goddesses with beautiful locks, swifter than winds and birds in their flight, and their domain is the air. In later times their number was increased (Celaeno being a frequent addition and their leader in Virgil), and they were described as hateful and repulsive creatures, birds with the faces of old women, the ears of bears, crooked talons and hanging breasts; even in Aeschylus (Eumenides, 50) they appear as ugly and misshapen monsters. Their function of snatching away mortals to the other world brings them into connexion with the Erinyes, with whom they are often confounded. On the so-called Harpy monument from Lycia, now in the British Museum, the Harpies appear carrying off some small figures, supposed to be the daughters of Pandareus, unless they are intended to represent departed souls. The repulsive character of the Harpies is more especially seen in the legend of Phineus, king of Salmydessus in Thrace (Apollodorus i. 9, 21; see also Diod. Sic. iv. 43). Having been deprived of his sight by the gods for his ill-treatment of his sons by his first wife (or for having revealed the future to mortals), he was condemned to be tormented by two Harpies, who carried off whatever food was placed before him. On the arrival of the Argonauts, Phineus promised to give them particulars of the course they should pursue and of the dangers that lay before them, if they would deliver him from his tormentors. Accordingly, when the Harpies appeared as usual to carry off the food from Phineus’s table, they were driven off and pursued by Calaïs and Zetes, the sons of Boreas, as far as the Strophades islands in the Aegean. On promising to cease from molesting Phineus, their lives were spared. Their place of abode is variously placed in the Strophades, the entrance to the under-world, or a cave in Crete. According to Cecil Smith, Journal of Hellenic Studies, xiii. (1892–1893), the Harpies are the hostile spirits of the scorching south wind; E. Rohde (Rheinisches Museum, i., 1895) regards them as spirits of the storm, which at the bidding of the gods carry off human beings alive to the under-world or some spot beyond human ken.
See articles in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie and Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités. In the article Greek Art, fig. 14 gives a representation of the winged Harpies.
HARPIGNIES, HENRI (1819– ), French landscape painter,
born at Valenciennes in 1819, was intended by his parents for
a business career, but his determination to become an artist was
so strong that it conquered all obstacles, and he was allowed at
the age of twenty-seven to enter Achard’s atelier in Paris. From
this painter he acquired a groundwork of sound constructive
draughtsmanship, which is so marked a feature of his landscape
painting. After two years under this exacting teacher he went
to Italy, whence he returned in 1850. During the next few
years he devoted himself to the painting of children in landscape
setting, and fell in with Corot and the other Barbizon masters,
whose principles and methods are to a certain extent reflected
in his own personal art. To Corot he was united by a
bond of warm friendship, and the two artists went together to
Italy in 1860. On his return, he scored his first great success
at the Salon, in 1861, with his “Lisière de bois sur les bords
de l’Allier.” After that year he was a regular exhibitor at the old
Salon; in 1886 he received his first medal for “Le Soir dans la
campagne de Rome,” which was acquired for the Luxembourg
Gallery. Many of his best works were painted at Hérisson in
the Bourbonnais, as well as in the Nivernais and the Auvergne.
Among his chief pictures are “Soir sur les bords de la Loire”
(1861), “Les Corbeaux” (1865), “Le Soir” (1866), “Le
Saut-du-Loup” (1873), “La Loire” (1882), and “Vue de
Saint-Privé” (1883). He also did some decorative work for the
Paris Opéra—the “Vallée d’Egérie” panel, which he showed
at the Salon of 1870.
