Empusa
The changing apparition reported in Aristophanes’s Frogs
A frightening shape described by Xanthias on the journey through Hades, identified by Dionysus as Empusa.
Quick answer
Empusa is the apparition Dionysus names when Xanthias reports a monster changing from bull to mule, girl, and dog in Aristophanes’s Frogs. Xanthias adds a fiery face and mismatched legs. The scene frightens the previously boastful god, but its description comes through comic dialogue: whether Xanthias is seeing a monster or playing on his master’s fear remains open.[2]
Quick facts
| Record type | Named apparition in Greek comedy; one reported encounter |
|---|---|
| Name in this translation | Empusa |
| Primary witness | Aristophanes, The Frogs, translated by B. B. Rogers |
| Source realm | Hades on Dionysus’s journey, after the ferry crossing[1] |
| Reported forms | Bull, mule, girl, then dog[2] |
| Reported details | Face ablaze; one copper leg and one of cow dung in Rogers’s wording[2] |
| Outcome | Xanthias says Empusa has gone and swears repeatedly to reassure Dionysus[2] |
What the source says
Bravery before the encounter
Dionysus seeks the dead poet Euripides and asks Heracles for the route to Hades. Heracles warns of monsters beyond a lake. After Charon ferries Dionysus across and he rejoins Xanthias, the slave recalls that warning. Dionysus dismisses it as an attempt to scare him and declares his eagerness for an adventure.[1]
A monster described in conversation
Xanthias reports a noise, first behind them and then ahead. Dionysus tells him to stand between himself and the danger. Xanthias then announces a monster whose form keeps changing. At the mention of a beautiful girl, Dionysus wants to approach; Xanthias immediately says it is now a dog. Dionysus identifies it as Empusa. Xanthias describes its burning face and, in response to his master’s question about a copper leg, confirms one and adds another made of cow dung.[2]
Reassurance rather than combat
Dionysus appeals to his priest for protection and objects when Xanthias calls him either Heracles or Dionysus. Xanthias addresses the apparition, then announces that it has left. His master demands repeated oaths before accepting this reassurance. The play moves on to flute music and the approaching chorus of initiates; no fight or injury inflicted by Empusa is described.[2]
Changing forms and translation choices
The animal and human forms occur in succession, rather than as parts of one hybrid body. The girl is one moment in that sequence; the passage does not describe a sustained seduction or feeding on a victim. The fiery face does not establish fire-breathing. There is no stated size, ancestry, or means of defeating Empusa.[2]
This page retains Rogers’s spelling Empusa and his material terms “copper” and “cow dung.” Those are the chosen translation’s words. They are not silently replaced with bronze, brass, or an animal leg. Likewise, the episode supplies no relationship to Hecate and no blood-drinking; those claims cannot be imported into this account from other treatments of Empusa.[2]
Source realm: the journey through Hades
The encounter lies after Charon’s ferry and before the initiates guide the travellers to Pluto’s door. It belongs to the play’s Greek underworld journey, not a documented dwelling or geographical habitat for Empusa.[1][2]
The archive groups this record under Mythic cosmos and the Ancient Mediterranean cultural shelf. Greek comedy is its literary form; Hades is its source setting. The satyrs of Euripides’s Cyclops offer a separate dramatic witness, not a shared account of this apparition.
Dramatic role
The exchange turns Dionysus’s brave talk into panic and puts his slave in control of what he believes about the danger. Reading it as a comic reversal of master and servant follows their words and reactions. It does not establish a universal symbolic meaning for Empusa.[1][2]
Books and references
- 1Aristophanes, The Frogs: directions to Hades and the ferry crossing
Translated by Benjamin Bickley Rogers, in Nine Greek Dramas, The Harvard Classics, vol. 8, edited by Charles W. Eliot. New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909. Public-domain translation. Text consulted: Project Gutenberg eBook 7998, HTML edition updated 7 May 2013. This transcription has no numbered acts or verse lines. Locate Dionysus’s request for Euripides, Heracles’s directions, Charon’s crossing, and the reunion ending with Dionysus’s boast about adventure.
Read the translated play ↗ - 2Aristophanes, The Frogs: the Empusa dialogue
Rogers, same edition. Unnumbered scene between the reunion after Charon’s crossing and the initiates’ chorus: begin at Xanthias’s report of a noise, follow the changing forms and Dionysus’s identification of Empusa, and continue through Xanthias’s repeated oaths and the ensuing flute music. Search the linked text for “It is Empusa!” to locate the central exchange. Descriptions above are attributed to the speakers; the possible trick is identified as interpretation.
Read the Empusa passage ↗