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Eris (ca. 520 BC)
Eris (
Greek Έρις, "Strife") is the
Greek goddess of strife, her name being translated into
Latin as
Discordia. Her Greek opposite is
Harmonia, whose Latin counterpart is
Concordia.
Homer equated her with the war-goddess
Enyo.
Eris, the
solar system's largest known
dwarf planet, is named after the goddess.
Characteristics in Greek mythology
In
Hesiod's
Works and Days 11–24, two different goddesses named Eris "Strife" are distinguished:
- So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature.
- For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due.
- But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night (Nyx), and the son of Cronus who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with his neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.
In Hesiod's
Theogony (226–232) Strife the daughter of Night is less kindly spoken of as she brings forth other personifications as her children:
- But abhorred Eris ('Strife') bare painful Ponos ('Toil/Labor'), Lethe ('Forgetfulness') and Limos ('Famine') and tearful Algea (Pains/Sorrows), Hysminai ('Fightings/Combats') also, Makhai ('Battles'), Phonoi ('Murders/Slaughterings'), Androctasiai ('Manslaughters'), Neikea ('Quarrels'), Pseudea ('Lies/Falsehoods'), Amphillogiai ('Disputes'), Dysnomia ('Lawlessness') and Ate ('Ruin/Folly'), all of one nature, and Horkos ('Oath') who most troubles men upon earth when anyone wilfully swears a false oath.
The other Strife is presumably she who appears in
Homer's
Iliad Book 4 as sister of
Ares and so presumably daughter of
Zeus and
Hera:
- Strife whose wrath is relentless, she is the sister and companion of murderous Ares, she who is only a little thing at the first, but thereafter grows until she strides on the earth with her head striking heaven. She then hurled down bitterness equally between both sides as she walked through the onslaught making men's pain heavier. She also has a son whom she named Strife.
Zeus sends her to rouse the
Achaeans in Book 11 of the same work.
The most famous tale of Eris recounts her initiating the
Trojan War. The goddesses
Hera,
Athena and
Aphrodite had been invited along with the rest of
Olympus to the forced wedding of
Peleus and
Thetis, who would become the parents of
Achilles, but Eris had been snubbed because of her troublemaking inclinations.
She therefore (in a fragment from the
Kypria as part of a plan hatched by Zeus and
Themis) tossed into the party the
Apple of Discord, a golden
apple inscribed
Kallisti – "For the most beautiful one", or "To the Fairest One" – provoking the goddesses to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. The hapless
Paris, Prince of
Troy, was appointed to
select the most beautiful by
Zeus. Each of the three goddesses immediately attempted to bribe Paris to choose her.
Hera offered political power;
Athena promised skill in battle; and
Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world:
Helen, wife of
Menelaus of
Sparta. While Greek culture placed a greater emphasis on prowess and power,
Paris chose to award the apple to Aphrodite, thereby dooming his city, which was destroyed in the war that ensued.
In
Nonnus'
Dionysiaca, 2.356, when
Typhon prepares to battle with Zeus:
- Eris ('Strife') was Typhon's escort in the melée, Nike ('Victory') led Zeus to battle.
Another story of Eris includes Hera, and the love of Polytekhnos and
Aedon. They claimed to love each other more than Hera and Zeus were in love. This angered Hera, so she sent Eris to rack discord upon them. Polytekhnos was finishing off a chariot board, and Aedon a web she had been weaving. Eris said to them, "Whosoever finishes thine task last shall have to present the other with a female servant!"
Aedon won. But Polytekhnos was not happy by his defeat, so he came to Khelidon, Aedon's sister, and raped her.
He then disguised her as a slave, presenting her to Aedon. When Aedon discovered this was indeed her sister, she chopped up Polytekhnos' son and fed him to him. The gods were not pleased, so they turned them all into birds.
Eris in Discordianism
Eris has been adopted as the matron deity of the modern
Discordian religion, which was begun in the late 1950s by
Gregory Hill and
Kerry Thornley also known as "
Malaclypse the Younger" and "Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst". The Discordian version of Eris is considerably lighter in comparison to the rather malevolent Graeco-Roman original. A quote from the
Principia Discordia, the first holy book of Discordianism, attempts to clear this up:
- One day Mal-2 consulted his Pineal Gland and asked Eris if She really created all of those terrible things. She told him that She had always liked the Old Greeks, but that they cannot be trusted with historic matters. "They were," She added, "victims of indigestion, you know."[1]
The story of Eris being snubbed and indirectly starting the Trojan War is recorded in the
Principia, and is referred to as the Original Snub. The
Principia Discordia states that her parents may be as described in Greek legend, or that she may be the daughter of Void. She is the Goddess of Disorder and Being, whereas her sister
Aneris (called the equivalent of
Harmonia by the Mythics of Harmonia) is the goddess of Order and Non-Being. Their brother is
Spirituality.
[2]
Eris in popular culture
- Eris appears on the Cartoon Network show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as a rival of Mandy, Grim, and Billy, voiced by Rachael MacFarlane. In the episode "Complete and Utter Chaos", she causes chaos to grip Grim, Billy, and Mandy by giving them "The Golden Apple of Chaos and Discord", a more elaborate title for the mythological Apple of Discord. She is drawn to resemble pop star Madonna. See Eris (Billy and Mandy) for more information about the TV version.
- She also appears as the antagonist in the film .
- The classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty is partly inspired by Eris's role in the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Like Eris, a malevolent fairy curses a princess after failing to be invited to the princess's christening.
