In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, a harpy (plural harpies, ,[Of uncertain etymology; R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin ( Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 139).][Homer, Odyssey 20.66 & 77]
Descriptions
Harpies were generally depicted as birds with the heads of maidens, faces pale with hunger and long claws on their hands. Roman and Byzantine writers detailed their ugliness.
[Virgil, Aeneid 3.216; John Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 653; Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.4; Fasti 6.132; Hyginus, Fabulae 14] Pottery art depicting the harpies featured beautiful women with wings.
Ovid described them as human-
.
[Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.4]
Hesiod
To
Hesiod, they were imagined as fair-locked and winged maidens, who flew as fast as the wind:
Aeschylus
Even as early as the time of
Aeschylus, harpies were thought to be ugly creatures with wings, and later writers carried their notions of the harpies so far as to represent them as most disgusting monsters. The
Sibyl of
Apollo compares the appearance of the
Erinyes, chthonic goddesses of vengeance, with those of harpies in the following lines of
Oresteia:
Virgil
Hyginus
Functions and abodes
The harpies seem originally to have been wind spirits (personifications of the destructive nature of wind).
[Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 167: "Allegorically, harpies are the winds, as they are now, from the act of flying in the air." & 653 "and the winds are called harpies and names of winged female demons"] Their name means 'snatchers' or 'swift robbers',
[Adrian Room, Who's Who in Classical Mythology, p. 147 ] and they were said to steal food from their victims while they were eating and carry evildoers (especially those who have killed their families) to the
Erinyes. When a person suddenly disappeared from the
Earth, it was said that he had been carried off by the harpies.
[Homer, Odyssey 1.241 & 14.371] Thus, they carried off the daughters of King
Pandareus and gave them as servants to the Erinyes.
[Homer, Odyssey 20.78] In this form they were agents of punishment who abducted people and tortured them on their way to
Tartarus. They were depicted as vicious, cruel, and violent.
The harpies were called "the hounds of mighty Zeus" thus "ministers of the Thunderer (Zeus)".[Valerius Flaccus, 4.425] Later writers listed the harpies among the guardians of the Hades among other monstrosities including the , Scylla, Hecatoncheires, Lernaean Hydra, Chimera, and Geryon.[Virgil, Aeneid 6.287 ff.; Seneca, Hercules Furens 747 ff.]
Their abode was described as either the islands called Strofades,[Virgil, Aeneid 3.210] a place at the entrance of Orcus,[Virgil, Aeneid 6.289] or a cave in Crete.[Apollonius Rhodius, 2.298]
Names and family
Hesiod calls them two "lovely-haired" creatures, the daughters of
Thaumas and the
Oceanid Electra and sisters of Iris.
[Hesiod, Theogony 265–267; Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 167] Hyginus, however, cited a certain Ozomene
[Hyginus, Fabulae 14] as the mother of the harpies but he also recounted that Electra was also the mother of these beings in the same source. This can be explained by the fact that Ozomene was another name for Electra. The harpies possibly were siblings of the river-god Hydaspes
[Nonnus, Dionysiaca 26.351ff.] and
Arke,
[Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History 6; Photius, Bibliotheca 190] as they were called sisters of Iris and children of Thaumas. According to Valerius, Typhoeus (
Typhon) was said to be the father of these monsters
while a different version by Servius told that the harpies were daughters of Pontus and Gaea or of
Poseidon.
[Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 3.241]
They were named Aello ("storm swift") and Ocypete ("the swift wing"),[Hesiod, Theogony 265; Apollodorus, 1.121–123] and Virgil added Celaeno ("the dark") as a third.[Homer, Iliad 16.148] Aello is sometimes also spelled Aellopus or Nicothoe; Ocypete is sometimes also spelled Ocythoe or Ocypode.
