Vixen and Dog

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Amphitryon went with Alcmena and Licymnius to Thebes and was purified by Creon and gave his sister Perimede to Licymnius. And as Alcmena said she would marry him when he had avenged her brothers' death, Amphitryon engaged to do so, and undertook an expedition against the Teleboans, and invited Creon to assist him. Creon said he would join in the expedition if Amphitryon would first rid the Cadmea of the vixen; for a brute of a vixen was ravaging the Cadmea. But though Amphitryon undertook the task, it was fated that nobody should catch her.

As the country suffered thereby, the Thebans every month exposed a son of one of the citizens to the brute, which would have carried off many if that were not done. So Amphitryon betook him to Cephalus, son of Deioneus, at Athens, and persuaded him, in return for a share of the Teleboan spoils, to bring to the chase the dog which Procris had brought from Crete as a gift from Minos; for that dog was destined to catch whatever it pursued. So then, when the vixen was chased by the dog, Zeus turned both of them into stone. Supported by his allies, to wit, Cephalus from Thoricus in Attica, Panopeus from Phocis, Heleus, son of Perseus, from Helos in Argolis, and Creon from Thebes, Amphitryon ravaged the islands of the Taphians.


- Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library, Book 2, Chapter 4


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And when children were born to them, Minos gave Procris his spear and his dog. No animal could escape these two and they always reached their target.

Accepting them, Procris went to Thoricus in Attica, where Cephalus lived, and became a hunter with him. She had altered her clothes and had cut her hair as a man; no one who saw her recognized her. When Cephalus saw that he never caught anything when hunting, while everything went the way of Procris, he yearned to have that spear for himself. Procris promised to give him the dog as well, if he would agree to enjoy her youthful charms.

Cephalus accepted the proposition and when they lay down together, Procris revealed who she was and reproached him for having committed something far more disgraceful. But Cephalus acquired the dog and the spear. Amphitryon, who needed the dog, went to Cephalus and asked him if he would be willing to join him, with the dog, in going after the Fox. He promised to hand over to him a share of the booty which he would take from the Teleboeans.

For at that time there had appeared in the land of the people of Cadmus, a fox that was a monstrous creature. It would regularly issue out of Teumessus snatching up Cadmeans. Every thirty days they would put out a child for it and the Fox would take it and eat it up.

Amphitryon had asked Creon and the Cadmeans to help in making war against the Teleboeans. They refused unless he helped them do away with the Fox. Amphitryon accepted these conditions from the Cadmeans and went to Cephalus and told him about the agreement and urged him to go to Thebes with the dog. Cephalus accepted the proposal and set out to hunt the Fox.

But it had been ordained that the Fox could not be taken by any hunter, and that nothing should escape that dog when it went hunting. Zeus saw them when they reached the Plain of Thebes and turned them both into stones.


- Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses


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