Note 52 — Chapter V

The Furies have the faces of women; their looks are full of terror, they hold lighted torches in their hands, snakes and serpents coil around their necks and shoulders. They are sometimes called in Latin Furiæ, because they make men mad by stings of conscience. They are the offspring of Nox and Acheron, and are esteemed virgins, because, since they are the avengers of all wickedness, nothing can corrupt or pervert them from inflicting the punishment that is due to offenders. There are only three Furies; some add a fourth, called Lisso, that is rage and madness, but she is easily reduced to the other three. The office of the Furies is to punish and torment the wicked by frightening and following them with burning torches.—Tooke’s Mythological Systems of the Greeks and Romans, 36th edition, revised, corrected, and improved. London, 1831.