Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Pemphredo (Graeae).
The gallery
Perseus and the Graiae
Edward Burne-Jones, 1892
Burne-Jones's Stuttgart oil from the Perseus cycle: the hero intercepts the single shared eye as the three grey sisters — Pemphredo among them — pass it hand to hand. Hesiod's fair-cheeked Pemphredo becomes one face in the Pre-Raphaelite frieze of Apollodorus' eye-theft.
Perseus Returning the Eye of the Graiai
Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli), c. 1790–1800
Fuseli's pen-and-wash stages the return of the eye to the clustered Graeae after Perseus has wrung the road to the Gorgons from them — Pemphredo and her sisters as eyeless negotiators at the edge of Medusa's world.
Perseus and the Graiae (Southampton)
Edward Burne-Jones, 1877–1880
The earlier bodycolour version in Southampton City Art Gallery — Pemphredo and the grey sisters already locked with Perseus in the eye ritual the 1892 oil would monumentalise.
In play
Theogony
Hesiod
Names fair-cheeked Pemphredo with Enyo among the grey daughters of Phorcys and Ceto — the Graea who share one eye and one tooth.
Graeae
Pemphredo (Pephredo) as one of the three Grey Sisters — watchful guardians on the road to Medusa.
Pemphredo
The Graea whose name means 'alarm' or 'the one who warns' — sister of Deino and Enyo in the standard trio.