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In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, a harpy (plural harpies, (ギリシア語:ἅρπυια),〔Of uncertain etymology; R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin (''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 139).〕 ''harpyia'', ; ) was a female monster in the form of a bird with a human face. They steal food from their victims while they are eating and carry evildoers (especially those who have killed their family) to the Erinyes. They seem originally to have been wind spirits. Their name means "snatchers".〔Adrian Room, Who's Who in Classical Mythology, p. 147 ISBN 0-517-22256-6〕 Homer wrote that a harpy was the mother of the two horses of Achilles sired by the West Wind Zephyrus.〔''Iliad'' xvi. 150.〕 Hesiod calls them two "lovely-haired" creatures, the daughters of Thaumas and Electra (not to be confused with Electra, daughter of King Agamemnon), who were sisters of the Iris.〔Hesiod, ''Theogony'', 265–267.〕 Pottery art depicting the harpies featured beautiful women with wings. Harpies as ugly winged bird-women, ''e.g.'' in Aeschylus' ''The Eumenides'' (line 50) are a late development. Roman and Byzantine writers detailed their ugliness.〔Virgil, ''Aeneid'' iii. 216; Ovid ''Metamorphoses'' vii.4, ''Fasti'' vi. 132; Hyginus, ''Fabula'' 14; Johannes Tzetzes, ''Ad Lycophron'' 653.〕 ==Mythology== King Phineus of Thrace was given the gift of prophecy by Zeus. Angry that Phineus gave away the god's secret plan, Zeus punished him by blinding him and putting him on an island with a buffet of food which he could never eat because the harpies always arrived to steal the food out of his hands before he could satisfy his hunger, and befouled the remains of his food. This continued until the arrival of Jason and the Argonauts. The Boreads, sons of Boreas, the North Wind, who also could fly, succeeded in driving off the harpies, but without killing any of them, following a request from Iris, who promised that Phineus would not be bothered by the harpies again. "The dogs of great Zeus" returned to their "cave in Minoan Crete". Thankful for their help, Phineus told the Argonauts how to pass the Symplegades.〔''Argonautica'', book II; Ovid XIII, 710; Virgil III, 211, 245〕 In this form they were agents of punishment who abducted people and tortured them on their way to Tartarus. They were vicious, cruel and violent. They lived on the islands of the Strophades. They were usually seen as the personifications of the destructive nature of wind. The harpies in this tradition, now thought of as three sisters instead of the original two, Hesiod's two Harpies are named Aello ("storm swift") and Ocypete ("the swift wing"),〔Hesiod, Theogony 265〕〔Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.121-123. Aello, sometimes also spelled Aellopus or Nicothoe; Ocypete, sometimes also spelled Ocythoe or Ocypode.〕 Virgil's added Celaeno ("the dark") as a third.〔Virgil, Aeneid 3.209〕 Homer knew of a Harpy named Podarge ("fleet-foot").〔Homer, Iliad 16.148〕 Aeneas encountered harpies on the Strophades as they repeatedly made off with the feast the Trojans were setting. Celaeno utters a prophecy: the Trojans will be so hungry they will eat their tables before they reach the end of their journey. The Trojans fled in fear. Harpies remained vivid in the Middle Ages. In his ''Inferno'', XIII, Dante envisages the tortured wood infested with harpies, where the suicides have their punishment in the seventh ring of Hell:
William Blake was inspired by Dante's description in his pencil, ink and watercolour "The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides" (Tate Gallery, London). 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「harpy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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