Lyssa ( ; ), also called Lytta (; ) by the Athenians, is a minor goddess in Greek mythology, the spirit of rage, fury,
The viral genus Lyssavirus, which includes the Rabies virus, was named after this goddess.
Etymology
Because seeds of
alyssum were used (unsuccessfully) to treat rabies, the flower was named after the disease with the prefix α- in front, meaning without. Thus Lyssa is the etymological origin of the feminine name
Alyssa.
Family
In
Euripides' play
Herakles, Lyssa is identified as the daughter of the night-goddess
Nyx, "sprung from the blood of Uranus"—that is, the blood from Uranus' wound following his castration by his son
Cronus.
The 1st-century Latin writer Hyginus lists Ira (Wrath, Lyssa) as the daughter of Terra (Gaia) and Aether.
[Grant 1960, p. 815] Lyssa could be occasionally be portrayed as a dog.
Mythology
Heracles
Lyssa personifies mad rage and frenzy, as well as rabies in animals. In
Herakles, she is called upon by
Hera to inflict the hero
Heracles with insanity. In this scenario, she arrives on her chariot and is portrayed as an unmarried virgin. She is shown to take a temperate, measured approach to her role, professing "not to use her in anger against friends, nor to have any joy in visiting the homes of men." She counsels Iris, who wishes to carry out Hera's command, against targeting Heracles but, after failing to persuade, bows to the orders of the superior goddess and sends him into a mad rage that causes him to murder his wife and children.
Actaeon
In a number of ancient Greek vases Lyssa appears on the scene of the death of
Actaeon, the hunter who was transformed into a deer and devoured by his own hounds for seeing
Artemis naked or trying to woo
Semele. In a 440s BC red-figure bell-krater by the
Lykaon Painter, Lyssa stands to the right of Actaeon, inflicting his dogs with rabies and directing them against him.
It has been theorised that the vase depicts the events of the myth as dramatised in Athenian tragedian
Aeschylus' lost play
Toxotides which dealt with Actaeon's death, although this assertion is far from certain.
In a different vase with Actaeon's death, Lyssa is present along with Aphrodite, Eros, Artemis and a woman that could be Semele, indicating a sexual nature of Actaeon's grave offence which led to him being eaten by his own rabid dogs.
Others
Lyssa also had a role in the myth of Lycurgus, the Thracian king who tried to ban the worship of
Dionysus, the god of madness. In an Apulian vase from around 350 BC, the winged Lyssa supplants Dionysus as the deity causing Lycurgus to attack and kill his wife and son.
Aeschylus identifies her as being the agent sent by Dionysus to madden the impious daughters of Cadmus, who in turn dismember their kinsman Pentheus.
See also
Notes
Ancient
Modern
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Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) VI.1., Zürich and Munich, Artemis Verlag, 1992. . Internet Archive.
External links
