View source for Keres

{{Short description|Greek goddesses of violent death}}
{{other uses}}
{{distinguish|Ceres (mythology)|Ker (disambiguation)}}

{{Greek myth (personified)}}
In [[Greek mythology]], the '''Keres''' ({{Ipac|/ˈkɪriːz/}}; [[Ancient Greek]]: Κῆρες) were female death-spirits. They were the goddesses who personified violent death and who were drawn to bloody deaths on battlefields.{{cn|date=June 2023}}  Although they were present during death and dying, they did not have the power to kill. All they could do was wait and then feast on the dead. The Keres were daughters of [[Nyx]], and as such the sisters of beings such as [[Moirai]], who controlled the fate of souls, and [[Thanatos]], the god of peaceful death.  Some later authorities, such as [[Cicero]], called them by a Latin name, ''Tenebrae'' ("the Darknesses"), and named them daughters of [[Erebus]] and Nyx.

The singular form of the name is '''Ker''' ({{Ipac|/ˈkɜr/}}; Κήρ), which, according to [[Hesiod]], refers to an entity distinct from the Keres.<ref>Hesiod's [[Theogony]] 221.</ref> Ancient sources seldom distinguish or enumerate the Keres, describing them instead as a vast and host. In the ''Iliad'', they are portrayed as "thousands" (''myriai'') in number. Mimnermus, however, speaks of only two "one bringing old age, the other death".<ref>{{Cite book |last=West |first=M. L. |year=1993 |title=Greek Lyric Poetry: The Poems and Fragments of the Greek Iambic and Elegiac Poets (excluding Pindar and Bacchylides) |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=86 |quote=For us, as soon as pain comes to the head, there follows an evil fate grievous old age and death, two Keres. |language=en}}</ref> Quintus Smyrnaeus similarly mentions "twin Keres, one dark, one bright".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Quintus Smyrnaeus |title=The Fall of Troy (Posthomerica) |editor-last=Way |editor-first=A. S. |series=Loeb Classical Library |volume=19 |year=1913 |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=14.360–365 |quote=And two Keres came from elsewhere, one dark, the other bright. |language=en}}</ref>

==Etymology==
The Greek word [[:wikt:κήρ|κήρ]] means "the goddess of death" or "doom"<ref name="e090">{{cite web | title=ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ: Κήρ | website=University of Chicago Logeion | url=https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%CE%9A%CE%AE%CF%81 | access-date=2024-07-05}}</ref><ref name="a023">{{cite web | title=Ancient Greek: Κήρ  | website=Liddell, Scott, Jones Ancient Greek Lexicon (LSJ) | date=2024-03-23 | url=https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CE%9A%CE%AE%CF%81 | access-date=2024-07-05}}</ref> and appears as a proper noun in the singular and plural as Κήρ and Κῆρες to refer to divinities. [[Homer]] uses ''Κῆρες'' in the phrase ''κήρες θανάτοιο'', "Keres of death". By extension the word may mean "plague, disease"  and in prose "blemish or defect".  The relative verb  ''κεραΐζω'' or ''κείρω'' means "ravage or plunder".<ref>{{cite web |title=Greek Word Study Tool |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=kh%2Fres&la=greek#lexicon |website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> Sometimes in Homer the words κήρ and [[moirai|moira]] have similar meanings. The older meaning was probably "destruction of the dead", and [[Hesychius of Alexandria]] relates the word to the verb ''κηραινειν'' "decay".<ref>Nilsson Vol I, p. 224</ref>

==Description==
{{blockquote|And Nyx (Night) bare hateful Moros (Doom) and black Ker (Violent Death) and Thanatos (Death), and she bare [[Hypnos]] (Sleep) and the tribe of [[Oneiroi]] (Dreams). And again the goddess murky Nyx, though she lay with none, bare Momus (Blame) and painful [[Oizys]] (Misery), and the [[Hesperides]] ... Also she bare the Moirai (Fates) and the ruthless [[Vengeful ghost|avenging]] Keres (Death-Fates) ... Also deadly Nyx bare Nemesis (Revenge) to afflict mortal men, and after her, [[Apate]] (Deceit) and [[Philotes]] (Friendship) and hateful [[Geras]] (Old Age) and hard-hearted [[Eris (mythology)|Eris]] (Strife).|[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' 211, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White}}
They were described as dark beings with gnashing teeth and claws and with a thirst for human blood. They would hover over the battlefield and search for dying and wounded men. A description of the Keres can be found in the Shield of Heracles (248–57):
{{blockquote|The black Dooms gnashing their white teeth, grim-eyed, fierce, bloody, terrifying fought over the men who were dying for they were all longing to drink dark blood. As soon as they caught a man who had fallen or one newly wounded, one of them clasped her great claws around him and his soul went down to [[Hades]], to chilly [[Tartarus]]. And when they had satisfied their hearts with human blood, they would throw that one behind them and rush back again into the battle and the tumult.}}

A parallel, and equally unusual personification of "the baleful Ker" is in Homer's depiction of the [[Shield of Achilles]] (''Iliad'', ix. 410ff), which is the model for the ''Shield of Heracles''. These are works of art that are being described.

