Achlys: Goddess of Misery and Poison

She stands pale and starved, blood on her cheeks and dust on her shoulders, weeping without end. Her name means mist. Achlys was the Greek goddess of misery and poison. She survives in only a handful of ancient lines: a figure of nightmare on the Shield of Heracles, and in Homer the grey film that falls across the eyes of the dying. Yet the Greeks gave her a name for the dimming of sight itself, t...