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The Furies
In heaven they were called Dirae, or
ministers of divine vengeance, in punishing the guilty after
death; on earth Furies, from that madness which attends the
consciousness of guilt; Erynnis, from the indignation and
perturbations they raise in the mind; Eumenides, from their
placability to such as supplicate them, as in the instance
of Orestes, and Argos, upon his following the advice of
Pallas, and in hell, Stygian dogs.
The furies were so dreaded that few dared so much as to name
them. They were supposed to be constantly hovering about
those who had been guilty of any enormous crime. Thus
Orestes, having murdered his mother Clytemnestra, was
haunted by the Furies. Oedipus, indeed, when blind and
raving, went into their grove, to the astonishment of all
the Athenians, who durst not so much as behold it. The
Furies were reputed so inexorable, that if any person
polluted with murder, incest, or any flagrant impiety,
entered the temple which Orestes had dedicated to them in
Cyrenae, a town of Arcadia, he immediately became mad, and
was hurried from place to place, with the most restless and
dreadful tortures.
Mythologists have assigned to each of these tormentors
their proper department. Tisiphone is said to punish the
sins arising from hatred and anger; Megaera those occasioned
by envy; and Alecto the crimes of ambition and lust. The
statues of the Furies had nothing in them originally
different from the other divinities. It was the poet
aeschylus who, in one of his tragedies, represented them in
that hideous manner which proved fatal to many of the
spectators. The description of these deities by the poet
passed from the theatre to the temple: from that time they
Were exhibited as objects of the utmost horror, with
Terror, Rage, Paleness, and Death, for their attendants; and
thus seated about Pluto's throne, whose ministers they were,
they awaited his orders with an impatience congenial to
their natures.
Description of the Furies
The Furies are described with snakes instead of hair, and
eyes inflamed with madness, brandishing in one hand whips
and iron chains, and in the other torches, with a smothering
flame. Their robes are black, and their feet of brass, to
show that their pursuit, though slow, is steady and certain.
As they attended at the thrones of the Stygian and celestial
Jupiter, they had wings to accelerate their progress through
the air, when bearing the commands of the gods: they struck
terror into mortals, either by war, famine, pestilence, or
the numberless calamities incident to human life.
The Furies
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