Meleager

"And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years;
And froth and drift of the sea;
And dust of the laboring earth;
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth."

Algernon C. Swinburne "Atalanta in Calydon"

The story of Meleager and the hunt for the Great Boar of Calydon turns on the double axis of fate and human desire. It begins, as many tales do, with a mother and her newborn, Queen Althea and her infant son, Meleager. While nursing, the young queen has a disturbing vision in which she sees the three fates discussing the destiny of her baby.
Atropos, 'the crone with shears,' remarks that she will cut his life thread as soon as a plank of cedar wood burning on the hearth is consumed. Althea immediately pulls it from the fire and hides it away in a secret place.

Meleager, unaware of his shadowed beginning, grows up to be an athletic young hunter. However, just at the peak of his strength and beauty, his father, King Oeneus of Calydon, makes a cruel mistake. At the annual harvest sacrifices he omits Artemis, goddess of the wilds. A personification of nature abused, she rages at his careless contempt and sends a monster boar to ravage the land. Olive orchards are trampled down. Herds of cattle are decimated.

After much destruction, a hunting party is assembled from the finest young men in Greece. But a young woman shows up also, of her own accord. She is Atalanta, 'the bear girl' who, having been abandoned in the forest at birth, was nursed by a she bear and finally adopted by Artemis. As swift as any deer, and beautiful, with skin as white as the ivory quiver that hangs at her shoulder, Meleager finds her irresistable. For him, however, she proves to be more dangerous than the vicious boar.

After a long hunt, both arduous and bloody, Atalanta succeeds in wounding the animal with an arrow. Meleager finishes it with his long spear. At the feast afterward he wants to award the prized skin and head to the maiden huntress, but several of the men, piqued at having been outdone by by a young and 'uncivilized' woman, will not have it. The debate surges into anger. Swords are drawn, and the hot blooded Meleager kills his two uncles.

When the news reaches Althea, in shock and regret, she tears open the old strong-box and flings the totem of her son's life onto a flaming brazier. He dies with a burning pain in his chest whose source he cannot comprehend.
Like other heroes: Achilles, Cuchulain, the Mohican warrior Uncas... Meleager is given only a brief span to realize his bitter, but also noble destiny. The overheard conversation turns out to be not an accident but part of his strange destiny.