HARPIES (Gr. apnrmat, the "snatchers"), fabulous creatures, probably wind-spirits although their presence as tomb-figures (e.g., on the famous Harpy Tomb of Xanthus in Lydia) makes it not impossible that they were ghosts ; the two ideas are not wholly contradictory. In Homer they are plainly winds (Odyssey, xx. 66) which carried people away; as also Odyssey, i. 241 (the harpyiai have carried off Odysseus ; i.e., he has been lost at sea). They are sometimes con nected with the powers of the under—world; thus they carried off the daughters of Pandareus and gave them to the Erinyes as servants. Homer names one, Podarge (Swif tf oot), who seemed to be of equine nature, for she became by the West Wind the dam of Achilles' horses (Iliad, XVI., 15o). Hesiod (Theog., 265) mentions two, Aello, and Oky pete (Stormwind and Swiftwing), daughters of Thaumas, and Electra the daughter of Oceanus.
These Harpies were in no way disgusting; later, especially in the Argonautic saga, they were represented as birds with the faces of women, horribly foul and loathsome. They are sent to punish Phineus for his ill-treatment of his children, or some other offence, and nearly starve him to death by carrying off most of his food and befouling the rest. Calais and Zetes (q.v.) deliver him and chase the Harpies away (Apollodorus, I., 120-123). Virgil imi tates the episode in Aen., III., 21 o et seq. ; he calls the chief Harpy Celaeno (Dark; cf. Hyginus, Fab. 14) .