teumessian fox

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The Alopekos Teumesios was an enormous Fox sent by the gods to the countryside of Thebes as punishment for some unnamed and terrible crime. Kreon, then Regent of Thebes, set Amphitryon the impossible task of destroying the beast - impossible because the fox was destined never to be caught. Lailaps, an animal which was destined always to catch its quarry, was the magical hound put to the hunt.

OVID:
"Some rising ground commanded the wide fields; I climbed the top and gained a grandstand view of that strange chase; one moment the beast’s caught the next the death-wound’s missed him--he’s escaped. His course was cunning, never straight for long; he doubled back and circled to deceive the chasing jaws, to foil his foe’s assault. The hound pressed close, clung step for step; it seemed he’d got him, but he failed and snapped the air. My javelin must help, I thought, and while I weighed it in my hand and tried to fit my fingers in the loop, I glanced aside, and when I looked again--amazing sight!--there in the open plain below I saw two marble statues, one of them, you’d swear, in flight, the other pouncing on its prey. Some god, if gods were watching, must have willed that both should be unbeaten in that chase."

An uncatchable fox pursued thus
by an unavoidable hound.

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