Érinyes - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Ascent

Girls of Gaïa and the blood of Ouranos mutilated according to Hésiode, they are divinities chtoniennes. Their number remains generally unspecified, though Virgile, being surely inspired by a alexandrine source, counts three of them:

Tisiphone (the Avenger one of the murder);
Shrew (the Enchantress);
Alecto (the Relentless).

Épiménide makes of them the sisters of the Moires, girls of Cronos and Eurynomé, Eschyle the girls of Nyx (the Night), Sophocle the girls of Gaïa and Scotos, Ténèbre. In the orphic traditions, they are born from Hadès and Perséphone (this attachment with the infernal world also finds in Iliade ).

Role

Old divinities, they are not subjected to Zeus and live the Érèbe (or the Tartar , according to the traditions), the world of the lower part, resting until they are again called on Earth. In spite of their divine ascent, the Olympian gods test a deep repulsion for these beings which they do nothing but tolerate. On their side, the men fear them and flee them. It is this marginalisation and the need for recognition which it involves which, at Eschyle, leads Érinyes to accept the verdict of Athéna and this in spite of their inexhaustible thirst for revenge.

They personify the curse launched by somebody and are charged to punish the crimes during the life of their author, and not afterwards. However, their sphere of activity being unlimited, if the author of the crime dies, it will continue it until in the underground world. Right but without mercy, no prayer neither sacrifice can move them, nor to prevent them from achieving their task. They refuse the extenuating circumstances and punish all offenses against the company and with nature such as the perjury, the violation of the rites of hospitality and especially the crimes or the homicide against the family. In the beginning, the human beings cannot nor should not punish the horrible crimes. It returns in Érinyes to continue the murderer of the assassinated man and to draw revenge from it. Némésis corresponds to a similar concept, and its function recovers that of Érinyes.

These hideous avenger divinities have:

of large wings;
of the snakes for hair;
of the whips and the torches;
of the blood which runs their eyes.

They were compared with the Gorgone S, the Grées like with the Harpies because of their alarming and dark appearance and of little contact which they maintain with the Olympian gods.

They torment those which make the evil. They inlassablement continue them on the ground while making them insane. In the broad sense, Érinyes are protective established order. In Iliade , they remove the word with Xanthe, the Cheval of Achille, and deprive Phœnix of descent. The philosopher Héraclite says that if the sun decided to reverse its race, they would prevent it. In Electra of Giraudoux, they are represented by three cynical and malicious young girls with the very fast growth (of little girl has adult in a few days), called the Three Euménides. They sing satirical counting rhymes on the characters of the part and will continue Oreste until the loss of its reason.

Tragedy of Eschyle

In Euménides of Eschyle, the third part of Orestie , Érinyes continue Oreste. This one keep silent his/her mother, Clytemnestre, to avenge the murder for his/her father Agamemnon. With the first representation, this Tragédie causes a true terror among spectators. Érinyes form the chorus. The representations which reached us to us to them show holding of the torches and the whips. They are also sometimes surrounded by Serpent S.

Only the act made by Oreste interests Érinyes. It is question neither of judging it nor to find extenuating circumstances to him. Apollon itself must be opposed to their revenge relentless, although he encouraged the murder of Clytemnestre by Oreste and that he grants his protection to him. Érinyes, brings back Eschyle to us, continue Oreste until Delphes, the most important sanctuary of Apollon. They deliver it only when the gods persuade them to accept the verdict of the court of Athens, the Aréopage.

There, Athéna intervenes like sponsors city and balances the votes. Oreste is discharged, but it must bring back Tauride a crowned statue of Artémis. Érinyes are then accommodated in Athens in the more lenient form of the “Euménides” (the benevolent ones) or of the “ Semnai Theai ” (worthy goddesses).

Érinyes also continue Alcméon, which killed his/her mother. Like Oreste, Apollon encouraged it to avenge his father. II is pursued by Érinye through the Greece, until it finds refuge on a ground which does not exist yet at the time of the murder of his/her mother, thus escaping the capacity from its prosecuting.

Worship

One sacrificed black sheep, and drinkings to them of νηφάλια / nêphália , mixture of Honey and water.

There is in Arcadie a place which has two sanctuaries devoted to Érinyes. In one of both, they bear the name of Μανίαι / Maníai (Handled, those which make insane). It is in this place that, vêtues of black, they attack Oreste for the first time. Not far from there, Pausanias tells, is another sanctuary where them worship is associated with that of the Charites (“goddesses of the remission”). It is in these places that they purify Oreste, vêtues of white. After its cure, it offers an expiatory sacrifice to Mania.

Sources

(I, 1,4).
(III, 46).
, (v. 516), and.
.
(v. 185), (v. 803).
(IX, 455-457; XV, 170; XIX, 259; XXI, 380).
(X, 97).
(VI, 430-431; VIII, 482; IX, 410; X, 46).
(VIII, 34).
.
(VI, 250; XII, 844 and suiv.).
Jean Giraudoux, Electra

See too

Oreste
Handled

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