Nĕphĕle

, the first wife of Athamas king of Thebes, and mother of Phryxus and Helle. She was repudiated on pretence of being subject to fits of insanity, and Athamas married Ino the daughter of Cadmus, by whom he had several children. Ino became jealous of Nephele, because her children would succeed to their father’s throne before hers, by right of seniority, and she resolved to destroy them. Nephele was apprised of her wicked intentions, and she removed her children from the reach of Ino, by giving them a celebrated ram, sprung from the union of Neptune and Theophane, on whose back they escaped to Colchis. See: Phryxus . Nephele was afterwards changed into a cloud, whence her name is given by the Greeks to the clouds. Some call her Nebula , which word is the Latin translation of Nephele . The fleece of the ram, which saved the life of Nephele’s children, is often called the Nephelian fleece . Apollo dor us , bk. 1 , ch. 9 .— Hyginus , fable 2, . — Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 11 , li. 195 .— Flaccus , bk. 11 , li. 56 .――A mountain of The aly, once the residence of the Centaurs.