I have here, by a paraphrase, endeavoured to express the remarkably pregnant expression of the original κῆρες Εριννύες—combining, as it does, in grammatical apposition, two terrible divine powers, that the ancient poets generally keep separate. The κῆρες, or goddesses of destruction and violent death, occur frequently in Homer. Strictly speaking, they represent only one of the methods by which the retributive Furies may operate; but, in a loose way of talking, they are sometimes identified with them. Schoemann, in a note to the Eumenides, p. 62, has quoted to this effect, Hesiod v. 217, and Eurip. Elect, v. 1252:—
“The terrible Kerés, blushless persecutors,
Will chase thee wandering frenzied o’er the earth.”
NOTES TO THE PERSIANS
“Forth they went with arrow and bow.”
The bow was as characteristic of Persian as the spear of Hellenic warfare; and, accordingly, they are contrasted below, [p. 305]. The Persian Darics bore the figure of an archer. Dict. Antiq. voci Daric. “The army of Xerxes, generally,” says Grote, “was armed with missile weapons, and light shields, or no shield at all; not properly equipped either for fighting in regular order, or for resisting the line of spears and shields which the Grecian heavy-armed infantry brought to bear upon them.”—Vol. V. p. 43. This was seen with striking evidence when an engagement took place on confined ground as at Thermopylæ, Do. p. 117.
“. . . golden Sardes.”
So Creon, in the Antigone of Sophocles, in wrathful suspicion that Tiresias is in conspiracy to prophesy against him for filthy lucre, is made to exclaim (v. 1037)—