Meaning of Erinyes | Babel Free

Definitions

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.

Greek

Equivalents

Examples

“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 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.”

“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).”

CEFR level