Merope

Merope was a popular name, being that of: one of the Pleiades and the wife of Sisyphus; a daughter of Oenopion; the wife of Polybus and foster-mother of Oedipus; the daughter of Cypselus and wife of Cresphontes; the daughter of Pandareüs. The name literally means 'sharing the voice', from meiromai, 'to share', and ops, 'voice'.

This usually meant 'endowed with speech' and therefore 'human', 'mortal' (as distinct from a god), although it could simply mean 'eloquent'. For the first Merope mentioned here, the name can be best seen as meaning 'human', since the lady in question married the mortal Sisyphus, and was indeed the only one of the Pleiades to have an affair with a mortal.

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