Iris — Goddess of the Rainbow

Every errand in the Iliad

Iris appears in the Iliad more often than any other messenger, and her missions cover nearly every corner of the war. She takes the shape of Polites, Priam's son, to warn the Trojans that the Greek army is advancing. Disguised as Laodice, Priam's daughter, she fetches Helen to the walls to watch the duel between Paris and Menelaus. When Diomedes wounds Aphrodite, Iris leads the goddess out of the fighting and borrows Ares' chariot to drive her to Olympus. In Book 8 Zeus sends her to turn back Hera and Athena as they ride out to help the Greeks, and in Book 15 she carries Zeus's order to Poseidon to leave the battlefield. Poseidon protests that he is Zeus's equal, and Iris, tactfully, asks whether he really wants her to deliver that reply; he gives way.

Her two most moving errands come late. When Achilles prays for winds to light the pyre of Patroclus, Iris goes to the house of Zephyrus, where the winds are feasting, and they rush across the sea to fan the flames. In Book 24 she dives to the sea floor to summon Thetis, and then visits Priam to tell him to ransom Hector's body. In Book 18 Hera sends her, without Zeus's knowledge, to tell Achilles to show himself at the trench, which is one of the few times she works for Hera in Homer.

Whose messenger was she?

The idea that Iris belongs to Hera while Hermes belongs to Zeus is a later simplification. In Homer she mainly carries Zeus's orders. She is entirely absent as a messenger from the Odyssey, where Hermes takes over; her only trace there is the beggar Arnaeus, whom the young men nicknamed Irus because he ran messages for anyone who asked. The close bond with Hera comes through clearly in Hellenistic poetry. In Callimachus' Hymn to Delos, Iris sits beneath Hera's throne like a hunting hound, never loosening her girdle even to sleep, and reports which lands have dared to shelter the pregnant Leto.

Roman poets kept this role. In Virgil's Aeneid, Juno sends Iris to cut a lock of Dido's hair so her soul can leave her body, and in another episode Iris takes the form of the old woman Beroe to persuade the Trojan women to burn the ships in Sicily. Ovid has Iris draw up water to feed the clouds during the great flood, and sends her to the cave of Sleep to ask for a dream for Alcyone, a mission that leads to Morpheus. The gleam of her robe lights up the dark cave as she enters.

Tragedy, comedy and a love story

In Euripides' Heracles, Iris arrives on stage with Lyssa, the spirit of madness, to carry out Hera's order to drive Heracles insane; Lyssa herself is reluctant, and Iris insists. Aristophanes plays the role for laughs in Birds, where Iris, flying down to demand sacrifices for the gods, is stopped at the border of the new bird city as an illegal intruder.

The Lesbian poet Alcaeus, as Plutarch reports, made Iris the wife of Zephyrus, the west wind, and the mother of Eros. This is one of several competing genealogies for the god of love, but it is a natural pairing: the spring wind and the rainbow after rain.

Worship and art

Iris had very little formal cult. A Delian writer named Semus, quoted by Athenaeus, says the people of Delos sacrificed to her on the little island of Hecate, offering cakes made of wheat, dried figs and honey. In art she is far more common: a winged young woman with a herald's staff (kerykeion) or a jug, often hard to tell apart from Nike. Scholars commonly identify Iris among the gods on the east frieze of the Parthenon, beside Hera, and one of the figures on the east pediment as Iris hurrying off with the news of Athena's birth, though both identifications are debated. A red-figure cup by the Brygos Painter in the British Museum shows satyrs harassing Iris, a rare comic image of the goddess.

Her family links her with monsters. Her sisters are the Harpies, and in Apollonius' Argonautica it is Iris who stops the sons of Boreas from killing them, swearing by the Styx that they will no longer torment Phineus.

Ancient sources

• Homer, Iliad 2, 3, 8, 15, 18, 23 and 24 — her missions to the Trojans, to Helen, to Hera and Athena, to Poseidon, to Achilles, to the winds, and to Thetis and Priam.
• Hesiod, Theogony 265–269 and 780–806 — her birth to Thaumas and Electra, and her role fetching Styx water for divine oaths.
• Callimachus, Hymn to Delos — Iris as Hera's watchful attendant, hunting down any land that would shelter Leto.
• Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2 — Iris intervenes to save her sisters the Harpies from the Boreads.
• Euripides, Heracles — Iris and Lyssa bring Hera's madness upon the hero.
• Virgil, Aeneid 4 and 5 — Iris releases Dido's soul and incites the burning of the Trojan ships.

Frequently asked questions

Was Iris married?

According to Alcaeus, she was the wife of Zephyrus, the west wind, and the mother of Eros. Most sources say nothing of a husband, and Callimachus pictures her as never resting.

Is Iris the goddess of the rainbow or just a messenger?

Both. Her name is the ordinary Greek word for rainbow, and the rainbow was seen as her path between sky and earth, but her mythological role is almost entirely that of a messenger.

What is the Roman name for Iris?

The Romans simply called her Iris and used her in the same messenger role, mainly for Juno.

Who are Iris's siblings?

The Harpies, usually named Aello and Ocypete, with Celaeno added by later writers. Some sources also make Arke, a goddess who sided with the Titans, her sister.