Ker

The ker is an eidolon [image], or winged sprite, which wears a sinister aspect - it is an object of fear. If it is angry and seeks vengeance, it is an Erinyes. Considered as allotted to the individual at his birth, it is his moira - the span or limit of his vital force, the negative and repressive aspect of his fate.

Greene defines ker as the individually allotted, sinister aspect of personal fate — an eidolon that collapses into moira and, when vengeful, into the Erinyes, distinguishing it from the beneficent daimon.

Liz Greene, The Astrology of Fate, 1984thesis

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Ker too appears as a 'dear' psychic entity (Od. 7.309, e. g., 16.274). At Od. 9.413 Odysseus' 'dear ker laughed' when he saw the Cyclopes accept Polyphemus' explanation... Like the other two psychic entities signifying 'heart', ker takes part in joy, grief, pain, and anger. It can be 'noble', 'fine', 'stubborn', or 'baneful'.

Sullivan establishes ker as a Homeric psychic entity of the heart-type, documenting its full emotional range and its qualifying epithets across the Iliad and Odyssey.

Sullivan, Shirley Darcus, Psychological and Ethical Ideas What Early Greeks Say, 1995thesis

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We shall look briefly at the three terms that express 'heart' in early Greek poetry. These are kradie (or kardie), etor, and ker. These psychic entities have a strongly physical aspect as the 'heart' within, endowing life by its activity. But each also is associated with a range of emotional functions.

Sullivan situates ker within the tripartite Homeric heart-vocabulary, emphasising its dual nature as physically grounded organ and emotionally differentiated psychic agent.

Sullivan, Shirley Darcus, Psychological and Ethical Ideas What Early Greeks Say, 1995thesis

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Kfjp and uoipct can be virtually interchanged we find something like proof in Hesiod: KCii Mofpocs Kcd Kfjpocs EyEfvorro VT|AEOTTO(VOUS... Both uoipa and Ktjp alike, as we have seen, were conceived as dragging or leading a man to his fate, above all to death.

Onians demonstrates through Hesiodic evidence that Kēr and Moira are functionally interchangeable as fate-powers that drag or lead a person to death, with the Kēres sharing the battlefield with the Moirai in the Shield of Herakles.

Onians, R B, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis

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Ker 14–17, 55, 70–3 (esp. 70 n. 121), 72 n. 127, 75, 76, 78, 87, 90, 229–31

Sullivan's index confirms ker as a substantive and recurrent analytical category throughout her study of early Greek psychological and ethical ideas, co-indexed with kradie, etor, and noos.

Sullivan, Shirley Darcus, Psychological and Ethical Ideas What Early Greeks Say, 1995supporting

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Philologists usually translate both kradie and etor as heart. And certainly a word can have synonyms. But in instances so important as the assigning of particular locations of sensations and forces of action, I would demur on a priori grounds, and insist that to the ancient Greek these terms had to represent different locations and sensations.

Jaynes contests the philological conflation of the Homeric heart-terms, arguing that kradie, etor, and by extension ker each designated distinct somatic locations and experiential registers within the bicameral mind's architecture.

Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, 1976supporting

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K�pEe; and KtlP occur both in Pi. Fr. 277 and in the choral songs of tragedy... the most likely conclusion is that the word is Pre-Greek.

Beekes provides etymological testimony that Kēr (as distinct from the heart-term) is likely of Pre-Greek origin, appearing in Pindar and tragedy and resisting standard Indo-European derivation.

Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting

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There are many of them. Words for equipment of consciousness have a pluralizing effect, like the 'many names' of gods who so often affect the innards. There are several 'organs,' and even more words. From the start, multiplicity is a core condition of consciousness, as of religion, in Greek thought.

Padel contextualises the proliferation of Greek psychic vocabulary — within which ker belongs — as reflecting a structural condition of multiplicity inherent to Greek consciousness and religious thought.

Padel, Ruth, In and Out of the Mind Greek Images of the Tragic Self, 1994aside

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