Iris

Her most consistent role, especially in Homer, is messenger — she is dispatched, most often by Zeus or Hera, to carry commands and information to gods and mortals alike, appearing and departing quickly and generally without independent initiative of her own; in this she runs parallel to Hermes, though the two are rarely shown together and seem to belong to somewhat different registers of errand.

Her most consistent role, especially in Homer, is messenger — she is dispatched, most often by Zeus or Hera, to carry commands and information to gods and mortals alike, appearing and departing quickly and generally without independent initiative of her own; in this she runs parallel to Hermes, though the two are rarely shown together and seem to belong to somewhat different registers of errand.

She is winged and characteristically fast, and the rainbow itself is treated in the tradition as the visible track of her passage between sky, sea and earth, a path connecting the gods' world to the mortal one.

Iris is the Greek goddess of the rainbow, daughter of Thaumas and Electra, whose swift wing-borne journeys made her a principal messenger of the Olympian gods. Iris is the Greek personification of the rainbow, daughter of the sea-god Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra, and sister of the Harpies in Hesiod's genealogy — a family placement that ties her to the sea and to swift, wind-borne movement rather than to any settled domain of her own.