ALECTO (one of the Erinyes)
Divine power · one of the Erinyes or Furies, ancient Greek mythological punisher of moral crimes
Alecto is a fiend whose body contains Gorgon poison, residing as a woeful power among the Furies.1,2 Born from the drops of blood that flowed when Cronus cut off his father's genitals, she is one of the Furies.3 Hades is her father, though he loathes her, and Hera addresses her as the daughter of dark Night.1 Her hell-born sister-fiends view her with hate, and she dwells on a cloudy throne in the gloom of hell.1,4 She is a hell-born virgin with Stygian pinions, bearing a thousand names and a thousand ways of ruin.5,1 In her true form, she wears many shapes and fronts with frowning black brows garlanded with vipers, and her hair is wrapped in curling snakes.1,6
Iris released Alecto from the realm of the shades to act in the world above, where she strode across the Italian hills in a state of frenzied wrath.4 She traveled invisibly to Latium to reach the Laurentian King's walls and sat silently on the threshold of Queen Amata's bower.2 Alecto threw a serpent from her Stygian hair into the Queen's heart, instilling a viper soul into the Queen's wrathful mind.2 She caused the Queen to wander fevered and unstrung through public ways and moved the Queen to feign madness associated with Dionysus.2 Using a goad associated with Dionysus, Alecto urged the raging Queen Amata forward through the woodland haunt.7 She hid Amata's daughter away from her Trojan bridegroom and wedding feast, and left once she felt Latinus's house was completely stripped of reason.7
Disguised as an old crone named Calybe with a brow deeply wrinkled by age, she approached Turnus.7 Her hoary hair was bound in a sacred fillet and garlanded with a leaf of olive as she told Turnus that Hera had commanded her to deliver a message.7 Alecto urged Turnus to attack the Phrygian chiefs and burn their galleys, having been commanded by Hera to rend the plighted peace between the armies and breed calumnies to sow causes of battle.7,1 She flew to the location where the Teucrians were camped and hid silently in the forest while the rustics gathered.5 She guided Ascanius' arrow to pierce the stag deeply, and then soared to the roof of a tall byre to signal the attack.5 She blew a wild signal on a shepherd's horn, and her horn blast caused the forest to shudder.5
Alecto dyed the day red with blood and opened up fight with death and slaughter.8 She soared skyward and called to Hera in triumph about the war she had started.8 Alecto threatened to awaken bordering states to war and scatter seeds of carnage, speaking insolently to Juno and boasting of her ability to cause more carnage if Juno did not change her purpose.8 Hera told Alecto to quit the field because the Olympian King no longer permits her to roam freely.8 Alecto unfolded her hissing, viperous wings before leaving the battlefield.8 She plunged into a monstrous cave in the valley of Amsanctus in Italia, which is a breathing-hole of hell where Acheron opens its noisome jaws.8 There, Alecto concealed her execrable godhead in the abyss of the cave.8
Her heart is sustained by wars, wrath, vengeance, treason, and feuds, and she is prompt to the stroke of mischief.1,5 She can thrust on two loving brothers to draw sword and slay each other, and ruin homes with hatred and bring avenging fires.1 Alecto can breed calumnies and sow causes of battle, filling nostrils with the scent of stags and breathing sudden rage into hounds.1,5 Her infernal note makes the forest shudder and the grove throb.5
The codex facts behind this entry
Alecto is a fiend whose body contains Gorgon poison and is a woeful power residing among the Furies. Aeneid 7.323 +1
