Campe

In Greek mythology, Campe or Kampê (Greek: Κάμπη "crooked"; confer καμπή "a twist, a bend") is the name of a chthonic female monster (drakaina).

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Mythology

Campe was a dragon with a woman's head and torso and a scorpion-like tail. Nonnus (Dionysiaca 18.23–264) gives the most elaborated description of her.^[1] Joseph Eddy Fontenrose suggests that for Nonnus Campe is a Greek refiguring of Tiamat and that "she is Echidna under another name, as Nonnos indicates, calling her Echidnaean Enyo, identifying her snaky legs with Echidna's", and "a female counterpart of his Typhon".^[2]
Campe was set by Cronus to guard the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes in Tartarus after Cronus didn't release them from their imprisonment there when they were imprisoned by Uranus. She was killed by Zeus when he rescued the Cyclopes for help in the battle with the Titans.^[3]
In his lexicon Hesychius of Alexandria (K.614) noted that the poet Epicharmos had called Campe a kētos, or sea-monster.^[4]

Popular culture

Television

• In the TV series Class of the Titans, Campe (voiced by Pam Hyatt in Season One, Pauline Newstone in Season Two) is the jailer of Tartarus and her only escapee was Cronus. She has a woman's head, torso and arms, the body of a snake and has a live scorpion on her back that can detach itself of her body, and she wields a staff. When she wanted to use the Chosen Ones as bait in order to recapture Cronus as seen in "Prisoner Campe", she finally allied herself with them after an embarrassing fight against Jay. She had to choose between capturing Cronus and saving Herry's life. Her favorite question to ask herself seems to be "Is my enemy's enemy my friend or my enemy?"

Other literature

• Campe (spelled "Kampê") appears as a character in the fourth book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, The Battle of the Labyrinth, where she is a member of the Titan Kronos' army of monsters. She is first encountered serving as Briares' jailer on Alcatraz. Briares is a Hundred-Handed one, or Hecatonchire, the last one of his kind. She is described as half woman and half dragon. The dragon portion is twenty feet long with black scales, large claws, a barbed tail, and dragon legs made out of hundreds of viper snakes. The human portion had snakes for hair similar to Medusa. Where the human and dragon portions meet contained bubbly skin with the heads of various wild animals growing from each bubble. She also wields two poison-tipped scimitars. She is killed by Briares, who threw rocks at her.