In the fifth century, Keres were portrayed as small winged sprites in vase-paintings adduced by J.E. Harrison (Harrison, 1903), who described apotropaic rites and rites of purification that were intended to keep the Keres at bay.

According to a statement of [[Stesichorus]] noted by [[Eustathius of Thessalonica|Eustathius]], Stesichorus "called the Keres by the name [[Telchines]]", whom Eustathius identified with the [[Kuretes]] of Crete, who could call up squalls of wind and would brew potions from herbs (noted in Harrison, p.&nbsp;171).

The term ''Keres'' has also been cautiously used to describe a person's fate.<ref>In the second century AD [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausaniuas]] equated the two (x.28.4). "Here and elsewhere to translate 'Keres' by fates is to make a premature abstraction," [[Jane Ellen Harrison]] warned (''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', "The Ker as Evil Sprite" p. 170. See also Harrison's section "The Ker as Fate" pp. 183–87).</ref> An example of this can be found in the ''[[Iliad]]'' where [[Achilles]] was given the choice (or ''Keres'') between either a long and obscure life and home, or death at Troy and everlasting glory. Also, when [[Achilles]] and [[Hector]] were about to engage in a fight to the death, the god [[Zeus]] weighed both warriors' ''keres'' to determine who shall die.<ref>This ''Kerostasia'', or weighing of ''keres'' may be paralleled by the ''Psychostasia'' or weighing of souls; a lost play with that title was written by [[Aeschylus]] and the Egyptian parallel is familiar.</ref> As [[Hector]]’s ''ker'' was deemed heavier, he was the one destined to die and in the [[weighing of souls]], Zeus chooses Hector to be killed.<ref>The subject appears in vase-paintings, where little men are in the scales: "it is the ''lives'' rather than the fates that are weighed", Harrison remarks (''Prolegomena'' p. 184).</ref>
During the festival known as [[Anthesteria]], the Keres were driven away. Their Roman equivalents were '''Letum''' (“death”) or the '''Tenebrae''' (“shadows”).

{{blockquote|Hunger, pestilence, madness, nightmare have each a sprite behind them; ''are'' all sprites," J.E. Harrison observed (Harrison 1903, p 169), but two Keres might not be averted, and these, which emerged from the swarm of lesser ills, were Old Age and Death. Odysseus says, "Death and the Ker avoiding, we escape" (''Odyssey'' xii.158), where the two are not quite identical: Harrison (p. 175) found the Christian parallel "death and the angel of death.}}

==Keres and Valkyries==
Mathias Egeler suggests a connection exists between the Keres and the [[Valkyrie]]s of [[Norse mythology]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Egeler |first1=Mathias |title=Death, Wings, and Divine Devouring: Possible Mediterranean Affinities of Irish Battlefield Demons and Norse Valkyries |journal=Studia Celtica Fennica |date=2008 |volume=5 |pages=5–25 |url=http://www.ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/scf/article/download/7538/5856}}</ref> Both deities are war spirits that fly over battlefields during conflicts and choose those to be slain. The difference is that Valkyries are benevolent deities in contrast to the malevolence of the Keres, perhaps due to the different outlook of the two cultures towards war. The word ''valkyrie'' derives from [[Old Norse]] ''valkyrja'' (plural ''valkyrjur''), which is composed of two words; the noun ''valr'' (referring to the slain on the battlefield) and the verb ''kjósa'' (meaning "to choose"). Together, they mean "chooser of the slain".<ref>{{cite book|last=Byock|first=Jesse|author-link=Jesse Byock|title=The Prose Edda|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T6rKRuqqpv8C|year=2005|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-191274-5|pages=142–43}}</ref> The Greek word "Ker" etymologically means destruction, death.<ref>Lidell.Scott: Greek-English Lexicon</ref>

==See also==
* [[Badb]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

== References ==
* [[Gaius Julius Hyginus]], ''Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus'' translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. [https://topostext.org/work/206 Online version at the Topos Text Project.]
*[[Jane Ellen Harrison|Harrison, Jane Ellen]], ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'' 1903. Chapter V: "The demonology of ghosts and spites<!--sprites is correct--> and bogeys"
*[[Hesiod]], ''Theogony'' from ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica'' with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acard%3D1 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.] [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0129 Greek text available from the same website].
*March, J., Cassell's Dictionary Of Classical Mythology, London, 1999. {{ISBN|0-304-35161-X}}
*[[Cicero|Marcus Tullius Cicero]], ''Nature of the Gods from the Treatises of M.T. Cicero'' translated by Charles Duke Yonge (1812-1891), Bohn edition of 1878. [https://topostext.org/work/137 Online version at the Topos Text Project.]
*Marcus Tullius Cicero, ''De Natura Deorum.'' O. Plasberg. Leipzig. Teubner. 1917.  [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2007.01.0037 Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library].

==External links==
* {{wiktionary-inline|Keres}}

{{Greek mythology (deities)}}
{{Greek religion}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keres (Mythology)}}
[[Category:Greek death goddesses]]
[[Category:Greek war deities]]
[[Category:Personifications in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Women in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Children of Nyx]]
[[Category:Residents of the Greek underworld]]