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In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia (; Greek: Λάμια) was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet (λαιμός; ''laimos''), referring to her habit of devouring children.〔Aristophanes, ''The Wasps'', 1177.〕 Modern scholarship reconstructs a Proto-Indo European stem *', "nocturnal spirit", whence also ''lemures''. ==Mythology== In the myth, Lamia is a mistress of the god Zeus, causing Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, to kill all of Lamia's children and transform her into a monster that hunts and devours the children of others. Another version has Hera stealing all of Lamia's children and Lamia, who loses her mind from grief and despair, starts stealing and devouring others' children out of envy, the repeated monstrosity of which transforms her into a monster. Some accounts say she has a serpent's tail below the waist.〔Compare Typhon (Typhoeus), Echidna, the Gigantes and other archaic chthonic bogeys.〕 This popular description of her is largely due to ''Lamia'', a poem by John Keats composed in 1819.〔(Keats, "Lamia" )〕 Antoninus Liberalis uses Lamia as an alternate name for the serpentine drakaina Sybaris; however, Diodorus Siculus describes her as having nothing more than a distorted face.〔Diodorus Siculus, ''Library of History'' xx. 41.〕 Later traditions referred to many ''lamiae''; these were folkloric monsters similar to vampires and succubi that seduced young men and then fed on their blood.〔(Information on Lamia from the Online Encyclopedia )〕 In later stories, Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes so that she would always obsess over the image of her dead children. Some accounts (see Horace, below) say Hera forced Lamia to devour her own children. Myths variously describe Lamia's monstrous (occasionally serpentine) appearance as a result of either Hera's wrath, the pain of grief, the madness that drove her to murder, or—in some rare versions—a natural result of being Hecate's daughter.〔''Odyssey'' 12.124 and scholia, noted by Karl Kerenyi, ''Gods of the Greeks'' 1951:38 note 71.〕 Zeus then gave her the ability to remove her eyes. The purpose of this ability is unclear in Diodorus, but other versions state Lamia's ability to remove her eyes came with the gift of prophecy. Zeus did this to appease Lamia in her grief over the loss of her children and to let her rest since she could not close her eyes.〔Bell, ''Women of Classical Mythology'', drawing upon Diodorus Siculus 22.41; Suidas 'Lamia'; Plutarch 'On Being a Busy-Body' 2; Scholiast on Aristophanes' ''Peace'' 757; Eustathius on ''Odyssey'' 1714) 〕 Horace, in ''Ars Poetica'' (l.340), imagines the impossibility of retrieving the living children she has eaten: Alexander Pope translates the line: Stesichorus identifies Lamia as a daughter of Poseidon and as the mother of Scylla by Phorcys.〔Stesichorus Frag 220, Eustathius on Homer's Odyssey 1714.〕 This might be a conflation of Lamia with the sea goddess Ceto, traditionally Phorcys's wife and mother of Scylla. Further passing references to Lamia were made by Strabo (i.II.8) and Aristotle (''Ethics'' vii.5). Other sources cite Triton as having fathered Scylla by Lamia. Antoninus Liberalis identifies the dragon Sybaris with Lamia, another conflation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lamia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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