In the more familiar variant,Ino, the daughter ofCadmus, sister ofSemele, and queen ofAthamas, became a goddess afterHera drove her insane as a punishment for caring for the newbornDionysus. She leapt into the sea with her sonMelicertes in her arms, and out ofpity, the Hellenes asserted, the Olympian gods turned them both into sea-gods, transforming Melicertes intoPalaemon, the patron of theIsthmian Games, and Ino into Leucothea.
She has a sanctuary in Laconia, where she answers people's questions about dreams, her form of oracle.
In the version sited atRhodes, a much earlier mythic level is reflected in the genealogy: There, a nymph or goddess namedHalia ("salty")[a] plunged into the sea and became Leucothea. Her parents were thetitansThalassa andPontus (orUranus). She was a localnymph and one of the aboriginalTelchines of the island. Halia becamePoseidon's wife and bore himRhodos and six sons; their sons were maddened byAphrodite in retaliation for an inhospitable affront, assaulted their own mother Halia, and were confined in caves beneaththe island by their father Poseidon; Halia cast herself into the sea, and became Leucothea. The people of Rhodes traced their mythic descent from the nymph Rhodos and theSun godHelios.[1][2][3]
In theOdyssey,[4] Leucothea makes a dramatic appearance and tells the shipwrecked Odysseus to discard his cloak and raft, and offers him a veil[b] to wind round himself, to save his life and reach land.Homer makes Leucothea the transfiguration ofIno.
It is possible that Leucothea is the "Leucothoe" thatHyginus makes the mother ofThersanon by Helios, although he could be referring toanother woman by the same name.[5]
Leucothea is mentioned byJohn Milton in theParadise Lost scene where archangel Michael descends to Adam and Eve to declare that they must no longer abide in Paradise (second edition, 1674, book XI, lines 133–135):
Meanwhile, To re-salute the world with sacred light, Leucothea waked;…[6]
InEzra Pound'sCantos, she is one of the goddess figures who comes to the poet's aid inSection: Rock-Drill (Cantos 85–95). She is introduced in Canto 91 as "Cadmus's daughter":
As the sea-gull Κάδμου θυγάτηρ said to Odysseus KADMOU THUGATER "get rid of parap[h]ernalia"
She returns in Cantos 93 ("Κάδμου θυγάτηρ") and 95 ("Κάδμου θυγάτηρ/ bringing lightper diafana/ λευκὁς Λευκόθοε/ white foam, a sea-gull… 'My bikini is worth yr/ raft'. Said Leucothae… Then Leucothea had pity,/'mortal once/ Who now is a sea-god…'"), and reappears at the beginning of Canto 96, the first of theThrones section ("Κρήδεμνον…/ κρήδεμνον…/ and the wave concealed her,/ dark mass of great water.").
Leucothea appears twice inDialoghi con Leucò (Dialogues with Leucò) byCesare Pavese.
Leucothea becomes a metaphor, inMarcel Proust'sIn the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, for the mist that covers a young man's gaze when looking on the beauty of young women: "…a cloud that had re-formed a few days later, once I had met them, muting the glow of their loveliness, often passing between them and my eyes, which saw them now dimmed, as through a gentle haze, reminiscent of Virgil's Leucothea."[7]
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