Achlys/ˈæklɪs/ (Ancient Greek:Ἀχλύς "mist"),^[1] in theHesiodicShield of Heracles, is one of the figures depicted onHeracles' shield, perhaps representing the personification ofsorrow. In Homer,achlys is the mist which fogs or blinds mortal eyes (often in death). Her Roman counterpart Caligo was said to have been the mother ofChaos. InNonnus'sDionysiaca, she seems to be a witch.

InHomer, the word achlys (ἀχλύς, 'mist'), is frequently used to describe a mist that is "shed" upon a mortal's eyes, often while dying.^[2] For example in theIliad, the heroSarpedon while grievously wounded:

his spirit failed him, and down over his eyes a mist [ἀχλύς] was shed. Howbeit he revived, and the breath of the North Wind as it blew upon him made him to live again after in grievous wise he had breathed forth his spirit.^[3]

While in theOdyssey,Eurymachus, one of the suitors ofPenelope, hit in the chest by an arrow fromOdysseus:

let the sword fall from his hand to the ground, and writhing over the table he bowed and fell, and spilt upon the floor the food and the two-handled cup. With his brow he beat the earth in agony of soul, and with both his feet he spurned and shook the chair, and a mist [ἀχλύς] was shed over his eyes.^[4]

In theShield of Heracles, anarchaicGreekepic poem (early sixth century BC?), that was attributed toHesiod, Achlys is one of the figures described as being depicted on Heracles' shield, where she is understood as being the personification of sorrow or grief:^[5]

Beside them [Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos (theMoirai), and theKeres] stood Death-Mist [Ἀχλὺς], gloomy and dread, pallid, parched, cowering in hunger, thick-kneed; long claws were under her hands. From her nostrils flowed mucus, from her cheeks blood was dripping down onto the ground. She stood there, grinning dreadfully, and much dust, wet with tears, lay upon her shoulders.^[6]

The Roman counterpart to Achlys seems to have been Caligo ('dark fog'). The first-century BC Roman mythographerHyginus, in the Preface of hisFabulae, has Caligo being the mother ofChaos (for Hesiod the first being who existed), and, with Chaos, was the mother of Night (Nox), Day (Dies), Darkness (Erebus) and Ether (Aether), possibly drawing on an otherwise unknown Greek cosmological myth.^[7]

Nonnus, in hisDionysiaca (c. 5th century AD), seems to regard Achlys as a kind of witch.[8] According to Nonnus,Hera—angry with the guardians of the infantDionysus (the sons of theNaiad nurses ofDionysus)—"procured from Thessalian Achlys [Ἀχλύος] treacherous flowers of the field", which she used to sprinkle a sleeping charm over their heads, then "she distilled poisoned drugs over their hair and smeared a magical ointment over their faces", changing their human shape into that of hornedCentaurs.^[9]

• Graf, Fritz, "Achlys" inBrill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Volume 1, A-ARI, editors: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider,Brill Publishers, 2002.
• Homer,The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Homer,The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius,Fabulae inApollodorus'Library and Hyginus'Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007.ISBN 978-0-87220-821-6.
• Liddell, Henry George,Robert Scott.A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie,Clarendon Press Oxford, 1940.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Most, G.W.,Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments,Loeb Classical Library, No. 503, Cambridge, Massachusetts,Harvard University Press, 2007, 2018.ISBN 978-0-674-99721-9.Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Nonnus,Dionysiaca, Volume I: Books 1–15, translated byW. H. D. Rouse,Loeb Classical Library No. 344, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1940 (revised 1984).Online version at Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-674-99379-2.Internet Archive (1940).
• Orphic Argonautica inOrphica: Accedunt Procli Hymni, Hymni Magici, Hymnus in Isim alique eiusmodi carmina, edited by Eugenius Abel, Sumptibus Fecit G. Freytag, Leipzig, Prague, 1885.Wikimedia Commons.
• Smith, William,Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873).Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

• The dictionary definition ofAchlys at Wiktionary

• Greek death goddesses
• Personifications in Greek mythology
• Greek primordial deities
• Chthonic beings
• Greek goddesses

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text