Editing Naiad (section)

==Interpretation==
[[Robert Graves]] offered a sociopolitical reading of the common myth-type in which a mythic king is credited with marrying a naiad and founding a city: it was the newly arrived [[Hellenes]] justifying their presence. The loves and rapes of Zeus, according to Graves' readings, record the supplanting of ancient local cults by Olympian ones (Graves 1955, ''passim'').

So, in the back-story of the myth of [[Aristaeus]], Hypseus, a king of the [[Lapiths]], married Chlidanope, a naiad, who bore him [[Cyrene (mythology)|Cyrene]]. Aristaeus had more than ordinary mortal experience with the naiads: when his bees died in [[Thessaly]], he went to consult them. His aunt Arethusa invited him below the water's surface, where he was washed with water from a perpetual spring and given advice.