The Harpies: Beasts of Vengeance in Greek Mythology

The Harpies, who first appear in Homer’s Iliad, derived their name either from the term ereptesthai (“to feed on”) or the term harpazein (“to snatch away”). This ominous etymology helps explain why they often appear in myth as abominable winged creatures who snatch people away without a trace, or beasts who steal food, leaving their victims starving and despondent. But this fearsome visage seems to have developed over time. The earliest representations of Harpies in Homer and Hesiod describe them more as wind spirits, borne from a union between Thaumas, a sea god, and Electra, the daughter of the titan Oceanos.

We learn little about the Harpies in their very first surviving appearances in Homer, who probably wrote during the late 8th and early 7th centuries BCE. He refers to them indirectly in the Iliad, book 18, when he states that Achilles’ horses were the offspring of the West Wind and a Harpy named Podarge. Home alludes to them again in the Odyssey as a potential, albeit vague, threat to Odysseus’ safe return home. He says that they can snatch people away without a trace and are seemingly synonymous with storms or threatening winds.

It is not until Hesiod’s Theogony, written a century or so later around 700 BCE, that the picture begins to be fleshed out a little bit. From this work we learn about their aforementioned parentage, as daughters of Thaumas and Electra, the daughter of the Titan Oceanos, placing them within broader Greek cosmogony.

From Hesiod, we also learn that with their “swift wings,” they “keep up with the gusts of the wind and the birds. For they dart forth as fast as time.” Indeed, their speed is something that is reiterated in later works. However, something that is unique about Hesiod’s depiction is his relatively positive depiction of the creatures, calling them “lovely-haired.” He also provides a couple of their names, both of which further reflect their associations with the winds: Aello, which means “stormwind,” and Ocypete, meaning “swiftfoot.”

Agents of Divine Vengeance

After Hesiod, however, the Harpies take on a much more repulsive appearance and vengeful character, particularly when they appear in more substantial mythical scenes in later writers such as Apollonius, Virgil, and Valerius Flaccus. But it seems that earlier writers, such as the tragedian Aeschylus, writing in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE, established their role as agents of divine vengeance. He only mentions them in passing in his play The Suppliants, but does so when discussing divine punishment and retribution.

Centuries later, in both Apollonius and Valerius Flaccus, the Harpies feature in each author’s depiction of the Argonautica story. A character within this myth named Phineus is harassed by the Harpies because he uses his gift of prophecy to reveal the “sacred intentions” of the gods. Enraged by this impropriety, Zeus blinds him and instructs the Harpies to perpetually steal or despoil his food, in one account, by infecting it with a putrid stench.

Calais and Zetes, winged allies of the story’s hero Jason, are also divinely linked to the winds. They decide to help Phineus by chasing the Harpies away for good. In their pursuit of the foul creatures, they are stopped, by Iris in Apollonius and Typho in Valerius Flaccus, and warned against pursuing the Harpies any further. But they are also told that Phineus will now be left alone. Satisfied, the two return to Phineus and the Argonauts in triumph.

In Virgil’s Aeneid, the winged creatures play a similar role as agents of the “gods’ anger.” In the Roman poet’s epic about the founding of Rome, Aeneas and his band of followers, fleeing the destruction of Troy, land on the shores of the Strophades, also known as the Clashing Islands. Virgil tells us that after they were forced away from harassing Phineus in the Argonautica myth, the Harpies made these islands their new home, unbeknownst to the Trojans.

Aeneas recounts how he and his followers saw fat herds of cattle scattered over the plains and subsequently decided to feast on their rich meats. But suddenly, the Harpies appear and despoil their food, “fouling everything with their filthy touch.” When the Trojans then try to fight back against the Harpies, their leader Celaneo, an “ominous prophetess,” tells them that Italy is the land that they seek. However, because of their impropriety in eating the sacred cattle, they will be forced to starve when they get there, to the extent that they will “consume [their] very tables with devouring jaws.”

The horrified Trojans try to propitiate the “vile birds” with a sacrifice and quickly set sail, leaving the sinister Strophades islands behind. Aside from these myths, the Harpies also appear in other Roman writers, including Ovid, Pliny the Elder, Seneca, and Lucian, but only in passing references that mostly reiterate their vengeful and grim character.

Whilst their representation in the various surviving myths, plays, poems, and histories varies from writer to writer, there are consistent characteristics that make analyzing their appearance and behavior possible. Out of all of these, it is their repulsive behavior and the resultant repulsion of commentators that stand out most.

After Hesiod, they are increasingly established as repulsive avian creatures with the bodies or heads of maiden women. Apollonius tells us they also have “crooked beaks” and that they “swooped down with a yell” on their target Phineus, repeating again “the cry” they make when devouring and despoiling his food.

In Valerius Flaccus, their grim smell and appearance are emphasized more, as their arrival brings forth a “rank smell” and “disgust by their very sight.” On the food, they “pour a filthy stream” before they whir their wings and escape. In both of these Phineus stories, their smell, sounds, and visual appearance bring forth a very visceral form of aversion.

Such revulsion is then reiterated and reemphasized by Virgil, who describes “the foul harpies” as having “filth oozing from their bellies,” creating a “rank stench” and “hideous screaming” as they attack the Trojans. Such repulsion in this particular source is then amplified by the grim prophecy that their leader, Celaeno, delivers to the troubled Trojan wanderers.

Lastly, the speed and winged nature of these creatures also bring forth worry and repulsion. In the Odyssey, when both Telemachus and Penelope mention the Harpies, they represent a fearful threat of people quickly whisking away without a trace.

According to scholars, all of these composite characteristics of revulsion owe themselves in part to ancient attitudes towards carrion-eating birds, like vultures. These kinds of animals would snatch food and fly away and were also thought to be grim and foreboding for their habit of dining on the dead.

No doubt, due to the very graphic and grotesque nature of their appearances in ancient myth, the Harpies have been a subject of curiosity and inspiration since their mythological inception. Whilst they have come to be understood as an embodiment of divine anger and retribution, they have also been reinterpreted and reappropriated in more subtle and complex ways.

For example, their female characteristics have convinced scholars that they represent “monstrous femininity,” and the aforementioned “filthy stream” they leave on the despoiled food is a euphemism for menstruation. In this way, they are said to partner with the Sirens of Greek myth, who reflect female enticement more than revulsion, to collectively encapsulate ancient Greek fears of feminine threats and uncleanliness.

Such an interpretation is borne out by the influence the term “harpy” has sometimes had in subsequent art and literature. In Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing, the term is used by the character Benedick to refer to a woman named Beatrice, who he finds very devious and unpleasant.

More generally, however, Harpies continued to be a symbol of dread and repulsion in Medieval and Renaissance literature, such as their appearance in the seventh ring of Hell in Dante’s Inferno.

However, the Harpy also became a popular heraldic emblem in the Middle Ages, particularly in the different German principalities and city-states. In many of these emblems, the gender of the creature is sometimes unclear, and in other instances, it is quite clearly male.

Moreover, their close associations and links with the Sirens have sometimes made differentiating the two mythological creatures quite difficult. At times, the only way to tell them apart is by an accompanying inscription or a clearly identifiable context, like the Phineus myth.

Nonetheless, like their avian sisters, the Harpies of ancient myth have had a long-lasting influence on subsequent literature, art, and language, testifying to the grim allure of their original representations.

Bibliography:

Felton, D. (2024) The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Felton, D. (2013) “Were Vergil’s Harpies Menstruating?”, The Classical Journal, 108.4, pp. 405-418.

Hard, R. (2022) The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, Routledge Press, London.