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
Zeus and the Tortoise Zeus and the Tortoise Zeus and the Tortoise appears among Aesop’s Fables and explains how the tortoise got her shell. It is numbered 106 in the Perry Index. From it derives the proverbial sentiment that ‘There’s no place like home’. The fable tells how the king of the gods invited all the animals to his wedding but the tortoise never arrived. When asked why, her excuse was that she preferred her own home, so Zeus made her carry her house about forever after. That excuse in Greek was Οἶκος φίλος, οἶκος ἄριστος, literally ‘the home you love is the best’.