HARP-LUTE, or Dital Harp, one of the many attempts to
revive the popularity of the guitar and to increase its compass,
invented in 1798 by Edward Light. The harp-lute owes the first
part of its name to the characteristic mechanism for shortening
the effective length of the strings; its second name—dital harp—emphasizes
the nature of the stops, which are worked by the
thumb in contradistinction to the pedals of the harp worked
by the feet. It consists of a pear-shaped body, to which is added
a curved neck supported on a front pillar or arm springing from
the body, and therefore reminiscent of the harp. There are
12 catgut strings. The curved fingerboard, almost parallel with
the neck, is provided with frets, and has in addition a thumb-key
for each string, by means of which the accordance of the
string is mechanically raised a semitone at will. The dital or
key, on being depressed, acts upon a stop-ring or eye, which
draws the string down against the fret, and thus shortens its
effective length. The fingers then stop the strings as usual
over the remaining frets. A further improvement was patented
in 1816 as the British harp-lute. Other attempts possessing less
practical merit than the dital harp were the lyra-guitarre, which
appeared in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century;
the accord-guitarre, towards the middle of the same century;
and the keyed guitar. (K. S.)
HARPOCRATES, originally an Egyptian deity, adopted by
the Greeks, and worshipped in later times both by Greeks and
Romans. In Egypt, Harpa-khruti, Horus the child, was one of
the forms of Horus, the sun-god, the child of Osiris. He was
supposed to carry on war against the powers of darkness, and
hence Herodotus (ii. 144) considers him the same as the Greek
Apollo. He was represented in statues with his finger on his
mouth, a symbol of childhood. The Greeks and Romans, not
understanding the meaning of this attitude, made him the god
of silence (Ovid, Metam. ix. 691), and as such he became a
favourite deity with the later mystic schools of philosophy.
See articles by G. Lafaye in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, and by E. Meyer (s.v. “Horos”) in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie.
HARPOCRATION, VALERIUS, Greek grammarian of Alexandria.
He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius
Capitolinus (Life of Verus, 2) as the Greek tutor of Antoninus
Verus (2nd century A.D.); some authorities place him much
later, on the ground that he borrowed from Athenaeus. He
is the author of a Λεξικὸν (or Περὶ τῶν λέξεων) τῶν δέκα ῥητόρων,
which has come down to us in an incomplete form. The work
contains, in more or less alphabetical order, notes on well-known
events and persons mentioned by the orators, and explanations
of legal and commercial expressions. As nearly all the lexicons to
the Greek orators have been lost, Harpocration’s work is especially
valuable. Amongst his authorities were the writers of Atthides
(histories of Attica), the grammarian Didymus, Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, and the lexicographer Dionysius, son of Tryphon.
The book also contains contributions to the history of Attic
oratory and Greek literature generally. Nothing is known of
an Ἀνθηρῶν συναγωγή, a sort of anthology or chrestomathy
attributed to him by Suidas. A series of articles in the margin
of a Cambridge MS. of the lexicon forms the basis of the Lexicon
rhetoricum Cantabrigiense (see Dobree, P. P.).
The best edition is by W. Dindorf (1853); see also J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, i. (1906), p. 325; C. Boysen, De Harpocrationis fontibus (Kiel, 1876).
HARPOON (from Fr. harpon, a grappling-iron, O. Fr. harpe,
a dog’s claw, an iron clamp for fastening stones together; the
source of these words is the Lat. harpago, harpa, &c., formed
from Gr. ἁρπαγή, hook, ἁρπάζειν, to snatch, tear away, cf.
“harpy”), barbed spear, particularly one used for spearing
whales or other large fish, and either thrown by hand or fired
from a gun (see Whale-Fishery).
HARPSICHORD, Harpsicon, double virginals (Fr. clavecin;
Ger. Clavicymbel, Kiel-Flügel; Ital. arpicordo, cembalo, clavicembalo,
gravecembalo; Dutch, clavisinbal), a large keyboard
instrument (see Pianoforte), belonging to the same family as
the virginal and spinet, but having 2, 3, or even 4 strings to each
note, and a case of the harp or wing shape, afterwards adopted
for the grand pianoforte. J. S. Bach’s harpsichord, preserved
in the museum of the Hochschule für Musik at Charlottenburg,
has two manuals and 4 strings to each note, one 16 ft., two
8 ft. and one 4 ft. By means of stops the performer has within
his power a number of combinations for varying the tone and
dynamic power. In all instruments of the harpsichord family
