ERINYES – מילון אנגלי-אנגלי
Erinyes
In
Greek mythology the
Erinyes (;
sing. Erinys ; ,
pl. of ,
Erinys), also known as
Furies, were female
chthonic deities of
vengeance; they were sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses" . A formulaic oath in the
Iliad invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath".
Burkert suggests they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath". They correspond to the
Dirae in
Roman mythology, and some suppose that they are called Furies in hell,
Harpies on earth, and Dirae in heaven.
Erinyes
Noun
1. (classical mythology) the hideous snake-haired monsters (usually three in number) who pursued unpunished criminals
(synonym) Fury, Eumenides
(hypernym) mythical monster, mythical creature
(hyponym) Alecto
(classification) classical mythology
Erinyes
(pl. )
of Erinys
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), edited by Noah Porter.
About
Erinyes
[Greek] The avengers of wrong. This article is being revised.
Erinyes
Erinyes (Greek) [cf Latin Furae furies] Also Dirae. Furies, avenging goddesses; sometimes legion, sometimes three in number, according to the point of view of the ancient writers, named by Alexandrian authors, copying Euripides: Tisiphone (avenger of the slain), Megaera (the jealous), and Alecto (unceasing hatred). Their mission was to follow and reform evil doers, which has popularly been misunderstood to be persecution. Aeschylus speaks of them as being daughters of Night, Sophocles as being born of Darkness and Earth, and Hesiod as having sprung from the blood of the injured Uranus. They dwell in the underworld, whence they issue to pursue the wicked towards reformation and the reestablishment of all broken natural equilibrium; upon the expiation of crime in Aeschylus they transform themselves into gracious and beneficent deities called the Eumenides. In Athens they were known as Semnae (the venerable ones).
The Erinyes or Eumenides are thus seen as beings who function almost automatically as karmic agents in the restoration of broken or disturbed equilibrium in the universe, and therefore are inherent in the vegetative and automatic functions of nature; thus the human body, as an analogy, when injured in some part, will attempt by latent and automatic restorative functions, as it were, to heal the injury. Their functions therefore in the world are seen at once as avengers and beneficent healers or eumenides.
