Actaeon

Actaeon (Ancient Greek: Ἀκταίων Aktaiōn), in Greek mythology. He was the son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, and a famous Theban hero. Through his mother he was a member of the ruling House of Cadmus. Like Achilles, in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron. He fell to the fatal wrath of Artemis (Diana), but the surviving details of his transgression vary. The many depictions in art normally show either the moment of transgression and transformation, or Actaeon's death by his own hounds.

Quotes

• Is there not blood before thine eyes even now?
  Our lost Actaeon's blood, whom long ago
  His own red hounds through yonder forest dim
  Tore unto death, because he vaunted him
  Against most holy Artemis?
  • Euripides, Bacchae, 337, as translated by Gilbert Murray (1902)

• Ther saugh I Attheon an hert y-maked,
  For vengeaunce that he saugh Diane al naked;
  I saugh how that his houndes have him caught,
  And freten him, for that they knewe him naught.
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Knightes Tale", l. 2065