Erebus

In Greek mythology, Erebus (/ˈɛrɪbəs/;[1] Ancient Greek: Ἔρεβος, romanized: Érebos, "deep darkness, shadow"[2]), or Erebos, is the personification of darkness and one of the primordial deities. Hesiod's Theogony identifies him as one of the first five beings in existence, born of Chaos.

Erebus
Personification of Darkness
AbodeUnderworld
Personal information
ParentsChaos
SiblingsNyx
ConsortNyx
OffspringAether, Hemera, the Keres, Thanatos, Hypnos, the Oneiroi, Momus, Oizys, the Hesperides, the Moirai, Nemesis, Apate, Philotes, Geras, Eris, Styx, Dolos, Ponos, Euphrosyne, Epiphron, Continentia, Petulantia, Misericordia, Pertinacia
Roman equivalentScotus
Greek deities
series
Primordial deities
Chthonic deities

Etymology

The perceived meaning of Erebus is "darkness"; the first recorded instance of it was "place of darkness between earth and Hades". The name Ἔρεβος itself originates from Proto-Indo-European *h₁regʷ-es/os- "darkness"[3][4] (cf. Sanskrit rájas, Gothic riqis, Old Norse røkkr).[2]

Mythology

According to the Greek oral poet Hesiod's Theogony, Erebus is the offspring of Chaos,[5] and the brother of Nyx, by whom he is the father of Aether and Hemera.[6]

According to the Fabulae of Hyginus, Erebus, Nox (Night), Aether and Dies (Day) are the offspring of Chaos and Caligine (Mist), and Erebus, by Nox, is the father of Fate, Old age, Death, Destruction, Strife, Sleep, Dreams, Thoughtfulness, Hedymeles, Porphyrion, Epaphus, Discord, Misery, Petulance, Nemesis, Cheerfulness, Friendship, Pity, Styx, the Parcae (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos), and the Hesperides (Aegle, Hesperia, and Erythea).[7]

In Cicero's De Natura Deorum, the following are "fabled" to be the children of Erebus and Nox (Night): Aether, Dies (Day), Amor (Love), Dolus (Guile), Metus (Fear), Labor (Toil), Invidentia (Envy), Fatum (Fate), Senectus (Old Age), Mors (Death), Tenebrae (Darkness), Miseria (Misery), Querella (Lamentation), Gratia (Favour), Fraus (Fraud), Pertinacia (Obstinacy), the Parcae (the Fates), the Hesperides and the Somnia (Dreams).[8]

In a cosmogony attributed to Alcman, Erebus is apparently the fourth being to come into existence, after Thetis, Poros and Tekmor.[9]

In Aristophanes' comedy Birds, Chaos, Erebus, Nyx and Tartarus were the first beings, before the existence of Earth, air or heaven.[10] Nyx "laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus", from which came Eros.[11] Aether is also called the son of Erebus.[12]

Erebus functions as the unanthropomorphized personification of darkness in the Theogony, and features little in Greek mythological tradition and literature. Though he plays no active role as a deity in later works, "Erebus" is used as a name for a region of the Greek underworld where the dead pass immediately after dying, and is sometimes used interchangeably with Tartarus.[13][14][15][16][17]

Namesake

Five ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Erebus after Erebus. Mount Erebus, the second-highest volcano in Antarctica, was named after HMS Erebus used by Sir James Clark Ross on his Antarctic expedition in 1841, later used in the ill-fated Franklin Expedition.

Notes
  1. Wells, John C. (2008), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman, ISBN 9781405881180
  2. Ἔρεβος. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  3. R. S. P. Beekes, p. 451.
  4. Harper, Douglas. "Online Etymology Dictionary: Erebus". Retrieved 1 July 2011.
  5. Hesiod, Theogony 116–124; Gantz, p. 4; Hard, p. 23; Fowler, p. 5; Caldwell, p. 6.
  6. Hesiod, Theogony 124–126; Gantz, p. 4; Hard, p. 24; Caldwell, p. 6; Smith, s.v. E'rebos.
  7. Hyginus, Fabulae Theogony 1 (Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 95).
  8. Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.44.
  9. Alcman, fr. 5 Campbell (pp. 392–395).
  10. Aristophanes, Birds 690–694.
  11. Aristophanes, Birds 695–697.
  12. Aristophanes, Birds 1191–1194.
  13. For example, later in the Theogony, the word Erebus is used to refer to the place below the earth to which Menoetius is sent by Zeus, and from which the Hecatoncheires are brought. (Hesiod, Theogony 510–517, 668–671; Gantz, p. 4) It is also used multiple times by Homer to refer to the underworld (Iliad 8.366–369, 9.565–573, 16.325–329; Odyssey 10.526–529, 11.37-39; Gantz, p. 4.); according to Hard, p. 24, the word was used "quite often from the time of Homer onwards as a poetic name for the Underworld in its nature as a realm of gloom". (See also in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2), 335–339, 347–349.) In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Proserpina is called the "queen of Erebus" (5.572–573), the underworld deities are called the "gods of Erebus" (10.74), and Circe "invoke[s] the aid of Night (Nyx) and all the gods of Night from Erebus and Chaos" (14.394–396). Similarly, in Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy, 12.18–19: "When rose the dawn (Eos), and thrust back kindly night (Nyx) [t]o Erebus...".
  14. Elizabeth, Alice (1896). The Sources of Spenser's Classical Mythology. New York: Silver, Burdett and Company. pp. 52, 55. ISBN 9780598920058.
  15. Morford, Mark P. O. (1999). Classical Mythology: Sixth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press US. pp. 36, 84, 253, 263, 271. ISBN 0-19-514338-8., ISBN 9780195143386
  16. Rengel, Marian (2009). Greek and Roman Mythology A to Z. Infobase Publishing. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-60413-412-4., ISBN 9781604134124
  17. Turner, Patricia (2001). Dictionary of Ancient Deities. Oxford University Press. p. 170. ISBN 0-19-514504-6., ISBN 9780195145045

References
Look up Erebus in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • Aristophanes, Birds in The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random House. 1938. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Beekes, Robert S. P., Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
  • Caldwell, Richard, Hesiod's Theogony, Focus Publishing / R. Pullins Company (1987). ISBN 978-0-941051-00-2.
  • Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric, Volume II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman, edited and translated by David A. Campbell, Loeb Classical Library No. 143, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1988. Online version at Harvard University Press.
  • Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum in Cicero: On the Nature of the Gods. Academics, translated by H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library No. 268, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, first published 1933, revised 1951. ISBN 978-0-674-99296-2. Online version at Harvard University Press. Internet Archive.
  • Fowler, R. L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0198147411.
  • Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
  • Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0415186360. Google Books.
  • Hesiod, Theogony from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
  • Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae in Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87220-821-6.
  • Morford, Mark P. O., Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology, Eighth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-530805-1.
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Brookes More, Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of Troy, translated by A.S. Way, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1913. Internet Archive.
  • Schmitz, Leonhard, "E'rebos", in Smith, William (ed.) Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London, John Murray, 1848.
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