Belphoebe Belphoebe Belphoebe (or "Belphebe", "Belphœbe") is a character in Edmund Spenser's poem "The Faerie Queene" (1590), a representation of Queen Elizabeth I (conceived of, however, as a pure, high-spirited maiden, rather than a queen). Spenser intended her name to mean "beautiful Diana" (Phoebe being an epithet of the Greek moon goddess Artemis, who was known to the Romans as Diana), and it is suggested that she is a member of Poseidon's family. A virgin huntress, Belphoebe can certainly fight, as a potential rapist found out. She is the stronger, militant sister of Amoret. Belphoebe is mentioned in Kipling's poem "The
Iphigenia in Tauris (Goethe) their father, and Orestes, with the help of Electra, murdered his mother Clytemnestra. Being now guilty of a murder, he too fell under the family curse. In an attempt to flee his impending fate of falling victim to revenge and of being killed for his crime, he fled. Consulting the Delphic oracle of Apollo, he was told to bring "the sister" to Athens and that this would be the only way to lift the curse. Since he supposed his sister Iphigenia was already dead, Orestes assumed that the oracle must have meant Apollo's twin sister, the goddess Diana. He therefore