(ll. 8-12) Then laughter-loving Aphrodite and her handmaidens wove sweet-smelling crowns of flowers of the earth and put them upon their heads—the bright-coiffed goddesses, the Nymphs and Graces, and golden Aphrodite too, while they sang sweetly on the mount of many-fountained Ida.’
Fragment #7—Clement of Alexandria, Protrept ii. 30. 5: ‘Castor was mortal, and the fate of death was destined for him; but Polydeuces, scion of Ares, was immortal.’
Fragment #8—Athenaeus, viii. 334 B: ‘And after them she bare a third child, Helen, a marvel to men. Rich-tressed Nemesis once gave her birth when she had been joined in love with Zeus the king of the gods by harsh violence. For Nemesis tried to escape him and liked not to lie in love with her father Zeus the Son of Cronos; for shame and indignation vexed her heart: therefore she fled him over the land and fruitless dark water. But Zeus ever pursued and longed in his heart to catch her. Now she took the form of a fish and sped over the waves of the loud-roaring sea, and now over Ocean’s stream and the furthest bounds of Earth, and now she sped over the furrowed land, always turning into such dread creatures as the dry land nurtures, that she might escape him.’
Fragment #9—Scholiast on Euripides, Andr. 898: The writer [3003] of the Cyprian histories says that (Helen’s third child was) Pleisthenes and that she took him with her to Cyprus, and that the child she bore Alexandrus was Aganus.
Fragment #10—Herodotus, ii. 117: For it is said in the Cypria that Alexandrus came with Helen to Ilium from Sparta in three days, enjoying a favourable wind and calm sea.
Fragment #11—Scholiast on Homer, Il. iii. 242: For Helen had been previously carried off by Theseus, and it was in consequence of this earlier rape that Aphidna, a town in Attica, was sacked and Castor was wounded in the right thigh by Aphidnus who was king at that time. Then the Dioscuri, failing to find Theseus, sacked Athens. The story is in the Cyclic writers.
Plutarch, Thes. 32: Hereas relates that Alycus was killed by Theseus himself near Aphidna, and quotes the following verses in evidence: ‘In spacious Aphidna Theseus slew him in battle long ago for rich-haired Helen’s sake.’ [3004]
Fragment #12—Scholiast on Pindar, Nem. x. 114: (ll. 1-6) ‘Straightway Lynceus, trusting in his swift feet, made for Taygetus. He climbed its highest peak and looked throughout the whole isle of Pelops, son of Tantalus; and soon the glorious hero with his dread eyes saw horse-taming Castor and athlete Polydeuces both hidden within a hollow oak.’
Philodemus, On Piety: (Stasinus?) writes that Castor was killed with a spear shot by Idas the son of Aphareus.
Fragment #13—Athenaeus, 35 C: ‘Menelaus, know that the gods made wine the best thing for mortal man to scatter cares.’