Question about "harpies"

[Deja Q]

Who the hell came up with that term, anyway?

[datasuspect]

1. what, no sexual innuendo/word play/etc.?

i'm disappointed in you . . .

[Deja Q]

4. Well, I'm sorry.

I'd be damned either way, of course...

[chknltl]

2. You knew that one gets that from kissing a sick....

harbor seal, right? At risk of being too graphic, it causes unsightly, salty smelling scabs around ones kisser which come and go periodically for life...modern science has yet to effect a cure. I made sure to warn my kids as they reached their teen years to just say no to all harbor seals. (Our little chats worked too, :) neither of them ever contracted harpies)

[Deja Q]

5. Can your response be classified as innuendo?

:evilgrin:

[chknltl]

7. That depends on which Italian's end you are talkin about buster

...speaking of ends and depends...guess what 60 year old .... oh never mind it's way too early for this.



























woo-woo-fer

[warrior1]

3. The Greeks

[Blue-Jay]

6. Theories of origin (from Wiki)

R.D. Barnett suggests in "Ancient Oriental Influences on Archaic Greece" — an essay in The Aegean and the Near East, Saul S. Weinberg, ed. (Locust Valley, N.Y.,1956) — that the Harpies were originally adapted from the ornaments on bronze caldrons from Urartu:

These made such an impression in Greece that they seem to have given rise to the siren type in archaic Greek art, and as they appeared to flutter at the rim of such noble cooking vessels, apparently gave rise to the familiar Greek legend of Phineus and the Harpies, who are thus depicted in Greek art. The very name of Phineus, the victim of their persecutions, may be nothing but a corruption of the name of a king of Urartu, Ishpuinish or Ushpina (ca. 820 B.C.), who was perhaps associated by the Greek merchants with these vessels.<2>

Other scholars point out that this theory is based upon the idea that the Harpies were bird monsters with human heads, which was not true in the original myths.

In their winged human form, the Harpies are no different from a large number of Greek divinities and as such would not need a special explanation for how they came to be. The later bird composite form is considered by most authors to have been a confusion with an early depiction of the Sirens as bird women.

[chknltl]

8. Those "Other scholars" you mentioned had it right!!!1!1!!

Take my "ex" fer instance...no really....