Homer called the harpy Podarge as the mother of the two horses (Balius and Xanthus) of Achilles sired by the West Wind Zephyrus[Homer, Iliad 16.150; Quintus Smyrnaeus, 3.743 ff.] while according to Nonnus, Xanthus and Podarkes, horses of the Athenian king Erechtheus, were born to Aello and the North Wind Boreas.[Nonnus, Dionysiaca 37.155] Other progeny of Podarge were Phlogeus and Harpagos, horses given by Hermes to the Dioscuri, who competed for the chariot-race in celebration of the funeral games of Pelias.[Stesichorus, fr. 178] The swift horse Arion was also said to begotten by loud-piping Zephyrus on a harpy (probably Podarge), as attested by Quintus Smyrnaeus.[Quintus Smyrnaeus, 4.569 ff.]
| + Names and family of harpies according to various sources |
|
| Parents | Thaumas and Electra | not stated | not stated | not stated | Typhoeus | Thaumas and Electra | Thaumas and Electra or Ozomene | not stated | not stated | Pontus and Gaea or Poseidon | |
| Names | Aello | Podarge | Podarge | | not stated | Aello or Nicothoe | Aellopus or Podarce | Aellopos | Podarge | not stated | |
| Ocypete | | | | Ocypete, Ocythoe or Ocypode | Ocypete | – | | |
| | | | Celaeno | | Celaeno | | | |
| Mate | – | Zephyrus | not stated | – | – | – | – | Boreas | Zephyrus | – | |
| Progeny | – | Balius and Xanthus | Phlogeus and Harpagos | – | – | – | – | Xanthus and Podarkes | Balius and Xanthus; Arion | – | |
Mythology
The most celebrated story in which the harpies play a part is that of King
Phineus of
Thrace, who was given the gift of
prophecy by Zeus. Angry that Phineus gave away the god's secret plan, Zeus punished him by blinding him and putting him on an island with a buffet of food which he could never eat because the harpies always arrived to steal the food out of his hands before he could satisfy his hunger. Later writers add that they either devoured the food themselves, or that they dirtied it by dropping upon it some stinking substance, so as to render it unfit to be eaten.
This continued until the arrival of Jason and the Argonauts. Phineus promised to instruct them respecting the course they had to take, if they would deliver him from the harpies. The Boreads, sons of Boreas, the North Wind, who also could fly, succeeded in driving off the harpies. According to an ancient oracle, the harpies were to perish by the hands of the Boreades, but the Boreades were to die if they could not overtake the harpies. The harpies fled, but one fell into the river Tigris, which was hence called Harpys, and the other reached the Echinades, and as she never returned, the islands were called Strophades. But being worn out with fatigue, she fell down simultaneously with her pursuer; and, as they promised no further to molest Phineus, the two harpies were not deprived of their lives.[Apollodorus, 1.9.21] According to others, the Boreades were on the point of killing the harpies, when Iris or Hermes appeared and commanded the conquerors to set them free, promising that Phineus would not be bothered by the harpies again. "The dogs of great Zeus" then returned to their "cave in Minoan Crete". Other accounts said that both the harpies as well as the Boreades died.[Scholia ad Apollonius of Rhodes, 1.286 & 297; Tzetzes, Chiliades 1.217] Thankful for their help, Phineus told the Argonauts how to pass the Symplegades.[Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.710; Virgil, Aeneid 3.211 & 245]
Tzetzes explained the origin of the myth pertaining to Phineus, the harpies, and the Boreades in his account. In this late version of the myth it was said that Phineus, due to his old age, became blind, and he has two daughters named Eraseia and Harpyreia. These maidens lived a very libertine and lazy life, abandoning themselves to poverty and fatal famine. Then Zetes and Calais snatched them away somehow, and they disappeared from those places ever since. From this account all myths about them i.e., started, as was also retold by Apollonius in his own story of the Argonauts.[Tzetzes ad Lycophron , 166; Chiliades 1.220; Palaephaust, 23.3]
Aeneid
Aeneas encountered harpies on the Strophades as they repeatedly made off with the feast the
Troy were setting.
Celaeno utters a prophecy: the Trojans will be so hungry they will eat their tables before they reach the end of their journey. The Trojans fled in fear.
