut Tyrii testatur) Phoenicii coloris inventor.	So Hercules discovered the animal, collected its blood, and brought it to his beloved as a gift, becoming the first inventor (according to the Tyrians) of the Phoenician color.

Source: “Iulii Pollucis Onomasticon, decem libri constans“, published by Claudium Marnium 1608, along with the original Greek. Translation of the Latin text by Joseph R. Sullivan.

§2 – Melqart’s Death and Resurrection

” The Phoenicians sacrifice quails to Heracles, because Heracles, the son of Asteria and Zeus, went into Libya and was killed by Typhon; but Iolaus brought a quail to him, and having put it close to him, he smelt it and came to life again. “

Source: Eudoxus of Cnidus (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 9.47), excerpted in “The Riddle of Resurrection: ‘Dying and Rising Gods’ in the Ancient Near East” by Tryggve Mettinger, Coniectanea Biblica Old Testament Series, Almqvist & Wiksell International 2001.

§3 – Melqart Establishes the City of Tyre (Nonnus, Dionysiaca)

(Note: This narrative, taken from Book XL, immediately follows Dionysos’s Invocation to Melqart as “Star-Clad Heracles”. )

Suddenly in form divine the Star-Clad (Melqart-Heracles) flashed upon [Dionysus] in that dedicated temple. The fiery eyes of his countenance short forth a rosy light, and the shining god, clad in a patterned robe like the sky, and image of the universe, with yellow cheek sparkling and a starry beard, held out a hand to Lyaios, and entertained him with good cheer at a friendly table. He enjoyed a feast without meat-carving, and touched nectar and ambrosia: why not indeed, if he did drink sweet nectar, after the immortal milk of Hera?  

Then he spoke to the Starclad in words full of curiosity:

“Inform me, Astrochiton, what god built this city in the form of a continent and the image of an island? What heavenly hand designed it? Who lifted these rocks and rooted them in the sea? Who made all these works of art? Whence came the name of the fountains? Who mingled island with the mainland and bound them together with mother Sea?”

He spoke, and Heracles satisfied him with friendly words:

“Hear the story, Bacchos, I will tell you all. People dwelt here once whom Time, bred along with them, saw only the agemates of the eternal universe, holy offspring of the virgin earth, whose bodies came forth of themselves from the unplowed unsown mud. These by indigenous art built upon foundations of rock a city unshakable on ground also of rock. Once on their watery beds among the fountains, while the fiery sun was beating the earth with steam, they were resting together and plucking at the Lethean wing of mind-rejoicing sleep. Now I cherished a passion of love for that city; so I took the shadowed form of a human face, and stayed my step overhanging the head of these earthborn folk, and spoke to them my oracle in words of inspiration:

” ‘Shake off idle sleep, sons of the soil! Make me a new kind of vehicle to travel on the brine. Clear me this ridge of pinewoods with your sharp axes and make me a clever work. Set a long row of thickset standing ribs and rivet planks to them, then join them firmly together with a willfitting bond—the chariot of the sea, the first craft that ever sailed, which can heave you over the deep!

” ‘But first let it have a long curved beam running from end to end to support the whole, and fasten the planks to the ribs fitted about it like a close wall of wood. Let there be a tall spar upright in the middle held fast with stays. Fasten a wide linen cloth to the middle of the pole with tiwsted ropes on each side. Keep the sail extended by these ropes, and let it belly out to the wind of heaven, pregnant by the breeze which carries the ship along. Where the newfitted timbers gape, plug them with thin pegs.

” ‘Cover the sides with hurdles of wickerwork to keep them together, lest the water leak through unnoticed by a hole in the hollow vessel. Have a tiller as guide for your craft, to steer a course and drive you on the watery path with many a turn—twist about everywhere as your mind draws you, and cleave the back of the sea in your wooden hull, until you come to the fated place, where driven wandering over the brine are two floating rocks, which Nature has named the Ambrosial Rocks.

” ‘On one of them grows a spire of olive, their agemate, selfrooted and joined to the rock, in the very midst of the waterfaring stone. On the top of the foliage you will see an eagle perched, and a well-made bowl. From the flaming tree fire selfmade spits out wonderful sparks and the glow devours the olive tree all round but consumes it not. A snake writhes round the tree with its highlifted leaves, increasing the wonder both for eyes and for ears. For the serpent does not creep silently to the eagle flying on high, and throw himself at him from one side with a threatening sweep to envelop him, nor spits deadly poison from his teeth and swallows the bird in his jaws; the eagle himself does not seize in his talons that crawler with many curling coils and carry him off high through the air, nor will he wound him with sharptoothed beak; the flame does not spread over the branches of the tall trunk and devour the olive tree, which cannot be destroyed, nor withers the scales of the twining snake, so close a neighbor, nor does the leaping flame catch even the bird’s interlaced feathers. No—the fire keeps to the middle of the tree and sends out a friendly glow: the bowl remains aloft, immovable though the clusters are shaken in the wind, and does not slip and fall.

