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WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ERIS
Disgustingly little.
However, we do know that she was worshipped by the ancient
Greeks as the Goddess of Strife and Discord; and that the Romans
appropriated Her and re-named Her Discordia.
The Romans seem to be the only ones who left a likeness of
her for posterity--she was presented as a grotesque woman with
a pale and ghastly look, her eyes afire, her garment ripped and
torn, and as having a concealed daggar hidden in her bosom. Some
Discordians of today question the validity of this picture, but
that's what the Romans said.
Her geneology is amazingly balled up (which is me so appropriate
to Eris, that it makes one shudder). She is the daughter of either
a) Zeus and Hera (and the twin of Ares), or b) of Nyx. Now, Nyx
was the daughter of Chaos and the Goddess of Night. She and her
brother Erebus (hows this for a scandal?) begat Hypnos (sleep),
Thanatos (death), Moros (doom), Cer (fate), Dreams (dreams),
Momus (mockery, blame), Oizys (misery), The Three Fates (Lachesis,
Atropos, Clotho), Nemesis, Deceit, Friendship, Old Age and Strife
(ERIS). Zeus was scared to death of her. At least, it seems, that
she may be the daughter of Chaos. To quote from The New Century
Classical Handbook: "In Greek mythology, chaos is the original
formless state of the universe; or, the deity presiding over it.
Perhaps no other myth exhibits quite so much confusion and variety
as are found in the concepts of Chaos. The one thing common to
all varieties was the idea of infinite space in which matter existed
without form and in complete darkness; to some of the ancient poets,
this was Chaos, and alone existed, but others said that Earth and
Eros (not to be confused with Eris) were coeval with Chaos. In
some cosmogonies, the first of all things was Chronos (time),
from whom proceeded Chaos and Aether (Light, or Upper Air). But
in another formulation, Chaos was the deity presiding over the
formeless mass with his wife Nyx (Night). Their son Erebus (dark-nes
ness) slew or dethroned Chaos (ho, ho, another scandal!) and married
his mother: from this union came Aether and Hemera (Day), who
with the aid of their son Eros (love) created Pontus (Sea), and
Gaea (Earth). But in other accounts Gaea proceeded directly from
Chaos and was the mother of Eros as well as of Tartarus (the Nether
World)." And that is who Eris is related to.
But, all this garbage aside, we have one nice little myth
about Her.
THE MYTH OF THE APPLE OF DISCORD
It seems that Zeus was throwing a wedding banquet for Peleus
and Thetis; and quite logically didn't want to invite Eris because
he wanted it to go well. So everybody got invited by but poor Eris
(we call this The Doctrine Of The Original Snub), and she got quite
angry about it all.
Her cunning little mind clicking away madly, she took an
apple of pure god gold and inscribed upon it KALLISTI ("to the
prettyest prettiest one") and rolled it into the banquet hall.
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