Coronis

Coronis, daughter of Phlegyas, King of the Lapiths, lived beside Lake Beobeis in Thessaly. Apollo became her lover and left a crow with snow-white feathers to watch her while he went to Delphi. Coronis had already conceived Apollo’s child, but she secretly desired Ischys, an Arcadian and son of Elatus. She admitted him to her bed. In another account, she made Ischys her husband against her father’s wishes.

Apollo knew of the betrayal before the crow reached Delphi with its report. He cursed the bird for failing to peck out Ischys’s eyes when he approached Coronis. The crow’s feathers became black, and its descendants remained black. Apollo then told his sister Artemis of Coronis’s conduct. Artemis shot Coronis with her arrows and killed her. Apollo looked upon her body and felt remorse, but he could not restore her to life.

Coronis’s relatives placed her body within a wooden pyre. As the fire of Hephaistos spread around it, Apollo saw that his own child was still in her womb. He declared that he would not allow his offspring to die with its mother. At his first step towards the pyre, he seized the unborn child from Coronis’s corpse. The flames parted as he took the child away.

Apollo carried the infant to the Magnesian Centaur Cheiron. Cheiron raised Asclepius and taught him the healing arts. Apollo also claimed Asclepius as his son. Asclepius later became a physician and developed medicine so far that he could prevent some people from dying and, in some accounts, restore the dead to life.