Page "Erinyes" Paragraph 4

When the Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of blood, while Aphrodite was born from the crests of seafoam.

According to variant accounts, they emerged from an even more primordial level — from Nyx, " Night ".

Their number is usually left indeterminate.

Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto (" unnameable " who appeared in Virgil's Aeneid ), Megaera (" grudging "), and Tisiphone (" vengeful destruction ").

Dante followed Virgil in depicting the same three-charactered triptych of Erinyes ; in Canto IX of the Inferno they confront the poets at the gates of the city of Dis.

The waists of the Erinyes were entwined with serpents ( compare Gorgon ) and their eyes dripped with blood, rendering their appearance rather horrific.

Other depictions show them with the wings of a bat or bird and the body of a dog.