Arethusa (Boeotia)

In the surviving, fragmentary Hellenistic text as restored by Merkelbach and West, Arethusa is given as daughter of Hyperes who 'slept by the shore of the Euripus Strait' with a man whose damaged name begins with 'P' and contains the diphthong 'ei' — a name usually restored as Poseidon. After this liaison she is said to have been transformed by Hera at Chalcis; the fragmentary condition makes the exact form and motive of Hera's action ambiguous. Later authors (e.g., Hyginus, Stephanus of Byzantium) place Arethusa in genealogies as mother of Abas, and the tradition functions as an aetiology explaining the Arethusa spring at Chalcis, its clear waters, and local cult connections to Hera and a local epithet of Poseidon.

The provided sources do not preserve a physical description of Arethusa. The fragmentary Hesiodic attribution and later summaries treat her primarily as a named human figure who functions topographically and genealogically: a personal name that becomes a toponym (the spring Arethusa) and a node in local descent narratives. Thus in the surviving literature she appears as a mythic woman known by name and familial ties rather than by bodily portraiture.

No active supernatural powers or habitual behaviors are ascribed to Arethusa in the cited material. Her narrative role is genealogical and aetiological: she is presented as daughter of Hyperes, consort (in the damaged line usually restored as Poseidon), and mother of Abas in some traditions. The metamorphosis motif is central to her story — she is transformed by Hera at Chalcis — but the agency for the transformation lies with Hera, and the fragmentary text requires scholarly deduction to connect Arethusa explicitly to the spring. Sources do not attribute magical acts or recurring agency to Arethusa herself.