” ‘You must catch this wise bird, the high-flying eagle agemate of the olive, and sacrifice him to Seabluehair. Pour out his blood on the seawandering cliffs to Zeus and the Blessed. Then the rock wanders no longer driven over the waters; but is fixed upon immovable foundations and unites itself bound to the free rock. Found upon both rocks a builded city, with quays on two seas, on both sides.’

“Such was my prophetic message. The Earthborn awaking were stirred, and the divine message of the unerring dreams still rang in the ears of each. I showed yet another marvel after the winged dreams to these troubled ones, indulging my mood of founding cities, myself destined to be City-holder: out of the sea popped a nautilus fish, perfect image of what I meant and shaped like a ship, sailing on its voyage self-taught.

Thus observing this creature so like the ship of the sea, they learnt without trouble how to make a voyage, they built a craft like to a fish of the deep and imitated its navigation of the sea. Then came a voyage: with four stones of an equal wight they trusted their balanced navigation to the sea, imitating the steady flight of the crane, for she carries a ballast-stone in her mouth to heklp her course, lest the wind should beat her light wings aside as she flies. They went on until they saw that place, where the rocks were driven by the gales to navigate by themselves.

“There they stayed their craft beside the sea-girt isle, and climbed the cliffs where the tree of Athena stood. When they tried to catch the eagle which was at home in the olive tree, he flew down willingly and awaited his fate. The Earthborn took their winged prey inspired, and drawing the head backwards they stretched out the neck free and bare, they sacrificed with the knife that self-surrendered eagle to Zeus and the Lord of the waters. As the sage bird was sacrificed, the blood of prophecy gushed from the throat newly cut, and with those divine drops rooted the seafaring rocks at the bottom near to Tyre on thesea; and upon those unassiable rocks the Earthborn built up their deepbreasted nurse.

“There, Lord Dionysos, I have told you of the soilbred race of the Earthborn, selfborn, Olympian, that you might know how the Tyrian breed of your ancestors sprang out of the earth. Now I will speak of the fountains.

“In the olden days they were chaste maidens primeval, but hot Eros was angered against their maiden girdles, and drawing a shaft of love he spoke thus to the marriage-hating nymphs:

‘Naiad Abarbarie:, so fond of your maidenhood, you too receive this shaft, which all nature has felt. Here I will build Callirhoe:’s bridechamber, here I will sing Drosera’s wedding hymn—But you will say, Mine is a watery race, I came selfborn from the streams, and my nurse was a foundtain.–Yes, Clymene was a Naiad, and the offspring of Oceanos; but she yielded to wedlock, she was also a bride, when she saw Seabluehair the mighty lackey of Eros, and shaken with the passion of Cypris. Primeval Oceanos, who commands all rivers and waters, knows love for Tethys and a watery wedding. Make the best of it, and endure as Tethys did. Another spring from the sea so great and not from a little fountain, Galateia, has desire for melodious Polyphemos; the deepsea maiden has a husband from the land, she migrates from sea to land, enchanted by the lute. Fountains also have known my shafts. I need not teach you of love in the waters; you have heard of the watery passion of Syracusan Arethusa, that lovestricken fountain; you have heard of Alpheios, who in a watery bower embraces the indwelling nymph with watery hands. You—the offspring of a fountain—why are you pleased with the Archeress? Artemis did not come from the water like Aphrodite. Tell that to Callirhoe:, do not hite it from Drosera herself. You ought rather to please Cypris, because she herself bent her neck to Eros even though she is nurse of the loves. Accept the stings of desire, and I will call you by birth one waterwalking, by love sister of Aphrodite.’

“So he spoke; and from his backbent bow let fly three shots. Then in that watery bower he joined in love songs of the soil to the Naiads, and sowed the divine race of your family.”

So much Heracles leader of heaven said to Bacchos in pleasant gossip. He was delighted at heart by the tale, and offered to Heracles a mixing-bowl of gold bright and shining, which the art of heaven had made; Heracles clad Dionysos in a starry robe.

Then Bacchos left the Starclad god, cityholder of Tyre, and went on to another district of Assyria.

Source: Nonnus Dionysiaca, translated by W.H.D. Rouse, Harvard University Press 1940, Cambridge, MA