Kampe
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In early Greek mythology Kampê (English translation: "crooked") ( a chthonic female monster) was the prison guard, and torturer, for Tartarus(an underworld prison). She was half woman half dragon. She had snakes for hair and snakes grew all over her body. She had a mystical mid-section that held a wide variety of fierce animals magically. She worked for Kronos and the titans before the Olympians ruled (she guarded the original Cyclops and the Hecatoncheires)
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[edit] Parents
Oreanus and Gaia the she-Dragon (Kampe) can also be referred to as echidna (mythology) another she-dragon demoness born from Oreanus and Gaia
[edit] Upper-Body
She appeared like a woman from the waist up, with clusters of spitting venomous serpents for hair and huge bat-like wings.
[edit] Mid-Section
Kampe had 50 various heads of wild beasts roaring, barking, and spluttering foam.
[edit] Lower Body
Her lower body was covered with hard scales. Her claws were curved like sickles.
[edit] Other Descriptions
Some myths depict Kampe or Campe as a merciless guard for the Hecatoncheires and Cyclopes in Tartarus. She was a half woman, half scorpion-like monster.
[edit] Death
She was defeated by Zeus, who set the cyclops and hecatoncheires free to aid in the battle with the Titans. This was a turning point in the great war for the cyclops forged the Olympians great weapons that would lead to the titans downfall.
[edit] Poem
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 6 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "After ten years of fighting Ge prophesied a victory for Zeus if he were to secure the prisoners down in Tartarus as his allies. He thereupon slew their jail-keeper Kampe, and freed them from their bonds."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 18. 237 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) : "Zeus ruling in the heights destroyed highheaded Kampe with a thunderbolt, for all the many crooked shapes of her whole body. A thousand crawlers from her viperish feet, spitting poison afar, were fanning Enyo to a flame, a mass of misshapen coils. Round her neck flowered fifty various heads of wild beasts: some roared with lion’s heads like the grim face of the riddling Sphinx; others were spluttering foam from the tusks of wild boars; her countenance was the very image of Skylla with a marshalled regiment of thronging dog’s heads. Doubleshaped, she appeared a woman to the middle of her body, with clusters of poison-spitting serpents for hair. Her giant form, from the chest to the parting-point of the thighs, was covered all over with a bastard shape of hard sea-monsters’ scales. The claws of her wide-scattering hands were curved like a crooktalon sickle. From her neck over her terrible shoulders, with tail raised high over her throat, a scorpion with an icy sting sharp-whetted crawled and coiled upon itself. Such was manifoldshaped Kampe as she rose writhing, and flew roaming about earth and air and briny deep, and flapping a couple of dusky wings, rousing tempests and arming gales, that blackwinged Nymphe of Tartarus: from her eyelids a flickering flame belched out far-travelling sparks. Yet heavenly Zeus . . . killed that great monster, and conquered the snaky Enyo [war-goddess] of Kronos."
[edit] References
http://www.theoi.com/Ther/DrakainaKampe.html
[edit] External links
[Category: Greek Mythology| Legendary Creatures]
