Erinyes

English
Orestes Pursued by the Furies by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1862)

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Ἐρῑνύες (Erīnúes, literally “Avengers”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ɪˈɹɪniˌiːz/

Proper noun

Erinyes (singular Erinys)

  1. (Greek mythology) The 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.
    Synonyms: Eumenides, Furies
    Hyponyms: Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone
    Coordinate term: Dirae
    • 1999, Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece, University of California Press, page 252:
      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.
    • 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[Sophocles] 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.
    • 2020, Bridget Martin, Harmful Interaction between the Living and the Dead in Greek Tragedy, Liverpool University Press, page 161:
      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).

Translations

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