Castor and Pollux horse breaker and the boxer / Polydeuces, my brothers" ..." – Helen, "Iliad" 3.253–255), but in the "Odyssey" they are treated as alive even though "the corn-bearing earth holds them". The author describes them as "having honour equal to gods", living on alternate days because of the intervention of Zeus. In both the "Odyssey" and in Hesiod, they are described as the sons of Tyndareus and Leda. In Pindar, Pollux is the son of Zeus while Castor is the son of the mortal Tyndareus. The theme of ambiguous parentage is not unique to Castor and Pollux; similar characterisations appear in
Ab ovo Ab ovo Ab ovo (Latin: "from the beginning, the origin, the egg") is a reference to one of the twin eggs from which Helen of Troy was born. The eggs were laid by Leda after mating with Zeus disguised as a swan. Had Leda not laid the egg, Helen would not have been born, so Paris could not have eloped with her, so there would have been no Trojan War. The English literary use of the phrase comes from Horace's "Ars Poetica", where he describes his ideal epic poet as one who "does not begin the Trojan War from the