Erinyes
English
![](Images/wiktionary/Orestes_Pursued_by_the_Furies_by_William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1862)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.webp)
Orestes Pursued by the Furies by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1862)
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek Ἐρῑνύες (Erīnúes, literally “Avengers”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɪˈɹɪniˌiːz/
Proper noun
Erinyes (singular Erinys)
- (Greek mythology) The Furies; the goddesses of vengeance against serious moral offence (such as oath-breaking), latterly known as protectors of Athens, of pre-Olympian origin and variously described as having sprung from the spilled blood of Uranus or as daughters of Nyx; identified with the Roman Dirae.
- Synonyms: Eumenides, Furies
- Hyponyms: Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone
- Coordinate term: Dirae
- 1999, Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece, University of California Press, page 252,
- In six of the twelve Homeric passages in which Erinys or the Erinyes are mentioned, the common denominator is a crime or insult that occurs between blood kin: The Erinyes take action when a son steals his father's concubine, a son kills his father and marries his mother, two brothers argue, a son angers his mother, a man kills his mother's brother, or a son chases his mother out of her home.
- 2018, Stephen Rendall (translator), Jacques Jouanna, Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, [2008, Jacques Jouanna, Sophocle], Princeton University Press, page 393,
- First, he[Sophocles] now envisages several Erinyes: then he designates, using a poetic metaphor already employed by Aeschylus in The Libation Bearers,154 that of hunting hounds pursuing game that cannot escape them.
- 2020, Bridget Martin, Harmful Interaction between the Living and the Dead in Greek Tragedy, Liverpool University Press, page 161,
- Apollo's help and defence of Orestes is taken by the Erinyes as a threat to their own honour and to the perpetuation of their ancient privilege to pursue murderers (169–74).
Translations
Greek goddesses of vengeance — See also translations at Furies
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Further reading
Erinyes on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Poena on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Nemesis on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Triple deity on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Erinyes on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons