Achlys
Ἀχλύς
(Ἀχλύς), according to some ancient cosmogonies, the eternal night, and the first created being which existed even before Chaos. According to Hesiod, she was the personification of misery and sadness, and as such she was represented on the shield of Heracles (Scut. Herc. 264, &c.): pale, emaciated, and weeping, with chattering teeth, swollen knees, long nails on her fingers, bloody cheeks, and her shoulders thickly covered with dust.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.