![]() Proteus emerged from the sea to sleep among his colony of seals, but Menelaus was successful in holding him, though Proteus took the forms of a lion, a serpent, a leopard, a pig, even of water or a tree. He learned from Proteus’ daughter, Eidothea (“the very image of the Goddess”), that if he could capture her father he could force him to reveal which of the gods he had offended, and how he could propitiate them and return home. ![]() In the Odyssey, Menelaus relates to Telemachus that he had been becalmed here on his journey home from the Trojan War. It is not certain to what this refers, but in myths where he is the son of Poseidon, it possibly refers to his being Poseidon’s eldest son, older than Poseidon’s other son, the sea-god Triton.Īccording to Homer ( Odyssey iv:412), the sandy island of Pharos situated off the coast of the Nile Delta was the home of Proteus, the oracular Old Man of the Sea and herdsman of the sea-beasts. Proteus’ name suggests the “first” (from Greek “πρῶτος” - protos, “first”), as protogonos (πρωτόγονος) is the “primordial” or the “firstborn”. “Protean” has positive connotations of flexibility, versatility and adaptability. From this feature of Proteus comes the adjective protean, with the general meaning of “versatile”, “mutable”, “capable of assuming many forms”. He can foretell the future, but, in a mytheme familiar to several cultures, will change his shape to avoid having to he will answer only to someone who is capable of capturing him. In Greek mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god or god of rivers and oceanic bodies of water, one of several deities whom Homer calls the “ Old Man of the Sea”. Some who ascribe to him a specific domain call him the god of “elusive sea change”, which suggests the constantly changing nature of the sea or the liquid quality of water in general.
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