Poena
Attendant to Nemesis in Greek mythology
In Greek mythology, Poena or Poine (Ancient Greek: Ποινή, romanized: Poinḗ, lit. 'recompense, punishment') is the spirit of punishment and the attendant of punishment to Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution. Some depictions are of a single being, and some depictions are of multiple beings, in the plural, the name is Poenai (Ποιναί); the Poenai are akin to the Erinyes.
The Greek word ποινή (poinḗ) means "a recompense or a punishment". From this word is derived the Latin word poena meaning "pain, punishment, penalty", which in turn gave rise to English words such as subpoena and pain.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Poena”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- L'uccisione di Atreo, 340-300 a.C. -FG 02.jpg by Fabrizio Garrisi, CC BY-SA 4.0
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