View source for Meleager

===Afterlife===
In the [[underworld]], he was the only shade that did not flee [[Heracles]], who had come after [[Cerberus]]. In [[Bacchylides]]' Ode V, Meleager is depicted as still in his shining armor, so formidable, in Bacchylides' account, that Heracles reached for his bow to defend himself. Heracles was moved to tears by Meleager's account; Meleager had left his sister<ref>Or perhaps his half-sister, if [[Dionysus]] was the real father of Deianira, as Apollodorus, 1.8.1, would have it; Oeneus himself was "to judge by his name a double of the wine-god", as Kerenyi observes (Kerenyi 1959:199).</ref> [[Deianira]] unwedded in his father's house, and entreated Heracles to take her as his bride;<ref>[[Scholia]] on ''Iliad'' 21.194, noted by Kerenyi 1959:180 note 103.</ref> here [[Bacchylides]] breaks off his account of the meeting, without noting that in this way Heracles in the underworld chooses a disastrous wife.

According to [[Pliny the Elder]]'s [[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]], Book 37, Chapter 11, [[Sophocles]] believed that [[amber]] is produced in the countries beyond India, from the tears that are shed for Meleager, by the birds called "meleagrides".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXXVII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES., CHAP. 11.—AMBER: THE MANY FALSEHOODS THAT HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT IT. |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=37:chapter=11 |access-date=2023-03-19 |website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>