Harpe in mythology
The harpe sword is most notably identified as the weapon used by Cronus to castrate and depose his father, Uranus.[according to whom?] Alternately, that weapon is identified as a more traditional sickle or scythe.[according to whom?] The harpe, scythe or sickle was either a flint or adamantine (diamond) blade, and was provided to Cronus by his mother, Gaia. According to an ancient myth recorded in Hesiod's Theogony, Uranus had cast his and Gaia's children, the Cyclopes and Hecatonchires, down into Tartarus. The enraged Gaia plotted Uranus' downfall. She beseeched each of her sons to rise up against Uranus but was refused by all but the youngest, Cronus. So, Gaia provided him with the weapon, and when Uranus next came to lie with Gaia, Cronus leapt up into action and castrated his father, overthrowing him and driving him away forever. Thus, the blade (whether harpe, sickle or scythe) became a symbol of Cronus's power.
Hermes, a grandson of Cronus, was said to have slain Argus Panoptes with a harpe to rescue Io. Hermes then lent his harpe to his half brother, Perseus, who is regularly depicted in statues and sculpture armed with the weapon in his quest to slay the Gorgon, Medusa, and the sea monster, Cetus (in other versions, Perseus used Medusa's head to petrify Cetus). Perseus was provided with such a sword by his father, Zeus (Cronus' youngest son and later overthrower), who also used the harpe to battle Typhon. Of Zeus's children, Hermes had also used the harpe to slay the titan Argus, and Heracles had defeated the Hydra with the same weapon. It is from these exchanges that the harpe got nicknames such as the Scythe of Cronus or the Sickle of Zeus.[1]
