(European mythology)
Literal meaning: ‘the angry ones’. They were the avenging deities of Greek mythology, the Furies who pursued the outragers of custom. These three chthonic goddesses, born of the blood of mutilated Ouranos in Gaia'ss womb, were imagined as ugly women, with serpents entwined in their hair, carrying torches and whips. They were pitiless, both in life and death; but, unlike Satan or other West Asian spirits of evil, the Erinyes were never wantonly malignant. Their names were Alecto, ‘the never ending’; Tisiphone, ‘voice of revenge’; and Megaira, ‘envious anger’.
The Erinyes tracked down those who wrongly shed blood, and especially the blood of the mother. Thus they pursued Orestes because, despite the fact that he had acted in compliance with the direct command of Apollo, he had committed matricide. Sent abroad by his mother Clytemnestra while his father Agamemnon was away at the siege of Troy, so that she might enjoy her illicit affair with Aegisthus, Orestes came back to the city of Argos after Clytemnestra and Aegisthus had murdered Agamemnon on his return from the war. In revenge the son slew his mother and her lover. According to the dramatist Aeschylus (525–456 BC), the Erinyes were only persuaded to abandon their persecution after the acquittal of Orestes by the Areopagus, an ancient council over which Athena presided. The verdict of the trial calmed the anger of the Furies, and they were henceforth known as the Eumenides, ‘the soothed goddesses’. It is likely, however, that the Greeks referred to them by this euphemism because they were frightened to use their real name.
