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Oenone

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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in Greek legend, daughter of the river-god Kebren and wife of Paris. Possessing the gift of divination, she warned her husband of the evils that would result from his journey to Greece. The sequel was the rape of Helen and the Trojan War. Just before the capture of the city, Paris, wounded by Philoctetes with one of the arrows of Heracles, sought the aid of the deserted Oenone, who had told him that she alone could heal him if wounded. Indignant at his faithlessness, she refused to help him, and Paris returned to Troy and died of his wound. Oenone soon repented and hastened after him, but finding that she was too late to save him slew herself from grief at the sight of his dead body. Ovid (Herotides, 5) gives a pathetic description of Oenone's grief when she found herself deserted.