ABSTRACT
In art, however, the Harpies were represented as monstrous birds with women’s faces like the Sirens (this caused them to be confused with ghosts or death-spirits, which were similarly represented), and it was as creatures such as these that they figured in their most famous myth, the plaguing of Phineus, a Thracian king who extended hospitality to the Argonauts during their voyage to Colchis. Flying into Phineus’ diningroom, they seized his food and befouled his table with their droppings. He made a bargain with the Argonauts, agreeing to prophesy their future if they would rid him of this pest. In the usual version of the story, Calais and Zetes, the winged sons of Boreas, pursued the Harpies as far as the Strophades Islands in the Ionian Sea, where Iris appeared and told them to relinquish their pursuit, provided that the Harpies guaranteed to leave Phineus alone. In this version, they then went to live in a cave on Mount Dicte in Crete. According to another tradition, however, both pursuers and pursued failed ever to return, having died of starvation; and the river Harpys (Tigres) in the Peloponnese is said to have received its name because one of the Harpies, as they fled from Calais and Zetes, fell into
its depths. Aeneas met the Harpy Celaeno at the Strophades, where she predicted that his Trojans would reach their new home only when hunger forced them to eat their tables. She and her companions raided the Trojans’ meals, and since their feathers of steel were tougher than swords, it was impossible to drive them off.
