Perse- Greek SpiritSpirit · Nymph
Also known as: Perseis, Persa, Πέρση, and Persē
Description
Wife of the sun god Helios, the Oceanid Perse bore a lineage of sorcerers: Circe, who turned Odysseus's men to swine; Aeetes, who guarded the Golden Fleece in Colchis; and Pasiphae, whose magic cursed the house of Minos. The power of pharmakeia ran through her blood, not his.
Mythology & Lore
The Sorcerer's Line
Perse was an Oceanid nymph — one of the three thousand daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys — who married Helios, the sun god. Hesiod names her in the Theogony as the mother of Circe and Aeetes.
Circe and Pasiphae both mastered pharmakeia — the art of drugs and transformation. Circe turned Odysseus's men to swine with drugged wine and a stroke of her wand on her island of Aeaea. Pasiphae, wife of King Minos of Crete, cursed her husband's infidelity with sorcery, and her unnatural passion for the Cretan Bull, inflicted by Poseidon, produced the Minotaur — the monster fed on Athenian youth in the Labyrinth. Aeetes, king of Colchis, guarded the Golden Fleece and fathered Medea, who inherited the line's sorcerous gift — first helping Jason win the Fleece, then destroying her own children when he abandoned her. A fourth child, Perses, played a lesser role in the Colchian cycle; in some traditions he usurped his brother's throne and was later overthrown by Medea.
The Source
Helios drove his chariot across the sky. He did not brew potions or transform men. The power of pharmakeia that drove Circe and Medea came from Perse's blood.
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