Greek Mythology >> Nymphs >> Haliae >> Thoosa

THOOSA

Greek Name

Θοωσα

Transliteration

Thoôsa

Latin Spelling

Thoosa

Translation

Swift (thoôsa, thoos)

THOOSA was the sea-nymph mother of the Kyklops (Cyclops) Polyphemos by the god Poseidon.

Her name was derived from the Greek word thoos "swift" and she may have been a minor goddess of dangerously swift currents.

Thoosa was probably envisaged as a mermaid-like woman with the tail of a serpentine-fish in place of legs. Two of her sisters possessed a similar form--the monstrous mermaid Skylla (Syclla) and the serpent-nymph Ekhidna (Echidna).

PARENTS

PHORKYS (Homer Odyssey 1.70)

OFFSPRING

POLYPHEMOS (by Poseidon) (Homer Odyssey 1.70, Apollodorus E7.4)

CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES

Homer, Odyssey 1. 68 ff (trans. Shewring) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) :
"Polyphemos (Polyphemus), the Kyklops (Cyclops) whose power is greatest among the Kyklopes race and whose ancestry is more than human; his mother was the nymphe Thoosa, child of Phorkys (Phorcys) the lord of the barren sea, and she lay with Poseidon within her arching caverns."

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E7. 4 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
"A son of Poseidon and a nymphe named Thoose (Thoosa), an enormous man-eating wild man named Polyphemos, who had one eye in his forehead."

Theocritus, Idylls 11. 25 ff (trans. Rist) (Greek bucolic C3rd B.C.) :
"[The Kyklops Polyphemos woos the Nereid-nymph Galateia :] ‘I fell in love with you, maiden, the first time you came, with my mother [i.e. Thoosa], eager to cull the bluebells from our hillside : I was you guide.’"

Theocritus, Idylls 11. 62 ff :
"[Polyphemos laments :] ‘Only my mother [i.e. Thoosa] does me wrong, and it's her I blame. She's never said a single word on my behalf to you [the Nereid-nymph Galateia], for all she sees me growing thin, day after day. I shall tell her that my head and both my feet are throbbing: so I'll be even, making her suffer, even as she makes me.’"