Erinyes
In
Greek mythology the
Erinyes or
Eumenides (the
Romans called them the
Furies) were female personifications of
vengeance. When a formulaic oath in the
Iliad (iii.278ff; xix.260ff) invokes "those who beneath the earth punish whoever has sworn a false oath"—"the Erinyes are simply an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath" (Burkert 1985 p 198). They were usually said to have been born from the blood of
Uranus when
Cronus castrated him. According to a variant account, they issued from an even more primordial level—from
Nyx, "Night". Their number is usually left indeterminate, though
Virgil, probably working from an
Alexandrian source, recognized three:
Alecto ("unceasing," who appeared in Virgil's
Aeneid),
Megaera ("grudging"), and
Tisiphone ("avenging murder"). The heads of the Erinyes were wreathed with serpents (compare
Gorgon), their eyes dripped with blood, and their whole appearance was horrific and appalling. Sometimes they had the wings of a bat or bird, or the body of a dog.
|
Two Furies, from an ancient vase. |
The Erinyes generally stood for the rightness of things within the standard order; for example,
Heraclitus declared that if
Helios decided to change the course of the
Sun through the sky, they would prevent him from doing so. But for the most part they were understood as the persecutors of mortal men and women who broke "natural" laws. In particular, those who broke ties of kinship through parricide, murdering a brother (fratricide), or other such familial killings brought special attention from the Erinyes. It was believed in early epochs that human beings might not have the right to punish such crimes, instead leaving the matter to the dead man's Erinyes to exact retribution.
The Erinyes were connected with
Nemesis as enforcers of a just balance in human affairs. The goddess
Nike originally filled a similar role, as the bringer of a
just victory. When not stalking victims on Earth, the Furies were thought to dwell in
Tartarus, where they applied their tortures to the damned souls there.
The Erinyes are particularly known for the
persecution of Orestes for the murder of his mother,
Clytemnestra. Since
Apollo had told
Orestes to kill the murderer of his father,
Agamemnon, and that person turned out to be his mother, Orestes prayed to him. Athena intervened and the Erinyes turned into the
Eumenides ("kindly ones"), as they were called in their beneficial aspects.
Many scholars believe that when they were originally referred to as the Eumenides it was not to reference their good sides but as a
euphemism to avoid their wrath that would ensue from calling them by their true name. This
taboo on speaking the names of certain uncanny spirits included
Persephone; there are parallels in many cultures (for instance, the tendency to refer to
faeries as "the fair folk" or "the
little people"). The Erinyes might also be recognized as
Semnai ("the venerable ones"), the
Potniae ("the Awful Ones"), the
Maniae ("the Madnesses") and the
Praxidikae ("the Vengeful Ones").
Another myth says that the Erinyes struck the magical horse Xanthus dumb for rebuking Achilles.
The Furies (their
Roman name) or
Dirae ("the terrible") typically had the effect of driving their victims insane, hence their
Latin name
furor.
*In
The Divine Comedy Dante sees the Erinyes at the gates of the city of Dis, which is the entry point to the four lower circles of Hell.
*
Leconte de Lisle's tragedy "Les Érinnyes" (1872), with accompanying music composed by
Massenet.
*
Jean-Paul Sartre's 1943 play
The Flies (
Les Mouches) uses a retelling of the
Oresteia (with the titular Flies being the Furies) in a modern perspective against religion [
1].
*A short story by
Orson Scott Card titled
Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory features a character haunted by horribly deformed fetuses with expressionless faces, gnashing teeth, and flippers equipped with vicious suction-cups, who torment him after he molests his 14 year old daughter.
*
Fury, a novel by
Salman Rushdie has the protaginist Malik Solanka falling prey to the afflictions of the three
Furies.
*There is a song by
A Perfect Circle, entitled "Orestes," that refers to the Erinyes.
*The Furies are invoked by
Hippolyta Hall in the ninth collection of the
DC comic book series
The Sandman,
The Kindly Ones (which is also named for a translation of a name used for the Furies,
Eumenides), because she mistakenly believes that
Dream had kidnapped and murdered her child. Officially, the Furies are able to target Dream because he had recently killed his son
Orpheus, and the Furies may take revenge on anyone who has shed family blood.
