Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/43

 THE >H4 fftX 29 the abode of the Erinyes to the lower world ; thus from being black divinities of the thunderstorm, who bring death, they became goddesses of death and vengeance. Their wild raging was conceived of as a pursuit or a hunt, so that they were themselves compared to hounds. On being transferred to the realm of morals they became pursuers of those that had committed heinous crimes, especially of those who, transgressing the laws of family rights, had injured a parent or elder brother; on the other hand they protect the stranger and the sacredness of an oath. But by offerings and prayers, even the ' angry ones' can be conciliated, and so they were worshiped in Sicyon and Argos as Eumenides (' well-disposed 7 ), in Athens as Semnai ('the honored'). 42. Near the Gorgons dwell their sisters and guar- dians, the Graeae ('old women'), Pephredo, Enyo, and Demo ('the terrible'). They are probably representa- tives of the gray clouds preceding the thunderstorm proper, in which the lightning harmlessly darts from one cloud to another (heat lightning). Therefore they appear as old women, who possess only one eye and only one tooth between them (in both thes.e figures represent- ing the lightning), who surrender these to each other, however, for various purposes. Gigantes : Hesiod, Theog. 185 ; Ovid. Met. i. 152 sq. Cronus (Saturn): Homer, II. passim; Hesiod, Theog. 137; Ovid, Met. i. 113 sq., Amor. iii. 8, 35; Vergil, Aen. vii. 180, viii. 319, 357 ; Keats, Hyperion i. 249 : - Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove, And bid old Saturn take his throne again. Milton, Par. L. i. 510 : - Titan, heaven's firstborn, With his enormous brood, and birthright seized