Electra (Greek mythology) explained

In Greek mythology, Electra or Elektra (;, Ēlektra, "amber") was the name of the following women:

• Electra (Oceanid), one of the Oceanids who was the wife of Thaumas and mother of Iris and the Harpies.^[1]
• Electra (Pleiad), one of the Pleiades.^[2]
• Electra, one of the Danaids, daughter of Danaus, king of Libya and the naiad Polyxo. She married and later killed her husband Peristhenes or Hyperantus following the commands of her father.^{[3] [4]}
• Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.^[5]
• Electra, handmaiden of Helen who fastened her mistress' sandals when she went to the walls of Troy.^[6]
• Electra, sister of Cadmus, of whom he named after the Electran gate at Thebes.^{[7] [8]} She might be instead the mother of Cadmus because later writers noted that the other name for his mother Telephassa was Electra.^[9]

Notes

1. [Hesiod]
2. [Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]
3. Apollodorus, 2.1.5
4. [Hyginus]
5. Apollodorus, Epitome 2.16 & 6.23–28
6. [Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]
7. Pausanias, 9.8.4
8. [Scholia]
9. "On Samothrace... the mother was called Elektra or Elektryone" as Karl Kerenyi noted (Kerenyi 1959:27)

References

• Hesiod, Theogony from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
• Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
• Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.