Later usage
Literature
Harpies remained vivid in the
Middle Ages. In Canto XIII of his
Inferno,
Dante Alighieri envisages the tortured wood infested with harpies, where the
have their punishment in the seventh ring of Hell:
In Canto XXXIII of Orlando Furioso, author Ludovico Ariosto has the Christian Ethiopian Emperor Senapo (Prester John) afflicted with harpies under circumstances nearly identical to those in the myth of Phineus. He has been blinded by God himself, and the harpies contaminate his every meal. Senapo is delivered from this torment by Astolfo, a paladin from the court of Charlemagne.[Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso 33.101]
William Blake was inspired by Dante's description in his pencil, ink, and watercolour (Tate Gallery, London).
Harpies also found a role in Shakespeare's The Tempest, where the spirit Ariel tortured the antagonists Antonio, Sebastian, and Alonso for their crimes by staging a banquet scene similar to that in the Aeneid.|198x198px]]
Linguistic use and application
The
harpy eagle is a real bird named after the mythological animal.
The term is often used metaphorically to refer to a nasty or annoying woman. In Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Benedick spots the sharp-tongued Beatrice approaching and exclaims to the prince, Don Pedro, that he would do an assortment of arduous tasks for him "rather than hold three words conference with this harpy!"
Heraldry
In the
Middle Ages, the harpy, referred to in German as the
[Arthur Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry, T. C. and E. C. Jack, London, 1909, p 229.] or "maiden eagle" (although it may not have been modeled after the original harpy of Greek mythology), became a popular charge in
heraldry, particularly in
East Frisia, seen on, among others, the
coat-of-arms of Rietberg, Liechtenstein, and the
Cirksena. Among the earliest examples is the city of Nuremberg's device, which used the harpy as early as 1243.
The harpy also appears in British heraldry, although it remains a peculiarly German device.
See also
Notes
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Aeschylus, translated in two volumes. 2. Eumenides by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1926. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
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Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
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Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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Gaius Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica translated by Mozley, J H. Loeb Classical Library Volume 286. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. Online version at theio.com.
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Gaius Valerius Flaccus, Argonauticon. Otto Kramer. Leipzig. Teubner. 1913. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Hesiod, Theogony from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
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Homer, Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Homer, Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920. . Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Homer, Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
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Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragedies. Translated by Miller, Frank Justus. Loeb Classical Library Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1917. Online version at theio.com.
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Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragoediae. Rudolf Peiper. Gustav Richter. Leipzig. Teubner. 1921. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Maurus Servius Honoratus, In Vergilii carmina comentarii. Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii; recensuerunt Georgius Thilo et Hermannus Hagen. Georgius Thilo. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1881. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Nonnus, Dionysiaca translated by William Henry Denham Rouse (1863-1950), from the Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1940. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca. 3 Vols. W.H.D. Rouse. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1940-1942. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Ovid, Fasti translated by James G. Frazer. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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Publius Ovidius Naso, Fasti. Sir James George Frazer. London; Cambridge, MA. William Heinemann Ltd.; Harvard University Press. 1933. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses translated by Brookes More (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses. Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Virgil, Aeneid. Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Publius Vergilius Maro, Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy translated by Way. A. S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 19. London: William Heinemann, 1913. Online version at theio.com
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Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy. Arthur S. Way. London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1913. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Scholia to Lycophron Alexandra, marginal notes by Isaak and Ioannis Tzetzes and others from the Greek edition of Eduard Scheer (Weidmann 1881). Online version at the Topos Text Project..
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John Tzetzes, Histories or Chiliades unedited translation by Ana Untila (Book I), Gary Berkowitz (II-IV), Konstantinos Ramiotis (V-VI), Vasiliki Dogani (VII-VIII), Jonathan Alexander (IX-X), Muhammad Syarif Fadhlurrahman (XI), and Nikolaos Giallousis (XII-XIII), with translation adjustments by Brady Kiesling affecting about 15 percent of the total . These translations are based on the 1826 Greek edition of Theophilus Kiesslingius. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
External links
