Achlys

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For the plant genus named Achlys, see Achlys (plant).

Achlys (Gk. Αχλύς) was, according to some ancient cosmogonies, the eternal Night (Perhaps the Mist of Death, which clouded the eyes of the dying), and the first created being which existed even before Chaos. According to Hesiod, she was the personification of misery and sadness, a daughter of Nyx (Night) and as such she was represented on the shield of Heracles: pale, emaciated, and weeping, with chattering teeth, swollen knees, long nails on her fingers, bloody cheeks, and her shoulders thickly covered with dust.[1] If the former is true, then she may have been numbered amongst the Keres.[2]

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[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Scut. Here. 264, &c.
  2. ^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1867), “Achlys”, in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston, MA, pp. 12 

[edit] External links

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).

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