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Eris
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Terry McCombs
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Oct 31, 2005 21:35 PST
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NAME: Eris, "the Lady of Sorrow," "defender of the people," (Homer)
known by the Romans as Discordia.
SYMBOLS: A golden apple of immortality with Kallisti "to the fairest" or
"to the pretest") written on it.
USUAL IMAGE: Usually depicted as a beautiful young woman, who on looking
closer is shone to have corpse pale skin, hair bedecked with thorns and
wearing a garland that from the distance seems floral but is really a
poisonous snake. Was said to become larger during battles.
AREA OF INFLUENCE: Originally strife, lately Chaos, but in a good way.
HOLY BOOKS: Theogony of Hesiod, The Iliad, The The Principia Discordia.
HOLY DAYS: None
RELATIVES: Chaos (grand parent), Nyx (Mother), no father, Gaia (Aunt),
Erebus `Darkness´ (Uncle), Apate, goddess of deceit, Geras goddess of
old age, Philotes goddess of affection, Nemesis, goddess of vengeance,
the Keres, the Fates (sisters), Thanatos, god of death, Hypnos, god of
sleep, Momus, god of writers, critics, sarcasm & I would assume these
days Blogsters (brothers), Horkos god of oaths (son `with Areas?´),
(Morpheus (nephew.) Ares (consort.)
I have to say however that Saturnalia supper over at "the gloomy house
of Nyx" had to have been one interesting affair!
Later accounts give her mother & father as Hera and Zeus, I think this
can be discounted as a much later addition.
SYNODEITIES: Discordia (Roman, who though later said to be one and the
same as Eris was at first another Goddess altogether), The Morrigan
(Celtic), Loki (Norse), Kali (Hinduism), Seth (Egyptian), Lucifier
(Christianity.)
DETAILS: The Greek goddess Eris was original a vary minor goddess about
whom little is known.
Most of our knowledge about her comes from Hesiod's Days & Weeks, where
we learn there were two Erises (Erisi?) one band and one not so bad, and
Homer's Iliad, where we are told that Eris, the goddess of strife, was
one of the few deities not invited to come to Boeotia (Cow-Land) to
witness the marriage of the human Cadmus, former slave on Olympus for
eight years for having killed one of the giant serpents of Gaia, to the
Goddess Harmony. (apparently as a reward for being a really good suck up
to Zeus)
All the gods & goddesses were at this wedding, save for Eris, who they
thought an inauspicious personage to invite to a wedding, though a bit
unfair I would say as they did invite Ares, hardly the best house guess.
Hearing of it anyway Eris crashed the party and rolled one of the golden
apples of immortality into the middle of it marked with the word
Kallisti meaning ether "for the fairest" or "for the prettiest."
This led to a dispute between the Goddesses Aphrodite, Athene & Hera
about who should have it. (you would think Athene would have better
sense) which led to the human Paris, who apparently had never been
introduced to the concept of cutting an apple into sections, being
called in as the sucker to settle the dispute, which led to the Trojan
War.
The whole moral of which seems to have been sometimes practical jokes
just go too damn far.
There is not much else heard from Eris, though we are told that like the
Celtic goddess The Morrigan that while she doesn't take part in battles
herself, she does revel in them and during some may grow larger in size
as she becomes more excited.
However I suspect that there may be sometime been more to Eris than
this. For one thing while Homer goes to a great deal of trouble to paint
her in the harshest colors, he (whoever he or they were that ended up
being called Homer) also at one point refers to Eris as "the defender of
the people."
I suspect that it may be that the much later Homer is letting the lore
about an earlier Eris slip in. I think this may show that perhaps she is
another Greek triple Goddess, with her "sisters" Philotes, goddess of
affection, & Nemesis shape-shifting goddess of vengeance.
However as so much of the shifting beliefs of that time are lost, I
doubt that could ever be proven. So we are left with the golden apple
story.
Until that is the year 1958 or 59 when Greg Hill & Kerry Thornley brough
her into the 20th century with the Principia Discordia. which led to The
Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson, which led to
many thousands of people starting to call themselves ether Discordians
or Erisians and acting accordingly.
Restating, it would seem, the same moral we got from the Iliad above.
And Eris, having been brought back, refuses to go away, still showing up
on such venues as a cute `goth´ on the television series Xena Warrior
Princess, (where they insisted on just calling here Discord), as the foe
of Sinbad in a cartoon where she is voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer, to a
stint as a villaness in the Wonder Woman comic in the 80's & 90's, to
now where Eris is depicted as a British accented blonde, with a David
Letterman gap in her teeth, & wearing a midriff revealing toga on the
Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy on the Cartoon Network. Showing that
you might as well send her an invitation because she´s coming anyway.
As Greg Hill is reported to have said, "If I had known it was all going
to come true I would have picked Venus."
For images & links go to
http://community-2.webtv.net/Toomuwik/Eris/index.html
or find the Eris Link at
The God/dess Of The Month Club:
http://community-2.webtv.net/magentashadow/GOMC/
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