ὣς ἄρα φωνήσαντος Ἐρινύες ἔσχεθον αὐδήν.
7. When, in the Theomachy, Minerva has laid Mars prostrate by a blow, she taunts him by telling him he may in his overthrow recognise the Ἐρινύες of his mother Juno, invoked upon him for having changed sides in the contest (Il. xxi. 410–14).
8. In the Odyssey (ii. 135), Telemachus apprehends that, if he dismisses his mother, he will have to encounter, among other evils, the Erinuës whom she will invoke upon him.
9. Epicaste, the mother of Œdipus, is speedily removed from the face of earth for her hapless incest. Œdipus himself lives and reigns: but suffers many sorrows, which the Erinuës of Epicaste (μητρὸς Ἐρινύες, as in Il. xx. 412) bring upon him.
10. Melampus, a rich subject of Neleus in Pylos, is imprisoned for a whole year in the house of Phylacus, and has his property seized or confiscated, on account of the daughter of Neleus, and of his grievous ἄτη, which the goddess, the hard-striking[570] Erinūs, brought into his mind (Od. xv. 233):
εἵνεκα Νηλῆος κούρης, ἄτης τε βαρείης,
τήν οἱ ἐπὶ φρεσὶ θῆκε θεὰ δασπλῆτις Ἐρινύς.
But he escaped from death, and paid, i.e. accomplished, the strange act that Neleus had imposed as the condition of obtaining the command over his daughter’s hand. He thus procured it for his brother, termed in the post-Homeric tradition Bias. This condition was, that he should bring off to Pylos the cows which were the property of Iphicles (and apparently of Phylacus). He was caught at Phylace in the attempt: but after a year Iphicles released him, apparently in consideration of benefit derived from his prophetic knowledge, Od. xv. 228–38, and xi. 287–97.
11. In Od. xvii. 475, 6, Ulysses, when Antinous had hurled the stool at him, invokes upon that Suitor in return the anger of the gods and Erinuës (εἴ πού γε εἰσὶν, if such there be) of the poor.
12. Lastly, in Od. xx. 78, as we have seen, the Harpies deliver the daughter of Pandareus into the hands of the Erinuës.