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Lamia

lamia

BELUS had a beautiful daughter, Lamia, who ruled in Libya, and on whom Zeus, in acknowledgement of her favours, bestowed the singular power of plucking out and replacing her eyes at will. She bore him several children, but all of them except Scylla were killed by Hera in a fit of jealousy. Lamia took her revenge by destroying the children of others, and behaved so cruelly that her face turned into a nightmarish mask.
b. Later, she joined the company of the Empusae, lying with young men and sucking their blood while they slept.
1. Lamia was the Libyan Neith, the Love-and-Battle goddess, also named Anatha and Athene, whose worship the Achaeans suppressed; like Alphito of Arcadia, she ended as a nurse bogey. Her name, Lamia, seems to be akin to lamyros (‘gluttonous’), from laimos (‘gullet’)-thus, of a woman: ‘lecherous’; and her ugly face is the prophylactic Gorgon mask worn by her priestesses during their Mysteries, of which infanticide was an integral part. Lamia’s removable eyes are perhaps deduced from a picture of the goddess about to bestow mystic sight on a hero by proffering him an eye. The Empusae were incubae.



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