MEROPE  , the name of several figures in

Greek mythology . The most important of them are the following: (I) The daughter of Cypselius, king of Arcadia, and wife of Cresphontes, ruler of Messenia . During an insurrection Cresphontes and two of his sons were murdered and the throne seized by Polyphontes, who forced Merope to marry him . A third son, Aepytus, contrived to escape, and, subsequently returning to Messenia, put Polyphontes to death and recovered his father's kingdom (Apollodorus ii . 8, 5; Pausanias iv . 3, 6) . The fortunes of Merope' have furnished the subject of tragedies by Euripides (Cresphontes, not extant), Voltaire, Maffei and Matthew Arnold . (2) The daughter of Atlas and wife of Sisyphus . She was one of the seven Pleiades,, but remained invisible, hiding her light for shame at having become the wife of a mortal (Apollodorus 9, 3; 10, r; Ovid, Fasti, iv . 175) .