tragedy | greek mythology

ii. KHARITES

GREEK NAME
Χαρις Χαριτες

TRANSLITERATION
Kharis, Kharites

ROMAN NAME
Gratia, Gratiae

TRANSLATION
Grace, Beauty (kharis)

THE KHARITES (Charites) or Graces, were three goddesses of grace, beauty, adornment, joy, mirth, festivity, dance and song.

A number of younger Kharites presided over the other pleasures of life including play, amusement, banqueting, floral decoration, happiness, rest and relaxation.

The Kharites were attendants of the goddesses Aphrodite and Hera. One named Kharis (Charis) was the wife of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) and another, Pasithea, was married to Hypnos (Hypnus) the god of sleep.

The three Kharites were depicted in classical art as naked women, holding hands and dancing in a circle. They were sometimes crowned with and held sprigs of myrtle.

In Greek vase painting a bevy of younger Kharites form the retinue of Aphrodite.

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The idea of personified grace and beauty was, as we have already seen, divided into a plurality of beings at a very early time, probably to indicate the various ways in which the beautiful is manifested in the world and adorns it.

In the Iliad itself Pasithea is called one of the younger Charites, who is destined to be the wife of Sleep, and the plural Charites occurs several times in the Homeric poems.

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The character and nature of the Charites are sufficiently expressed by the names they bear: they were conceived as the goddesses who gave festive joy and enhanced the enjoyments of life by refinement and gentleness. Gracefulness and beauty in social intercourse are therefore attributed to them.

They are mostly described as being in the service or attendance of other divinities, as real joy exists only in circles where the individual gives up his own self and makes it his main object to afford pleasure to others. The less beauty is ambitious to rule, the greater is its victory; and the less homage it demands, the more freely is it paid. These seen to be the ideas embodied in the Charites. They lend their grace and beauty to everything that delights and elevates gods and men. This notion was probably the cause of Charis being called the wife of Hephaestus, the divine artist. The most perfect works of art are thus called the works of the Charites, and the greatest artists are their favourites. The gentleness and gracefulness which they impart to man's ordinary pleasures are expressed by their moderating the exciting influence of wine, and by their accompanying Aphrodite and Eros.

They also assist Hermes and Peitho to give grace to eloquence and persuasion, and wisdom itself receives its charms from them. Poetry, however, is the art which is especially favoured by them, whence they are called erasimolpoi or philêsimolpoi. For the same reason they are the friends of the Muses, with whom they live together in Olympus. Poets are inspired by the Muses, but the application of their songs to the embellishment of life and the festivals of the gods are the work of the Charites.

Late Roman writers describe the Charites (Gratiae) as the symbols of gratitude and benevolence, to which they were led by the meaning of the word gratia in their own language.

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PARENTS zeus and eurynome
NAMES aegle, thalia, euphrosyne
GODDESSES OF grace, joy, mirth, beauty, glory, dance
SACRED PLANTS rose, myrtle
ROMAN NAME gratiae