![]() ![]() I have never seen the tribe that produced this company, nor the land that boasts of rearing this brood with impunity and does not grieve for its labor afterwards. Once before I saw some creatures in a painting, carrying off the feast of Phineus but these are wingless in appearance, black, altogether disgusting they snore with repulsive breaths, they drip from their eyes hateful drops their attire is not fit to bring either before the statues of the gods or into the homes of men. No! Not women, but rather Gorgons I call them and yet I cannot compare them to forms of Gorgons either. The Pythian priestess of Apollo recounted the appearance of the harpies in the following lines:īefore this man an extraordinary band of women slept, seated on thrones. Aeschylus Įven as early as the time of Aeschylus, harpies were described as ugly creatures with wings, and later writers carried their notions of the harpies so far as to represent them as most disgusting monsters. He Harpyiai (Harpies) of the lovely hair, Okypete (Ocypete) and Aello, and these two in the speed of their wings keep pace with the blowing winds, or birds in flight, as they soar and swoop, high aloft. To Hesiod, they were imagined as fair-locked and winged maidens, who flew as fast as the wind: ![]() Pottery art depicting the harpies featured beautiful women with wings. ![]() Roman and Byzantine writers detailed their ugliness. Harpies were generally depicted as birds with the heads of maidens, faces pale with hunger and long claws on their hands. In Greek and Roman mythology, a harpy (plural harpies, Ancient Greek: ἅρπυια, romanized: hárpyia, pronounced Latin: harpȳia ) is a half-human and half- bird personification of storm winds. A harpy in the heraldic style, John Vinycomb, 1906. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |