The most famous myth involving the Harpies is the tale of King Phineus. He was a king of Thrace, in northern Greece, who offended the gods. There are various accounts about what he did wrong, but in the best-known version
He remarried after his wife died, and, in his desperation to please his new bride, allowed her to torture his children, who ended up being blinded. In another version Phineus was granted the gift of prophecy, but foretold the future so well that he infuriated the gods by revealing their plans.
The Children of Podarge
Podarge, one of the Harpies, was the mother of Xanthus and Balius, the two magical horses that ran like the wind and pulled the chariot of the Greek hero Achilles during the Trojan War. The horses' father was Zephyrus, the West Wind. The gods gave Xanthus and Balius to the hero Peleus as a present on his marriage to the sea goddess Thetis—the horses then passed to the couple's son, Achilles, when he went to Troy.
Soon after the horses were born, Hera, the wife of Zeus, gave Xanthus the power of speech, and during the Trojan War he spoke to Achilles. He warned him that although he would survive a forthcoming battle, he would die soon afterward. The Furies, the spirits of vengeance, struck Xanthus dumb to punish him for what he had told Achilles. When Patroclus, Achilles' best friend, was killed at Troy, both Xanthus and Balius wept, and Zeus was sorry that he had allowed them to get involved in the fighting and violence of humans.
As punishment, Phineus was himself blinded, and the gods also sent the Harpies to make his life a misery. The monsters constantly snatched his food from his hands or spoiled it with their foul stench, so Phineus could never get enough to eat and grew painfully thin. He was finally rescued when Jason and the Argonauts came past Thrace on their journey to fetch the Golden Fleece. Two of the Argonauts, Calais and Zetes, the brothers of Phineus’s first wife, decided to help the king, and drove the Harpies away to the Strophades Islands. They were going to kill them, but the Harpies’ sister, Iris, persuaded the Argonauts to spare them if they promised to keep away from Phineus. In some versions the Harpies then went to Crete; in others they stayed in the Strophades.
World History
