Harpe

Harpe is also a junior synonym of the wrasse genus Bodianus. In entomology, it is a part of the valva.

The harpē (ἅρπη) was a type of sword mentioned in Ancient Greek and Latin sources, almost always in mythological contexts. Most notably it was the sword used by Perseus to decapitate the Medusa, and by Cronus to castrate his father Uranus. In Greek and Roman art it is variously depicted, but it seems that originally it was a khopesh-like sickle-sword. Later depictions often show it as a combination of a sword and sickle, and this odd interpretation is explicitly described in the 2nd century Leucippe and Clitophon[1]

The Greek ἅρπη is in origin a loan from a Semitic word reflected in Biblical Hebrew as חרב "a sword".

Notes

  1. ^ Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon 3.7.8—9: "ὥπλισται δὲ καὶ τὴν δεξιὰν διφυεῖ σιδήρῳ εἰς δρέπανον καὶ ξίφος ἐσχισμένῳ. ἄρχεται μὲν γὰρ ἡ κώπη κάτωθεν ἀμφοῖν ἐκ μιᾶς, καὶ ἔστιν ἐφ’ ἥμισυ τοῦ σιδήρου ξίφος, ἐντεῦθεν δὲ ἀπορραγὲν τὸ μὲν ὀξύνεται, τὸ δὲ ἐπικάμπτεται. καὶ τὸ μὲν ἀπωξυμμένον μένει ξίφος, ὡς ἤρξατο, τὸ δὲ καμπτόμενον δρέπανον γίνεται, ἵνα μιᾷ πληγῇ τὸ μὲν ἐρείδῃ τὴν σφαγήν, τὸ δὲ κρατῇ τὴν τομήν.

See also