Everything about Dirae totally explained
In
Greek mythology the
Erinyes (Ερινύες) or
Eumenides (or
Furies in
Roman mythology) were female,
chthonic deities of
vengeance or
supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead. A formulaic oath in the
Iliad (iii.278ff; xix.260ff) invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whoever has sworn a false
oath." Burkert suggests they're "an embodiment of the act of self-
cursing contained in the oath".
When
Cronos castrated his father
Ouranos and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of
blood, while
Aphrodite was born from the seafoam. According to a variant account, they issued from an even more primordial level—from
Nyx, "Night". Their number is usually left indeterminate.
Virgil, probably working from an
Alexandrian source, recognized three:
Alecto ("unceasing," who appeared in Virgil's
Aeneid),
Megaera ("grudging"), and
Tisiphone ("avenging murder").
Dante followed Virgil in depicting the same three-charactered triptych of Erinyes. The heads of the Erinyes were wreathed with
serpents (compare
Gorgon) and their eyes dripped with blood, rendering their appearance rather horrific. Sometimes they'd the
wings of a
bat or
bird and the body of a
dog.
Erinyes in Mythology
The Erinyes often 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'd prevent him from doing so. Predominantly, they were understood as the persecutors of mortal men and women who broke natural laws. In particular, those who broke ties of kinship through murdering a father (patricide), 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 of retribution to the dead man's Erinyes.
The Erinyes were connected with
Nemesis as enforcers of a just balance in human affairs. The goddess
Nike originally held 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 instances portraying their more positive, beneficial qualities.
Nonetheless, many scholars believe that when they were originally referred to as the Eumenides, it wasn't to reference their good sides but as a
euphemism to avoid the wrath that would ensue from calling them by their true name. The
taboo in speaking the names of certain uncanny spirits included
Persephone, and 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") the
Praxidikae ("the Just-doers") and
Kampesigounoi
("bending the knees").
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.
Modern age references
The Erinyes are the main subject of the comic book from comic book series
Sandman.
The Furies are what three girls looking to murder Cam and Alex in the book series
T*Witches call themselves, as they live in underground caves.
They are monsters in the series
Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
In
T. S. Eliot's play
The Family Reunion, the protagonist Harry is haunted by the Eumenides for killing his wife.
Tisiphone appears and is a major character (and the others are mentioned) in
David Weber's book
The Path of the Fury and its expanded version
In Fury Born.
The furies are also in the series Xena Warrior Princess.
In the series Ares God of War works with them.
The furies can bring insanity, if you killed your own family.
Further Information
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