Graeae

• daughters of Phorcus (hence Phorcydes) and Ceto, sisters and guardians of the Gorgons, gray-haired from their birth, having but one eye and one tooth among them, Hyg. praef. p. 7 Munck.

(Γραῖαι), that is, " the old women." were daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. They had grey hair from their birth. Hesiod (Hes. Th. 270, &c.) mentions only two Graeae, viz. Pephredo and Enyo; Apollodorus (2.4.2) adds Deino as a third, and Aeschylus (Prom. 819) also speaks of three Graeae. The Scholiast on Aeschylus (Prom. 793) describes the Graeae, or Phorcides, as he calls them, as having the figure of swans, and he says that the three sisters had only one tooth and one eye in common, which they borrowed from one another when they wanted them. It is conmmonly believed that the Graeae, like other members of the family of Phorcys, were marine divinities, and personifications of the white foam seen on the waves of the sea. (Comp. Gorgo and Perseus.) [L.S]

(Γραῖαι). “The old women,” daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, and three in number— Pephredo, Enyo, and Dino, also called Phorcydes. They had gray hair from their birth, and only one tooth and one eye in common, which they borrowed from each other when they needed them. See Hesiod, Theog. 270.