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The ERINYES are Alecto, Megaera,
and Tisiphone 1.
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Nature
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These spirits are detectors and avengers of
crime and wickedness. They are also called
goddesses of vengeance, ready to stab fear into the
hearts of mortals. The ERINYES along with the
MOERAE are the steersmen
of a great goddess:
Ananke (Necessity). The
ERINYES pursue and punish those who are guilty of
bloodshed, defilement or impiety. They say:
"We claim to
be just and upright. No wrath from us will come
stealthily to the one who holds out clean hands,
and he will go through life unharmed; but whoever
sins and hides his blood-stained hands, as avengers
of bloodshed we appear against him to the end,
presenting ourselves as upright witnesses for the
dead." [The ERINYES. Aeschylus,
Eumenides
310]
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Origin
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This is how the ERINYES came to be:
Cronos the Titan
revolted against the first ruler of the universe,
his father Uranus, and
waiting for him in an ambush took a long sickle
with jagged teeth, cut off
Uranus' genitals, and
cast them away to fall behind him [see
Castration of
Uranus]. The bloody drops that gushed forth
were received by the Earth
(Gaia), and in time she
bore the ERINYES, the
GIANTS and the MELIAD
NYMPHS (Nymphs of the
ash-trees).
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Orestes 2's case
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Orestes 2, for
having killed his own mother
Clytaemnestra, was
pursued by the ERINYES, and afflicted with madness,
because as they declare:
"We drive
matricides from their homes ... Since a mother's
blood leads us, we will pursue our case against
this man and we will hunt him down ..." [The
ERINYES. Aeschylus,
Eumenides
210, 230]
And so they said to
Orestes 2:
"Allow us in
return to suck the red blood from your living
limbs. May we feed on you -a gruesome drink! We
will wither you alive and drag you down, so that
you pay atonement for your murdered mother's agony.
" [The ERINYES. Aeschylus,
Eumenides
265]
When Orestes 2 went
mad, he bit off one finger of one of his hands. It
is told that when the ERINYES were about to put
Orestes 2 out of his
mind, they appeared to him black, but that once he
had bitten off his finger they appeared to be
white, and seeing them under this new color, he
recovered his mind. So he made a sin-offering to
the black goddesses of wrath (ERINYES) to avert
them while to the white deities of blessing
(EUMENIDES) he made a thank-offering.
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Other interventions
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This is also the case of Alcmaeon 1, who also
became mad after killing his mother Eriphyle
because of the ERINYES pursuing him [see
Robe & Necklace of Harmonia
1]. The ERINYES are also reported to have
tortured Theseus and
Pirithous when they descended to the
Underworld. They had
come because Pirithous wished to marry
Persephone. So when
Hades learned about this
preposterous desire, he had them stretched out and
tortured for a long time by the ERINYES.
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Fearful trinity
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The ERINYES are Alecto,
Megaera,and Tisiphone 1.
Tisiphone 1 sits wrapped in a
bloodstained robe, and guards the entrance to
Tartarus, the place
of punishment. Tisiphone 1 is the one who
drove mad both Ino and
Athamas 1, and when
Athamas 1 was out of
his mind, he hunted his elder son Learchus as a
deer and killed him. Alecto is said to be a
maker of grief, a spirit who revels in war and
quarrels. She was believed to be able to set
brothers of one mind at one another's throats, or
to torment a home with hatred.
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Looking like them to commit crimes
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Some say that Aeschylus was the first to
represent the ERINYES with snakes in their hair.
But even if otherwise there is nothing specially
terrible in their appearance, they were frightening
enough to be used in special performances: it is
told that when Polyxo 4 decided to kill
Helen, she sent against
her, when she was bathing, servants dressed up as
ERINYES, who seized Helen
and hanged her on a tree.
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