Alecto
The Erinyes are born, in Hesiod's Theogony, from the blood of Ouranos that fell on Gaia when Kronos castrated him, together with the Giants and the Meliai (183-187); the same poem also makes them daughters of Nyx.
The Erinyes are a collective power and not three individualised goddesses: their number is usually left indeterminate, and the names Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone are a late systematisation attested first in Vergil. They did receive real cult at Athens as the Semnai Theai, the Revered Goddesses, whose sanctuary stood by the Areopagus (Pausanias 1.28.6), with wineless offerings and with Eumenides, the gracious ones, used as an address. What they punish is perjury and the violation of kinship, not sin in any Christian sense. The planetary, zodiacal, tarot and sabbat values here are modern Western overlays with no ancient basis, and the tradition's own account is primary. The Roman Furies and Dirae are the later Latin development.
Correspondences
- Planetary Correspondence
- Mars
Offerings
- Offerings
- Wineless libationsHoneyMilkWaterA wrong named out loud
Sacred timing
Symbols and forms
- Alternate Names
- AlektoAlecto the UnceasingOne of the ErinyesOne of the Eumenides
- Gender Expression
- Feminine
- Titles
- The UnceasingEndless AngerOne of the ErinyesThe One Who Does Not Sleep
- Symbols
- SerpentTorchWhipBloodThe unturned key
Practice
- Invocation Approach
- TonePlain reverent not familiarAddressAlectoThe UnceasingRevered OneRelationshipThe anger of a wrong that has not been answeredWarningShe does not distinguish between the guilty and the convenientResonanceThose seeking redress and those who must stop a cycle
- Modern Practice
Not a comfortable power and not meant to be. Alecto is approached where a wrong has gone unanswered and the anger has not stopped - and, honestly, where the answering of wrong with wrong has not stopped either. The Athenian custom was to give the Erinyes no wine; the offering is plain and the naming is exact.
Nature and meaning
- Domain
- Unceasing angerVengeanceThe oath brokenThe unfinished quarrelRelentlessnessThe inherited cursePunishment that does not stop
- Mythology Summary
The Erinyes are born, in Hesiod's Theogony, from the blood of Ouranos that fell on Gaia when Kronos castrated him, together with the Giants and the Meliai (183-187); the same poem also makes them daughters of Nyx. Alecto's name means unceasing, and Vergil names her at Aeneid 7.323 ff.; the poem names Tisiphone earlier, so she is not the first of the triad to appear. The Iliad already invokes the Erinyes as the powers who take vengeance on anyone who swears a false oath (19.259-260).
- Related Deities
- ErisHadesPersephoneNyxAres
Details
- Correspondences
- ColorsBlackRedGreyScentsDragons bloodMyrrhMetalsIronLeadAnimalsSerpentHound
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