Lamia: artwork idea

Lamia is a character from Greek mythology who — like many other deities and monsters of Greek mythology — seems to have been reimagined several times during the classical period. The earliest version of her story that I can find is this one, from the Scholia to Aristophanes’ Peace:

Lamos, the city of the Laestrygonians, is named after Lamia … Lamia is said to have been the daughter of Belus and Libye. They say that Zeus fell in love with her and took her from Libya to Italy, and it is from her that the city of Lamia in Italy is named. Thereafter, Zeus had sex with her but did not escape the notice of Hera. She [Hera], in envy towards Lamia, ever killed the children that were born of her. And she [Lamia], because she was so upset about her own children dying, secretly stole and killed the children of others, through envy. This is the reason that they say that nurses invoke Lamia against little children when they want to frighten them. It is said that by the will of Hera Lamia was constantly sleepless, so that she spent her days and nights in grief, until Zeus took pity on her and made her eyes removable, so that she could take out her own eyes and put them back again. It is said that she received from Zeus the gift of being able to transform herself into whatever she wanted.

This, as I said above, seems to be an early form of the myth of Lamia. She was later ascribed serpentine qualities — perhaps having become confused with the lamiai, a race of Libyan demons — and then in even later classical periods, again with correlations with the lamiai, Lamia became a seductress and devourer of young men. But it’s this early form, where Lamia is more insane with grief than monstrous, that I find more interesting.

I am fascinated by the idea that she could temporarily pluck her eyeballs from her head to enable her to sleep, and I wonder whether this ability is somehow tied in with her gift of prophecy mentioned in other texts. Her removable eyes also remind me of the Graeae who share one eye and one tooth among the three of them.

In the plan for my own artwork that is slowly germinating in my head I’m going to concentrate on Lamia insane with grief, her eyes removed to help her sleep and to bring on the gift of prophecy. There will be a nod to the later serpentine connotations with some snakeskin (much in the way that John William Waterhouse and Herbert James Draper did in their paintings of Lamia), but there’ll be no half-serpentine body nor seductress aspect.

By coincidence I’ve also had a long-running idea for a snake priestess, which might well take on some of the characteristics of the lamiai, but that’s definitely a separate piece.