TYSIPHONE, one of them, enraged at an innocent Youth, pluck’d off one of her Snakes, and threw it at him, which wound about his Body, and immediately strangled him. Some say, that we see these three Furies on a Medal of the Emperor Philip, struck at Antioch, on whose Reverse are represented three Women, arm’d with a Key, burning Torches, Poniards, and Serpents.
The Daffodil was sacred to the Furies, and such as offered Sacrifice to them were crowned with it[[96]].
[96]. From Eustathius, on the first Book of the Iliad.
As soon as departed Souls had been examined by Minos, Radamanthus, and Æacus, and found guilty, and Sentence past, they were delivered to the Furies, who cast them down headlong into Tartarus, the Place of Torment,—and all those who had lived well, were conducted to the Elysian Fields.
HOMER speaks of them as the Executioners of Justice upon false Swearers, among other Instances:
Infernal Furies, and Tartarean Gods,
Who rule the Dead, and horrid Woes prepare
For perjur’d Kings, and all who falsly swear.
The Harpies[[97]] were monstrous and cruel Birds describ’d with Women’s Faces, and Dragons Tails, to render them more formidable to Mankind: The Ancients looked upon them as Dæmons or Genii, which last Homer calls Podarge. About Kaskan in Persia, is a fine and fertile Country, but plagued with Multitudes of Scorpions, which haunt the Inhabitants, especially in that Town (one of the most populous and eminent Marts in that Empire) where the Inhabitants, for fear of that venemous Animal, dare not sleep upon the Floor (as in other Places, where they only throw a Quilt upon the Tapestry) but have light Couches, hanging down from the Roof, like Seamens Hammocks, or hanging Beds on ship-board.
[97]. Aello, Ocypete, and Celæno, Virg. Æneid. lib. 3.