Empusa or Empousa (; ; ''plural'': ''Empusai'') is a

shape-shifting In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existen ...

female being in

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, said to possess a single leg of copper, commanded by

Hecate Hecate ( ; ) is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, or snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. She is variously associat ...

, whose precise nature is obscure. In

Late Antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

, the empousae have been described as a category of phantoms or spectres, equated with the lamiai and mormolykeia, thought to seduce and feed on young men.

In antiquity

The primary sources for the ''empousa'' in

Antiquity Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to: Historical objects or periods Artifacts *Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures Eras Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...

are

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

's plays (''

The Frogs ''The Frogs'' (; , often abbreviated ''Ran.'' or ''Ra.'') is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus in Athens, in 405 BC and received first place. The pla ...

'' and ''

Ecclesiazusae ''Assemblywomen'' (Ancient Greek: Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι ''Ekklesiazousai''; also translated as, ''Congresswomen'', ''Women in Parliament'', ''Women in Power'', ''A Parliament of Women, Assembly-Women,'' and ''Women in the Assembly'') is ...

'') and

Philostratus Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus (; ; 170s – 240s AD), called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He flourished during the reign of Septimius Severus ...

's ''

Life of Apollonius of Tyana ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'' (), also known by its Latin title , is a text in eight books written in Ancient Greece by Philostratus (c. AD 170 – c. AD 245). It tells the story of Apollonius of Tyana (c. AD 15 – c. AD 100), a Pythagorean ph ...

''.

Aristophanes

The Empusa was defined in the Sudas and by

Crates of Mallus Crates of Mallus (, ''Krátēs ho Mallṓtēs''; century BC) was a Greek grammarian and Stoic philosopher, leader of the literary school and head of the library of Pergamum. He was described as the Crates from Mallus to distinguish him fr ...

as a "demonic phantom" with

abilities. Thus in Aristophanes's plays she is said to change appearance from various beasts to a woman. The Empusa is also said to be one-legged, having one

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

leg, or a

donkey The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...

's leg, thus being known by the epithets Onokole (Ὀνοκώλη) and Onoskelis (Ὀνοσκελίς), which both mean "donkey-footed". A

folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a mo ...

construes the name to mean "one-footed" (from Greek *έμπούς, ''*empous'': ''en-'', one + ''pous'', foot). In Aristophanes's comedy ''The Frogs'', an Empusa appears before

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

and his slave

Xanthias Xanthias refers to several characters, notably all slaves, who appear in plays by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. History In '' The Frogs'', Xanthias is the slave of Dionysus. He delivers the opening line of the play, riding on Dionys ...

on their way to the underworld, although this may be the slave's practical joke to frighten his master. Xanthias thus sees (or pretends to see) the empousa transform into a bull, a mule, a beautiful woman, and a dog. The slave also reassures that the being indeed had one brass (copper) leg, and another leg of cow dung besides. The Empusa was a being sent by

(as one scholiast noted), or was Hecate herself, according to a fragment of Aristophanes's lost play ''Tagenistae'' ("Men of the Frying-pan"), as preserved in the Venetus.

''Life of Apollonius''

By the

in Greece, this became a category of beings, designated as ''empusai'' (Lat. ''empusae'') in the plural. It came to be believed that the spectre preyed on young men for seduction and for food. According to the 1st-century ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'', the empousa is a phantom (''phasma'') that took on the appearance of an attractive woman and seduced a young philosophy student in order eventually to devour him.''Apoll. Vit.'' IV. 25: , 2, pp. 24–26 In a different passage of the same work, when Apollonius was journeying from Persia to India, he encountered an empousa, hurling insults at it, coaxing his fellow travellers to join him, whereby it ran and hid, uttering high-pitched screams. An ''empousa'' was also known to others as ''

lamia Lamia (; ), in ancient Greek mythology, was a child-eating monster and, in later tradition, was regarded as a type of night-haunting spirit or "daimon". In the earliest myths, Lamia was a beautiful queen of ancient Libya who had an affair with ...

'' or '' mormolyke''. This ''empousa'' confessed it was fattening up the student she targeted to feed on him, and that she especially craved young men for the freshness and purity of their blood, prompting an interpretation as blood-sucking

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...

Smith Smith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Metalsmith, or simply smith, a craftsman fashioning tools or works of art out of various metals * Smith (given name) * Smith (surname), a family name originating in England ** List of people ...

's ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' is a biographical dictionary of classical antiquity, edited by William Smith (lexicographer), William Smith and originally published in London by John Taylor (English publisher), Tayl ...

'' (1849).

Modern Greek folklore

In modern times, folklore has been collected about a being fitting the description of an ''empousa'': an extremely slender woman with multiple feet, "one of bronze, one a donkey's foot, one an ox's, one a goat's, and one human", but she was referred to as a woman with the lamia-like body and gait. The example was from

Arachova Arachova (, also Αράχοβα) is a mountain town and a former municipality in the western part of Boeotia. Since the 2011 local government reform it is a municipal unit, part of the municipality Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra. It is a tourist de ...

(Parnassus) and published by (1871). Schmidt only speculated that oral lore of ''empousa'' might survive somewhere locally. A field study (Charles Stewart, 1985) finds that ''empousa'' is a term that is rarely used in oral tradition, compared to other terms such as ''

gello Gello (), in Greek mythology, is a female demon or revenant who threatens the reproductive cycle by causing infertility, miscarriage, and infant mortality. By the Byzantine era, the () were considered a class of beings. Women believed to be und ...

'' which has a similar meaning.

In fiction

Empusa is a character in ''

Faust, Part Two ''Faust: The Second Part of the Tragedy'' () is the second part of the tragic play ''Faust'' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It was published in 1832, the year of Goethe's death. Only part of ''Faust I'' is directly related to the legend of Johann ...

'' by

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

. She appears during the Classical

Walpurgis Night Walpurgis Night (), an abbreviation of Saint Walpurgis Night (from the German language, German ), also known as Saint Walpurga's Eve (alternatively spelled Saint Walburga's Eve) and Walpurgisnacht, is the Vigil#Eves of religious celebrations ...

as Mephisto is being lured by the Lamiae. She refers to herself as cousin to Mephisto because she has a donkey's foot and he has a horse's.

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

* ; , p. 53 {{refend European demons Female demons Monsters in Greek mythology Mythological hematophages Lamia