Celaeno
One of the seven Pleiades whose name means "the dark one," and who was also conflated with the Harpy Celaeno in some traditions.
The Myth of Celaeno
Celaeno was a daughter of Atlas and Pleione, one of the seven sisters who became the Pleiades constellation. Her name means "the dark one" or "the swarthy," an unusual epithet for a star-nymph that may preserve traces of an older chthonic association. She bore children to Poseidon — Lycus, whom the god settled in the Isles of the Blessed, and in some traditions Nycteus and Lycus of Thebes. The confusion between Celaeno the Pleiad and Celaeno the Harpy was already present in antiquity: Virgil gives the name Celaeno to the Harpy who delivers a prophecy to Aeneas on the Strophades islands, and some ancient commentators conflated the two figures. This doubling — a celestial nymph and a monstrous snatcher sharing a name meaning "dark" — may not be coincidental, possibly reflecting a period when the Pleiades were associated with storm and darkness rather than the gentler pastoral calendar-marking of later tradition.
Parents
Atlas and Pleione
Children
Lycus
Symbols
Fun Fact
The name Celaeno — "the dark one" — belonged to both a gentle Pleiad star-nymph and a terrifying Harpy, and ancient authors themselves sometimes confused the two figures.
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