Erinyes

singular Erinys

1. Greekhuman sciencesThe 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.

   The Erinyes, as defenders of older mother-right, deny the possibility of absolution for the slayer of a mother.

   1924, Herbert Weir Smyth, “VIII. Orestea. III: Eumenides”, in Aeschylean Tragedy, page 227

   3 more 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.

   1999, Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece, University of California Press, page 252

   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).

   2020, Bridget Martin, Harmful Interaction between the Living and the Dead in Greek Tragedy, Liverpool University Press, page 161

   Synonyms: Eumenides, Furies