Alkmene
mythological figure · 2 works · 4 mentions · 5 anchored passages
in the texts
Iliad
Mortal woman in Thebes named in Zeus's catalogue of past loves, mother of Herakles.
there was Semele, and Alkmene in Thebes by whom I begot my lion-hearted son Herakles, while Semele became mother to Bacchus the comforter of humankind.
for Hera, woman though she was, beguiled him on the day when Alkmene was to bring forth mighty Herakles in the fair city of Thebes.
She being with child and in her seventh month, Hera brought the child to birth though there was a month still wanting, but she stayed the offspring of Alkmene, and kept back the Eileithuiai.
Odyssey
A famous woman of old cited by Antinoos as a point of comparison for Penelope's accomplishments.
we know all about Tyro, Alkmene, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your mother, any one of them.
"Then I saw Alkmene, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Zeus indomitable Herakles;