HARPYIÆ, or HARPIES, were three in number, their names, CelÆno, AËllo, and Ocypĕte. The ancients looked on them as a sort of Genii, or DÆmons. They had the faces of virgins, the ears of bears, the bodies of vultures, human arms and feet, and long claws, hooked like the talons of carnivorous birds. Phineas, king of Arcadia, being a prophet, and revealing the mysteries of Jupiter to mortals, was by that deity struck blind, and so tormented by the Harpies that he was ready to perish for hunger; they devouring whatever was set before him, till the sons of Boreas, who attended Jason in his expedition to Colchis, delivered the good old king, and drove these monsters to the islands called Strophădes: compelling them to swear never more to return.

The Harpies, according to the ingenious AbbÉ la Pluche, had their origin in Egypt. He further observes, in respect to them, that during the months of April, May, and June, especially the two latter, Egypt being very subject to tempests, which laid waste their olive grounds, and carried thither numerous swarms of grasshoppers, and other troublesome insects from the shores of the Red Sea, the Egyptians gave to their emblematic figures of these months a female face, with the bodies and claws of birds, calling them Harop, or winged destroyers. This solution of the fable corresponds with the opinion of Le Clerc, who takes the harpies to have been a swarm of locusts, the word Arbi, whence Harpy is formed, signifying, in their language, a locust.

GORGONS were three in number, and daughters of Phorcus or Porcys, by his sister Ceto. Their names were Medūsa, Euryăle, and Stheno, and they are represented as having scales on their bodies, brazen hands, golden wings, tusks like boars, and snakes for hair. The last distinction, however, is confined by Ovid to Medūsa.

According to some mythologists, Perseus having been sent against Medūsa by the gods, was supplied by Mercury with a falchion, by Minerva with a mirror, and by Pluto with a helmet, which rendered the wearer invisible. Thus equipped, through the aid of winged sandals, he steered his course towards Tartessus, where, finding the object of his search, by the reflection of his mirror, he was enabled to aim his weapon, without meeting her eye, (for her look would have turned him to stone) and at one blow struck off her head. When Perseus had slain Medūsa, the other sisters pursued him, but he escaped from their sight by means of his helmet. They were afterwards thrown into hell.

SPHINX was a female monster, daughter of Typhon and Echidna. She had the head, face, and breasts of a woman, the wings of a bird, the claws of a lion, and the body of a dog. She lived on mount Sphincius, infested the country about Thebes, and assaulted passengers, by proposing dark and enigmatical questions to them, which if they did not explain, she tore them in pieces. Sphinx made horrible ravages in the neighborhood of Thebes, till Creon, then king of that city, published an edict over all Greece, promising that if any one should explain the riddle of Sphinx, he would give him his own sister Iocasta in marriage.

The riddle was this, “What animal is that which goes upon four feet in the morning, upon two at noon, and upon three at night?” Many had endeavored to explain this riddle, but failing in the attempt, were destroyed by the monster; till Œdipus undertook the solution, and thus explained it: “The animal is man, who in his infancy creeps, and so may be said to go on four feet; when he gets into the noon of life, he walks on two feet; but when he grows old, or declines into the evening of his days, he uses the support of a staff, and thus may be said to walk on three feet.” The Sphinx being enraged at this explanation, cast herself headlong from a rock and died.