Ate (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Ate, Até or Aite (/ˈeɪtiː/; Ancient Greek: Ἄτη) was the goddess of mischief, delusion, ruin, and blind folly, rash action and reckless impulse who led men down the path of ruin. She also led both gods and men to rash and inconsiderate actions and to suffering.

For other uses, see Ate (disambiguation).
Atë
Personification of Ruin
Member of the Family of Eris
AbodeMount Olympus or
Underworld
Personal information
ParentsEris[1] or
Zeus[2]
Siblings
by Eris
by Zeus
OffspringPeitho[3]
Greek deities
series
Personified concepts
List

Description

In the Iliad, Achilles describes Ate as she "that blindeth all—a power fraught with bane; delicate are her feet, for it is not upon the ground that she fareth, but she walketh over the heads of men, bringing men to harm, and this one or that she ensnareth."[4]

Family

Homer called Ate the eldest daughter of Zeus, with no mother mentioned.[5] While, according to Hesiod's Theogony, Ate was the daughter of Eris, the goddess of strife, with no father mentioned:[6]

And hateful Eris bore painful Ponos (Hardship),
Lethe (Forgetfulness) and Limos (Starvation) and the tearful Algea (Pains),
Hysminai (Battles), Makhai (Wars), Phonoi (Murders), and Androktasiai (Manslaughters);
Neikea (Quarrels), Pseudea (Lies), Logoi (Stories), Amphillogiai (Disputes)
Dysnomia (Anarchy) and Ate (Ruin), near one another,
and Horkos (Oath), who most afflicts men on earth,
Then willing swears a false oath.[7]

Of these offspring of Eris, all personified abstractions, only Ate has any actual identity.[8]

Aeschylus, in his tragedy Agamennon, has the Chorus call Peitho "the unendurable child of scheming Ruin [Ἄτας]".[9]

Mythology

Banishment

On Hera's instigation, Ate used her influence over Zeus so that he swore an oath that on that day a great mortal man descended from him would be born (brought into the light by Eileithyia, goddess of "birth-pangs"), who would become lord of all men who dwell about him (the Argives). Hera immediately arranged to delay the birth of Heracles to Alcmene and bring forth Eurystheus prematurely (to whom Heracles would later become subject), born to Nicippe (unnamed), wife of Sthenelus. In anger, Zeus flung Ate by her hair down to earth, from the starry heavens, forever forbidding her return to Mount Olympus and heaven (the starry sky). Ate then wandered about, treading on the heads of men rather than on the earth, wreaking havoc and delusion amongst mortals.[10]

The Bibliotheca claims that when thrown down by Zeus, Ate landed on a peak in Phrygia called by her name. There Ilus later, following a cow, founded the city of Ilion, known as Troy. This flourish is chronologically at odds with Homer's dating of Ate's fall.[11]

In the Argonautica, Hera says that "even the gods are sometimes visited by Ate".[12]

In Nonnus's Dionysiaca, Ate, in order to gratify Hera, persuades the boy Ampelus whom Dionysus passionately loves, to impress Dionysus by riding on a bull from which Ampelus subsequently falls and breaks his neck.[13]

Among the tragic writers, Ate appears in a different light: she avenges evil deeds and inflicts just punishments upon the offenders and their posterity,[14] so that her character here is almost the same as that of Nemesis and Erinnys. She appears most prominent in the dramas of Aeschylus, and least in those of Euripides, with whom the idea of Dike (justice) is more fully developed.[15]

A fragment from Empedocles refers to the "Meadow of Ate",[16] which probably signifies the mortal world.[17]

Post-classical

In the play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare introduces the goddess Ate as an invocation of vengeance and menace. Mark Antony, lamenting Caesar's murder, envisions:

And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war,[18]

Shakespeare also mentions her in the play Much Ado About Nothing, when Benedick says, referring to Beatrice,

Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the
infernal Ate in good apparel.[19]

So too, in King John, Shakespeare refers to Queen Eleanor as "An Ate stirring him [John] to blood and strife",[20] and in Love's Labour's Lost Birone jeers "Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! stir them on, stir them on!"[21]

In Spenser's The Faerie Queene, a fiend from Hell disguised as a beautiful woman is called Ate. This is a possible parallel to the fallen angels.

See also

Notes
  1. Hesiod, Theogony 230.
  2. Homer, Iliad 19.91.
  3. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 385.
  4. Homer, Iliad 19.91–94.
  5. Homer, Iliad 19.91.
  6. Hesiod, Theogony 230.
  7. Caldwell, p. 42 lines 226–232, with the meanings of the names (in parentheses), as given by Caldwell, p. 40 on lines 212–232.
  8. Gantz, p. 10.
  9. Aeschylus, Agamennon 385–386.
  10. Homer, Iliad 19.85 ff.
  11. Apollodorus, 3.143.
  12. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.817.
  13. Nonnus, Dionysiaca 11.113 ff.
  14. Aeschylus, Choēphóroi 381.
  15. Smith, s.v. Ate.
  16. Inwood, Brad, ed. (1992). The Poem of Empedocles. University of Toronto Press. pp. 134–135. ISBN 0-8020-5971-6..
  17. Dodds, E. R. (1957). The Greeks and the Irrational. Beacon Press. p. 174..
  18. Julius Caesar 3.1/296–299, Folger Shakespeare Library.
  19. Much Ado About Nothing 2.1/251–252, Folger Shakespeare Library.
  20. King John 2.1/63, Folger Shakespeare Library.
  21. Love's Labor's Lost 5.2/761–762, Folger Shakespeare Library.

References
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