Electra (Greek mythology)
In Greek mythology, Electra or Elektra (/ɪˈlɛktrə/; Greek: Ἠλέκτρα, Ēlektra, "amber") was the name of the following women:
- Electra (Oceanid), one of the Oceanids who was the wife of Thaumas and mother of Iris and the Harpies.[1]
- Electra (Pleiad), one of the Pleiades.[2]
- Electra, one of the Danaids, daughter of Danaus, king of Libya and the naiad Polyxo. She married and later killed her husband Peristhenes or Hyperantus following the commands of her father.[3][4]
- Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.[5]
- Electra, handmaiden of Helen who fastened her mistress' sandals when she went to the walls of Troy.[6]
- Electra, sister of Cadmus, of whom he named after the Electran gate at Thebes.[7][8] She might be instead the mother of Cadmus because later writers noted that the other name for his mother Telephassa was Electra.[9]
Notes
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 337–370
- ^ Apollodorus, 3.5.1, 3.12.1 & 3
- ^ Apollodorus, 2.1.5
- ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 170
- ^ Apollodorus, Epitome 2.16 & 6.23–28
- ^ Pausanias, 10.25.4
- ^ Pausanias, 9.8.4
- ^ Scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes, 1.916
- ^ "On Samothrace... the mother was called Elektra or Elektryone" as Karl Kerenyi noted (Kerenyi 1959:27)
References
- 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.
- Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
- Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
- Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.