Achlys/ˈæklɪs/ (
Ancient Greek: Ἀχλύς "mist"),[1] in the
HesiodicShield of Heracles, is one of the figures depicted on
Heracles' shield, perhaps representing the personification of
sorrow. In Homer, achlys is the mist which fogs or blinds mortal eyes (often in death). Her Roman counterpart Caligo was said to have been the mother of
Chaos. In
Nonnus's Dionysiaca, she seems to be a witch.
Sources
Homer
In
Homer, the word achlys (ἀχλύς, 'mist'), is frequently used to describe a mist that is "shed" upon a mortal's eyes, often while dying.[2] For example in the Iliad, the hero
Sarpedon while grieviously wounded:
his spirit failed him, and down over his eyes a mist [ἀχλύς] was shed. Howbeit he revived, and the breath of the North Wind as it blew upon him made him to live again after in grievous wise he had breathed forth his spirit.[3]
let the sword fall from his hand to the ground, and writhing over the table he bowed and fell, and spilt upon the floor the food and the two-handled cup. With his brow he beat the earth in agony of soul, and with both his feet he spurned and shook the chair, and a mist [ἀχλύς] was shed over his eyes.[4]
Shield of Heracles
In the Shield of Heracles, an
archaicGreekepic poem (early sixth century BC?), that was attributed to
Hesiod, Achlys is one of the figures described as being depicted on Heracles' shield, where she is understood as being the personification of sorrow or grief:[5]
Beside them [Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos (the
Moirai), and the
Keres] stood Death-Mist [Ἀχλὺς], gloomy and dread, pallid, parched, cowering in hunger, thick-kneed; long claws were under her hands. From her nostrils flowed mucus, from her cheeks blood was dripping down onto the ground. She stood there, grinning dreadfully, and much dust, wet with tears, lay upon her shoulders.[6]
Fabulae
The Roman counterpart to Achlys seems to have been Caligo ('dark fog'). The first-century BC Roman mythographer
Hyginus, in the Preface of his Fabulae, has Caligo being the mother of
Chaos (for Hesiod the first being who existed), and, with Chaos, was the mother of Night (Nox), Day (Dies), Darkness (Erebus) and Ether (Aether), possibly drawing on an otherwise unknown Greek cosmological myth.[7]
Dionysiaca
Nonnus, in his Dionysiaca (
c. 5th century AD), seems to regard Achlys as a kind of witch.[8] According to Nonnus,
Hera—angry with the guardians of the infant
Dionysus (the sons of the
Naiad nurses of
Dionysus)—"procured from Thessalian Achlys [Ἀχλύος] treacherous flowers of the field", which she used to sprinkle a sleeping charm over their heads, then "she distilled poisoned drugs over their hair and smeared a magical ointment over their faces", changing their human shape into that of horned
Centaurs.[9]
Graf, Fritz, "Achlys" in Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Volume 1, A-ARI, editors: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider,
Brill Publishers, 2002.
Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae in Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007.
ISBN978-0-87220-821-6.
Orphic Argonautica in Orphica: Accedunt Procli Hymni, Hymni Magici, Hymnus in Isim alique eiusmodi carmina, edited by Eugenius Abel, Sumptibus Fecit G. Freytag, Leipzig, Prague, 1885.
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