- Eris also appears in Wonder Woman as one of her major antagonists during George Perez's tenure on the title. She clashed with Wonder Woman on several occasions until she was killed by the Son of Vulcan during the "War of The Gods". She resurfaced years later as part of a plot engineered by her brothers, Phobos and Deimos, to merge Gotham City with the Areopagus, Ares's throne capital, possessing Poison Ivy (her brothers possessed Joker and Scarecrow — the local embodiments of madness and fear). They were later defeated by the combined efforts of Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, Troia, Wonder Girl, Nightwing, Artemis, and the Huntress.
- Eris is the name of a waterfall on Mars from an episode of the old American animated series Exo-Squad entitled The Lost Patrol (episode 37).
- In the video game Discworld Noir, based on the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett, Eris is parodied as Errata, goddess of misunderstandings, and is claimed to be responsible for the "Tsortean War".
- The concept of Eris as developed by the Principia Discordia is used and expanded upon in the science fiction work The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (in which characters from Principia Discordia appear). In this work, Eris is a major character in the book, taking the form of virtually every other female character who appears before her true nature is revealed in the final volume.
- Eris was the name of the first Vorta encountered on the television series
- Eris is the name of one of the clothing brands in the popular video game . The icon on the shirts looks like Michael Moorcock's Symbol of Chaos, which is an arrow pointing in every direction, though in this game it is also styled to look like the letter E up against its mirror image.
- Kim Cattrall chose the name Eris for her character in , though the character was ultimately named Valeris, as it sounded "more Vulcan".
- Eris was the main antagonist in the first theatrical movie of Saint Seiya, in which she lead 5 Ghost Saints and kidnapped Athena. In order to fully revive, she had to drain Athena of her life, thus gaining control of the earth.
- In 2007, the Melbourne rock band Panacea released an epic-rock song about the goddess.
- Eris is the name of a goddess in the online game Achaea, with her realm based loosely on Discordian theory.
- Eris is the name of a Gallente ship in the MMORPG Eve Online.
- Eris appears in Webmage, a popular book by Kelly McCullough, as Arch nemesis to the Fates, as well as the only deity who uses Apple software.
References
See also
External links
Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
..... Click the link for more information.
The ancient
Greeks proposed many different ideas about the
primordial gods in their mythology. The many theogonies constructed by Greek poets each give a different account of which gods came first.
- In Homer, Ocean and Tethys are the parents of all the gods.
..... Click the link for more information. Titans (Greek: Τιτάν Titan; plural: Τιτάνες Titanes
..... Click the link for more information.
Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon (Greek: Δωδεκάθεον
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The ancient
Greeks had a large number of sea gods. The philosopher Plato once remarked that the Greek people were like frogs sitting around a pond -- their many cities hugging close to the Mediterranean coastline from the Hellenic homeland to Asia Minor, Libya, Sicily and
..... Click the link for more information. Chthonic (from Greek χθόνιος-khthonios, of the earth, from khthōn, earth; pertaining to the Earth; earthy) designates, or pertains to, gods or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion.
..... Click the link for more information.
Asclepius (Greek Ἀσκληπιός, transliterated Asklēpiós; Latin Aesculapius) is the demigod of medicine and healing in ancient Greek mythology.
..... Click the link for more information.
MusE is a MIDI/Audio sequencer with recording and editing capabilities written by Werner Schweer. MusE aims to be a complete multitrack virtual studio for Linux: it currently has no support under other platforms, due to its reliance on JACK and ALSA.
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Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
Nemesis (in Greek,
..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology,
Cratos..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
- This Zelos
..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology,
Nike..... Click the link for more information. In Greek mythology,
Metis was of the Titan generation and, like several primordial figures, an Oceanid, in the sense that Metis was born of Oceanus and Tethys, of an earlier age than Zeus and his siblings.
..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology, the
Oneiroi..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology,
Adrasteia..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology, the
Horae..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology,
Bia..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology,
Eros..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
Apate..... Click the link for more information. Themis (Greek: Θέμις) among the six sons and six daughters of Gaia and Uranus, that is, of Earth with Sky. Among these Titans of primordial myth, few were venerated at specific sanctuaries in classical times, and Themis was so ancient that the followers of
..... Click the link for more information.
Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology,
Thanatos..... Click the link for more information. Personified concepts- Muses
- Nemesis
- Moirae
- Cratos
- Zelus
- Nike
- Metis
- Charites
- Oneiroi
- Adrasteia
- Horae
- Bia
- Eros
- Apate
- Themis
- Eris
- Thanatos
- Hypnos
In Greek mythology,
Hypnos..... Click the link for more information. Greek}}}
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Official language of: Greece
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recognised as minority language in parts of:
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Regulated by:
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Motto
Ελευθερία ή θάνατος
Eleftheria i thanatos
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goddess is a female deity. Many cultures have goddesses. Most often these goddesses are part of a polytheistic system that includes multiple deities. Pantheons in various cultures can include both goddesses and gods, and in some cases also intersex deities.
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Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
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ISO 639-1: la
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Discordia is the Roman goddess of strife. Her Greek counterpart is Eris, her Greek opposite is Harmonia, whose Latin counterpart is Concordia.
Eris is frequently referred as Discordia (or Eris Discordia) in Discordianism.
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In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Roman counterpart is Concordia, and her Greek opposite is Eris, whose Roman counterpart is Discordia.
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