Erinyes

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Two goddesses of revenge
(drawing from the 19th century after an antique vase)

The Erinyes or Erinyes ( ancient Greek Ἐρινύες , in the singular Ἐρινύς Erinys ; Latin Erinys, Erinnys ) - among the Greeks also as Μανίαι Maniai , "the mad ones ", later as Eumenids ( Εὐμενίδες ), with the Romans as furies ( furiae ) - are three goddesses of revenge in Greek mythology :

  • Alekto ( Ἀληκτώ ), "the (in her hunt) incessant"
  • Megaira ( Μέγαιρα , German also "Megäre"), "the envious anger ".
  • Tisiphone ( Τισιφόνη even Τεισιφόνη Teisiphone), "the retaliation " or "the murder Rächende ". She is often depicted on Greek amphorae with a dog's head and bat wings.

They represent the personified remorse. In the matriarchal context, they are considered defenders of matriarchal principles. They are related to the cult of the dead and fertility.

The name Eumenides, the well-meaning ones, was given to them after Aeschylus ' The Eumenides as a result of the trial against Orestes after they had lost their office and their power. This renaming is seen as a soothing and defensive euphemism , which points to the historical upheaval to the patriarchal principle that took place in the Oresty .

A furious woman is referred to as a “fury” or, more rarely, a “mega-fair”.

Mythological origin

The goddess of vengeance Tisiphone wields the torch of madness and empties the jug of poison over the happy royal couple Athamas and Ino .
( Engraving by Bernard Picart , 18th century)
Les Remords d'Oreste - Orestes is chased by furies.
( William Adolphe Bouguereau , 1862, Chrysler Collection, Norfolk )
  • According to Hesiod , the Erinyes of Gaia were born after the Titan Kronos emasculated his father Uranos with a sickle. From the reproductive member that fell into the sea, Aphrodite grew ; out of the blood that dripped onto the earth, besides the giants and melic nymphs, also the Erinyes arose .
  • According to other accounts, they were daughters of the night ( Nyx ) or daughters of Gaia and Skotos , the "darkness". The Orphics considered Hades and Persephone to be the parents of the Erinyes.
  • In Homer and in later Greek mythology, the Erinyes represented goddesses of revenge or protective goddesses of the moral order. They became terrible tools of revenge, especially when it came to murder (especially of blood relatives ), crimes against parents or the elderly, perjury , but also when the sacred customs were violated: as personifications of the power of curse (especially the curse by father and mother) and the claim to vengeance of the murdered. So they pursued Orestes after his matricide and drove him into a frenzy. The claims of the mothers were defended under all circumstances and first by them, but also those of the fathers and the older brothers, so that it did not help Orestes to have killed Clytaimnestra on the orders of the god Apollo - if he had not done it, Apollo would have in spite of it especially the Erinyes set on Orestes. Apollo supports all the characters who suffered from their mother (not just Orestes, another example is King Oedipus). It was only through Pallas Athene and the support of Apollo that Orestes was acquitted at the Athens court without detracting from the general veneration of the Erinyes. Since then, the Erinyes have been venerated in Athens - but not under their old name, but as the Eumenids ("well-meaning").
  • The Erinyes who live in the underworld are described as old but virginal hags with black skin; they dressed in gray robes, their hair was snakes, their smell was unbearable and poisonous drool or blood flowed from their eyes .
  • The Erinyes could also be invoked as a single one - Erinnys , "Vengeance". Together with Dike , "Justice", and Poine , "Punishment", she was one of the three helpers of the nemesis .
  • In the oresty of Aeschylus, the Erinyes play an important role as goddesses of revenge of the underworld. (Third tragedy of the trilogy: The Eumenides )

The Erinyes in post-ancient cultural history

In the literature of modern times and modern times the motif of the Erinyes is taken up again and again. In Dante's The Divine Comedy (Canto IX, verses 37-42) they appear when Dante approaches the lower hell in the inferno . Also in John Milton's epic Paradise Lost (1667) the Erinyes encountered as " harpy-footed furies". Goethe had them appear both in his Iphigenie auf Tauris (1786) and in his Faust II (1832). In Friedrich Schiller's ballad Die Kraniche des Ibykus (1797) the murderers of the singer Ibykus are convicted by virtue of their choral singing , in his ballad Der Ring des Polykrates (1798) King Polykrates consecrates his precious ring to them in order to protect himself from the vengeance of fate .

In Alfred Döblin's novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929), the main character Franz Biberkopf feels pursued by Erinyes because he killed his girlfriend. Kurt Tucholsky (1931) in his novel Schloss Gripsholm describes Frau Adriani as a mega-fairy . Three Erinyes appear as flies in Jean-Paul Sartre's drama The Flies (1943) . In the novel Homo faber. A report (1957) by Max Frisch , the "sleeping Erinnye" (the so-called Medusa Ludovisi) plays a role, since Faber unknowingly commits incest with his daughter Elisabeth and thus calls up the goddesses of revenge. The well-meaning is the title of a novel by Jonathan Littell, 2008 (French 2006: Les Bienveillantes ). In 2011, the American historian Michael S. Neiberg took up the motif of the “dance of the furies” in the title of his work on the mood among Europeans after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ovid , Metamorphoses iv.508-509
  2. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 183 ff.
  3. ↑ Aeschylus, The Eumenides 321
  4. ↑ Sophocles , King Oedipus
  5. ↑ Homer, Iliad 21: 412 and 9, 571; Homer, Odyssey 11, 279.
  6. ↑ Michael S. Neiberg: Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I . Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011.

Web links

Commons : Erinnyen  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files