| Lyssa | |
|---|---|
Goddess of rage and madness | |
 | |
| Animals | Dog |
| Mount | Chariot |
| Genealogy | |
| Parents | |
| Siblings | Thanatos,Hypnos,Erinyes, several more |
| Equivalents | |
| Roman | Ira, Rabies |
Lyssa (/ˈlɪsə/; respelled LEE-sə; fromAncient Greek Λύσσα (Lússa, meaning “rage” or “rabies”), deriving from the word λύκος (lúkos), meaning “wolf”[2]), also calledLytta (/ˈlɪtə/; fromAncient Greek Λύττα (Lútta)) by the Athenians, is a minor goddess inGreek mythology, the spirit ofrage, fury,[3] andrabies in animals. She was closely related to theManiae (singular: Mania), the spirits of madness and insanity. Because of their close connection and the uncertainty over whether they are the same figure, twins, or distinct personifications, they are often confused with one another, although both are generally presumed to be daughters ofNyx. Her Roman equivalents were variously namedIra,Furor, orRabies. Sometimes she was multiplied into a host of Irae and Furores. In myth, Lyssa features in stories where she drives people insane to their doom.
The viral genusLyssavirus, which includes thecausative agent of rabies, was named after this goddess.
Because seeds ofalyssum were used (unsuccessfully) to treat rabies, the flower was named after the disease with the prefixα- in front, meaning without. Thus Lyssa is the etymological origin of the feminine nameAlyssa.[4]
InEuripides' playHerakles, Lyssa is identified as the daughter of the night-goddessNyx, "sprung from the blood ofUranus"—that is, the blood from Uranus' wound following his castration by his sonCronus.[5] The 1st-century Latin writerHyginus lists Ira (Wrath, Lyssa) as the daughter ofTerra (Gaia) andAether.[6] Lyssa could be occasionally portrayed as a dog.[7]
Lyssa personifies mad rage and frenzy, as well as rabies in animals. InHerakles, she is called upon byHera to inflict the heroHeracles with insanity. In this scenario, she arrives on her chariot and is portrayed as an unmarried virgin. She is shown to take a temperate, measured approach to her role, professing "not to use [her powers] in anger against friends, nor [to] have any joy in visiting the homes of men." She counsels Iris, who wishes to carry out Hera's command, against targeting Heracles but, after failing to persuade, bows to the orders of the superior goddess and sends him into a mad rage that causes him to murder his wife and children.[5]
In a number of ancient Greek vases Lyssa appears on the scene of the death ofActaeon, the hunter who was transformed into a deer and devoured by his own hounds for seeingArtemis naked or trying to wooSemele. In a 440s BC red-figure bell-krater by theLykaon Painter, Lyssa stands to the right of Actaeon, inflicting his dogs with rabies and directing them against him.[3][8] It has been theorised that the vase depicts the events of the myth as dramatised in Athenian tragedianAeschylus' lost playToxotides which dealt with Actaeon's death,[9] although this assertion is far from certain.[10]
In a different vase with Actaeon's death, Lyssa is present along withAphrodite,Eros, Artemis and a woman that could be Semele, indicating a sexual nature of Actaeon's grave offence which led to him being eaten by his own rabid dogs.[11]
Lyssa also had a role in the myth ofLycurgus, the Thracian king who tried to ban the worship ofDionysus, the god of madness. In an Apulian vase from around 350 BC, the winged Lyssa supplants Dionysus as the deity causing Lycurgus to attack and kill his wife and son.[1][9]
Aeschylus identifies her as being the agent sent by Dionysus to madden the impious daughters ofCadmus, who in turn dismember their kinsmanPentheus.[7]