*In
Wildstorm's
The Authority: Human on the Inside, the Furies show up at the request of Dr. Ledbedder to initiate the destruction of the Authority. They claim to punish all who believe themselves good (that is, have superpowers).
*Erinyes have been adapted in the TV series
Charmed. They were portrayed as dog-faced women from Hell. They were called Furies and attacked human sinners with deadly smoke.
*In the
science fiction novel
Path of the Fury by
David Weber, Tisiphone, having died when the worship of Greek gods ceased, reappears in the far future. She finds a powerful mind that has suffered a great wrong, and embarks upon a path of destruction to correct it. This involves stealing a powerful starship and wreaking havoc on an interstellar scale.
*In the eponymous track of his first album,
Rob Dougan calls them
Furious Angels and poetically imagines that his love for a woman is so strong that, should she leave him, "furious angels will bring you back to me".
*In
Stephen King's novel
Rose Madder, Erinyes is a bull, blind in one eye, that lives in a maze within a painting.
*
Erinys, named after Erinyes, is a British security company.
*In
Robert Weinberg's sorcery-meets-modern-society novel
A Calculated Magic, the Erinyes (referred to only as
The Kindly Ones, the
Furies, and the
Eumenides) are regularly hired by a
KGB operative to assassinate his targets for him.
*In
Dungeons & Dragons,
erinyes are a kind of
baatezu fiend charged with the temptation of mortals into evil deeds and service to the Nine Hells of
Baator.
*Xena suffered a similar persecution to Orestes at the hand of three Furies in the third season opener of
Xena: Warrior Princess. Orestes also had a small cameo in the show, where it was shown how he was punished with madness by the Furies until he killed his mother to avenge his father's death, only to be punished with madness again for the act of
matricide. When
Gabrielle discovers Orestes in an insane asylum, the keeper tells her "If they persecuted him for not avenging his father's murder, what were they going to do to him for killing his mother? There was no way out for him."
*In
Terry Brooks's
The Elfstones of Shannara, mystic
Druid Allanon battles Furies and the Dagda Mor in his escape from the Druid Keep, Paranor.
*Erinyes appeared in
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and
Aria of Sorrow as well, as an enemy monster with the name "Erinys".
*The MMORPG
Redmoon Online has a set of unique armor pieces called the "Erinyes Set". The set consist of a helmet, an armor plate, an armored pair of pants and a shield. Individually, they would increase a character's attack and defense by a various percentage, but if all were equipped, they would provide an additional bonus.
*"
Alecto" is the name of a particularly vicious
witch in the
Harry Potter series.
*In the computer game
FreeSpace 2, the Erinyes is a class of assault fighter. In the original FreeSpace's expansion pack,
Silent Threat, the Eumenides Project is a sensitive weapons research program.
*In the computer game
Nethack, Erinyes can appear as randomly generated monsters with a limit of three per game.
*"The Eumenides" appeared as a minor character in the play "The Family Reunion" (1939) by T.S Eliot. Their presence in the play prompts "Harry" to abandon the fate his mother has prepared for him. Although their presence terrifies Harry, he learns to trust them and join them
*There are three hollowed asteroids named Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone in
Melissa Scott's "Five Twelfths of Heaven" (1985) which together with Phobos and Demos make a base for an underworld (criminal) group. Alecto is marked with the face of a fury.
*The
Galactic Milieu Series by
Julian May includes a character named Fury, whose true identity is a mystery. His identity is revealed in the final book of the series, where it is also revealed that they were created by a violation of the natural order of family relationships. (More details withheld because it is a plot spoiler.)
*
Nemesis (mythology)*
Karma*
LilithIliad xiv.274-9; xix.259f.
*
Virgil,
Aeneid vii, 324, 341, 415, 476.
*
Burkert, Walter, 1977 (tr. 1985).
Greek Religion (Harvard University Press)
