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Aug 2020

Swathed in blood-wet robes
Bat wings stirs her viper curls
Soul of vengeance burns


New day, new haiku!
Now that I have the Charites and the younger Charites out of the way, I wanted to focus on the Furies, who are among some of my favourite goddesses! The Furies are also known as the Erinnyes, and are known to be the goddesses of vengeance and each of the sisters punished different crimes. It is said that the Furies were born from the blood that was spilt when Kronos castrated his father, Uranus.

Tisiphone [aka Tilphousia] was known to punish criminals who commited homicide, patricide and fratricide. In the first line of the haiku, it is a reference to Virigl's Aeneid, where he described Tisiphone as being "clothed in a blood-wet dress." I changed it from dress to robe because in Ovid's Metamorphoses poem, she wore a red robe with a snake about her waist; which leads into line two. The Erinnyes have been depicited differently over the years but what stuck with me growing up was the image of them being like the gorgon sisters only; with bat like wings and snake-like hair.
And of course, the last line speaks of her role as a goddess of vengence.

Like her sister, she is a woman to be feared. A blood soaked beauty. It is quite fitting for her and her sisters to be servents of Hades and Persephone, punishing those criminals in Tartarus...

Anyway, thank you all for growing followers, I'm forever humbled and grateful for the support 🙏🌹💜
Here's the link for the growing collection:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/132853/the-women-of-myth/
Be back tomorrow with another one!
Much love,
Lyn 💜
Lyn-Purcell
Written by
Lyn-Purcell  28/F/United Kingdom
(28/F/United Kingdom)   
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