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Nemesis and the Furies/Erinyes

 

The Remorse of Orestes (1862) by William Frederic Bouguereau (1825–1905)

Page 155 in your Handmade Fine Art Book You and the Universe

The three furies "furiously" pursuing an unfortunate soul not long for this world

 

 

 

This Furies-Erinyes-Nemesis page and the entire website are excerpted from You and the Universe, a handmade, individualized fine art book on astrology, mythology and astronomy through which the recipient's complete astrological reading is woven.

The Furies were the goddesses of vengeance who were birthed out of anger. When Ouranos imprisoned Gaia's three sons the Hecatonchires (monsters with hundreds of hands and fifty heads), Gaia appealed to the Titans for help, and Chronos (Saturn) alone responded. He ambushed his father (Uranus) and badly wounded him, and from Ouranos' blood the Furies and the Giants were born.

The Furies were attendants to Pluto and Persephone, and also served Nemesis, the jailer of Tartarus. They were Tisiphone, the avenger of murder, Megaera the jealous, and Alecto of constant anger. Called the daughters of the Night (or of the Earth and Darkness), they punished those guilty of a crime on Earth who had come to Hades and not obtained atonement from the gods. Woman-like creatures with snakes for hair and with blood dripping from their eyes, they held a torch in one hand and a whip made of live scorpions in the other. These whips were known as the whips of Conscience, and with them they scourged the living and the dead. The Furies were unrelenting in their pursuit of criminals, punishing all crimes to society and often striking the offenders with madness. They even prosecuted infringements on ethics and cases were the law didn't exit, such as protecting beggars, strangers, dogs and young birds. So dreadful were the Furies in appearance and deed that people would not speak their real name, the "Erinyes," but rather referred to them as the "Eumenides," just as timid English souls referred to the Fairies as "the Good Folk" for fear that naming their real name would make them angry. The Furies even appeared on Earth pursuing criminals at the command of the higher gods or Nemesis. They were implacable and indefatigable in their furious ("of the Furies") pursuit of their quarry. Their mistress Nemesis, on the other hand, the stern goddess who balanced all the books, never allowed the guilty or the good to escape their just reward. If someone was happier or more fortunate than he or she deserved to be, woe betide that poor soul when Nemesis arrived. And similarly, she would eventually recompense those who were unhappy or less fortunate than they should be. Sometimes slow in arriving, Nemesis was sure to set things straight in the end. "Not even the sun will transgress his orbit but the Erinyes, the ministers of justice, overtake him."

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