Editing Keres (section)

==Description==
{{blockquote|And Nyx (Night) bare hateful Moros (Doom) and black Ker (Violent Death) and Thanatos (Death), and she bare [[Hypnos]] (Sleep) and the tribe of [[Oneiroi]] (Dreams). And again the goddess murky Nyx, though she lay with none, bare Momus (Blame) and painful [[Oizys]] (Misery), and the [[Hesperides]] ... Also she bare the Moirai (Fates) and the ruthless [[Vengeful ghost|avenging]] Keres (Death-Fates) ... Also deadly Nyx bare Nemesis (Revenge) to afflict mortal men, and after her, [[Apate]] (Deceit) and [[Philotes]] (Friendship) and hateful [[Geras]] (Old Age) and hard-hearted [[Eris (mythology)|Eris]] (Strife).|[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' 211, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White}}
They were described as dark beings with gnashing teeth and claws and with a thirst for human blood. They would hover over the battlefield and search for dying and wounded men. A description of the Keres can be found in the Shield of Heracles (248–57):
{{blockquote|The black Dooms gnashing their white teeth, grim-eyed, fierce, bloody, terrifying fought over the men who were dying for they were all longing to drink dark blood. As soon as they caught a man who had fallen or one newly wounded, one of them clasped her great claws around him and his soul went down to [[Hades]], to chilly [[Tartarus]]. And when they had satisfied their hearts with human blood, they would throw that one behind them and rush back again into the battle and the tumult.}}

A parallel, and equally unusual personification of "the baleful Ker" is in Homer's depiction of the [[Shield of Achilles]] (''Iliad'', ix. 410ff), which is the model for the ''Shield of Heracles''. These are works of art that are being described.

In the fifth century, Keres were portrayed as small winged sprites in vase-paintings adduced by J.E. Harrison (Harrison, 1903), who described apotropaic rites and rites of purification that were intended to keep the Keres at bay.

According to a statement of [[Stesichorus]] noted by [[Eustathius of Thessalonica|Eustathius]], Stesichorus "called the Keres by the name [[Telchines]]", whom Eustathius identified with the [[Kuretes]] of Crete, who could call up squalls of wind and would brew potions from herbs (noted in Harrison, p.&nbsp;171).

The term ''Keres'' has also been cautiously used to describe a person's fate.<ref>In the second century AD [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausaniuas]] equated the two (x.28.4). "Here and elsewhere to translate 'Keres' by fates is to make a premature abstraction," [[Jane Ellen Harrison]] warned (''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', "The Ker as Evil Sprite" p. 170. See also Harrison's section "The Ker as Fate" pp. 183–87).</ref> An example of this can be found in the ''[[Iliad]]'' where [[Achilles]] was given the choice (or ''Keres'') between either a long and obscure life and home, or death at Troy and everlasting glory. Also, when [[Achilles]] and [[Hector]] were about to engage in a fight to the death, the god [[Zeus]] weighed both warriors' ''keres'' to determine who shall die.<ref>This ''Kerostasia'', or weighing of ''keres'' may be paralleled by the ''Psychostasia'' or weighing of souls; a lost play with that title was written by [[Aeschylus]] and the Egyptian parallel is familiar.</ref> As [[Hector]]’s ''ker'' was deemed heavier, he was the one destined to die and in the [[weighing of souls]], Zeus chooses Hector to be killed.<ref>The subject appears in vase-paintings, where little men are in the scales: "it is the ''lives'' rather than the fates that are weighed", Harrison remarks (''Prolegomena'' p. 184).</ref>
During the festival known as [[Anthesteria]], the Keres were driven away. Their Roman equivalents were '''Letum''' (“death”) or the '''Tenebrae''' (“shadows”).

{{blockquote|Hunger, pestilence, madness, nightmare have each a sprite behind them; ''are'' all sprites," J.E. Harrison observed (Harrison 1903, p 169), but two Keres might not be averted, and these, which emerged from the swarm of lesser ills, were Old Age and Death. Odysseus says, "Death and the Ker avoiding, we escape" (''Odyssey'' xii.158), where the two are not quite identical: Harrison (p. 175) found the Christian parallel "death and the angel of death.}}