Basically, Erechtheus had about three daughters, and their names were Orithyia, Creusa, and Procris. All of these girls had love stories, and all of their love stories ended either very badly or kinda randomly. Yay!
Ok, first up to bat is Procris because I feel like her story is a bit more dramatic and had more pieces than the other stories. Basically, she got married to this hunk of a man named Cephalus, and what Cephalus had going for him (because his name literally sounds like a disease gone wrong) was that his father was Aeolus.
Side note: why is the fact that his dad was Aeolus make him have anything going for him? Well, Aeolus was the King of the Winds. Although Zeus was technically the god and king of the skies, he decided to give the job of controlling the winds to Aeolus. There were four winds in ancient Greece: the West Wind, East Wind, North Wind, and South Wind. These winds kinda lived in a cave, and any time Aeolus needed to release one, he would punch a hole in the cave. Cool. Out of all these winds, there's really only one that makes an appearance every now and then, and that's Boreas, who's the Northern Wind. Just to be nice though, I'll give you the names of the other winds.
North: Boreas/Aquilo
West: Zephyr/Favonius
South: Notus/Auster
East: Eurus/Vulturnus
Zephyr is pretty important too, I guess, especially in the development of the Aphrodite coming out of the seafoam story because he was a major player; he brought her up to Olympus according to sources. A really famous depiction of this is in The Birth of Venus, where Zephyr and another wind god (anemoi) blow their winds toward Venus and Eirene, who's providing Venus (or Aphrodite) with clothing.
Ok, sorry. That really sidetracked me from the story I'm supposed to explain. Anyway, where were we? Oh right. Son of Aeolus, Daughter of Erechtheus. Got it.
So, Procris was happy enough to marry Cephalus, but someone else wasn't. Cephalus was so happy to marry Procris, but an envious goddess was jealous of Cephalus' love for Procris. That goddess was Eos, otherwise known as Aurora, the goddess of Dawn. Only a few weeks after Procris and Cephalus got hitched, Eos stole Procris' man and hid him away.
Cephalus was a real one though because even though a literal goddess had offered to marry him and love him, he still chose Procris. Eos was obviously not pleased about this, so she decided to keep Cephalus for a bit before messing with his head. She told him that he should just cheat on Procris with her because it's not like Procris would ever find out, and Eos went so far as to assure Cephalus that Procris was probably going to cheat on him anyway in the meantime when he was gone. Cephalus was a little skeptical, but Eos challenged his wife's fidelity.
Disguising Cephalus, Eos took him to Procris, and he offered his hand in marriage to Procris. Although Procris did sleep with him, Cephalus really couldn't be angry about this because he was sleeping with Eos anyway. However, Cephalus, as his disguised self, kept asking Procris to marry him. Procris always denied him. This went on for either months or years until finally, Procris hesitated. That was literally all it took. Cephalus revealed himself and called Procris a dirty cheater and a hoe. Procris was fed up with him and left him. She left Athens, and only then did Cephalus realize how stupid he'd been. (Eos was sick of him too and left after wrecking his marriage.)
Procris spent some time in the mountains, working out her kinks with Artemis, who gave her a beautiful spear, which would always hit its target. (This would not end well.) Eventually, after Cephalus apologized and begged on his knees for many years, Procris finally took him back. They had a lovely marriage that lasted for a few years, but Procris would not have a happy ending. One day, Cephalus was out hunting and heard noises from bushes, and he used the spear, which Artemis had given Procris. It hit its target, but Cephalus was struck in agony and devastation when he realized that he had hit his wife, who was only checking up on him. Pretty sad. Oh well. Next girl, who's up?
I'll go with a short one. One of Procris' lovely sisters was Orithyia, and remember Boreas, the god of the northern wind? Well, Boreas had fallen deeply in love with Orithyia and pled with Erechtheus for her hand in marriage. All the Athenians by this point hated northerners because of Tereus, that evil husband of Procne. So, they not-so-politely declined. Still, Boreas ended up getting Orithyia because he abducted her when she was playing by the riverbank. The couple would have twin sons: Calais and Zetes, famed Argonauts (we will get to that later). That wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't really a satisfactory ending.
Anyway, finally, there was Creusa. Remember Apollo, god of truth and light and goodness and stuff? Ok, well we kinda need a very tiny, itsy-bitsy side note about him.
Side note: so, Apollo is supposed to represent light and truth, but it so happens that he is a god and doesn't really follow his own rules. An example of him not allowing girls to consent is with Creusa as we'll get to, but it's also with one of his main myths: the myth of Daphne. Daphne was a nymph, the daughter of river god Peneus, and she adored Artemis. She wanted to be just like the goddess and be a virgin forever, only succumbing to the wilderness. Unfortunately, she was pretty hot, and Apollo chased after her, wanting her to be his bride. Daphne begged Artemis to forbid her brother to capture the poor nymph, so the other Olympians pitied Daphne, and as Apollo grabbed her, he found himself hugging a laurel tree, the first of its kind. Forevermore, Daphne was the laurel tree, and Apollo used laurel leaves to make himself wreathes. Needless to say, Apollo, despite being called the god of truth, often forced himself on young girls.
Creusa suffered a similar fate except she wasn't lucky enough to escape Apollo. When she was on a cliff, gathering crocuses for her bouquet or whatever, Apollo took her down to a dark cave and raped her before leaving her alone. Creusa ended up giving birth to a young boy, but she was terrified that her father would kill her for having relations before marriage (who would listen if she said a god had gotten her pregnant?) and swaddled the baby before leaving him in that very cave. Years later, Creusa got married to a foreigner named Xuthus, who desperately wanted children but wasn't blessed with the ability to get Creusa pregnant. Thinking of pregnancy, Creusa checked the cave and was surprised to find that there weren't any bloodstains. The child had just miraculously disappeared! Creusa wanted to find out what happened to her child, so she went to the oracle of Delphi and met a young man named Ion. Ion had appeared on the Pythia's doorstep as a baby and was reared by the prophetess ever since. Xuthus also met Ion and claimed him as his son, a gift from Apollo. Then the oracle of Delphi brought out a swaddle for Ion, which was what she had found him in. Surprise! Ion was Creusa's son! Athena came down to earth for some reason to tell Creusa that Ion was Apollo's gift, and everything was fine...
Basically, Creusa got raped, had Ion, abandoned him, married Xuthus, went to the Pythia, found Ion, didn't realize he was her son, adopted him, and realized he was her biological son. Makes sense? Good, it probably should because it's not really hard to understand. Yay!
