Graeae- Greek GroupCollective"The Grey Ones"

The Grey Ones

The Graeae were three sisters born to the sea deities Phorcys and Ceto, siblings of the Gorgons. Hesiod names two in the Theogony: Pemphredo and Enyo. He calls them grey-haired from birth, then, oddly, "fair-cheeked." Later sources add a third, Deino. They shared a single eye and a single tooth among the three, passing each back and forth. Hesiod places them beyond the paths of night, at the edge of Ocean.

The Eye

Perseus came to the Graeae on his quest to kill their sister Medusa. According to Apollodorus, they knew the way to the nymphs who held the cap of Hades and the winged sandals he needed. The sisters would not help, so Perseus waited for the moment one passed the eye to another and snatched it. Blind and helpless, they told him everything. Apollodorus says he returned the eye afterward. In Hyginus's account, he flung it into Lake Tritonis and left them sightless forever. Aeschylus dramatized the encounter in his lost play Phorcides, part of a trilogy on Perseus.