Iris

Iris (originally a personification of the rainbow), the messenger of the gods in the Iliad, an office which belongs to Hermes in the Odyssey, was daughter of Thaumas and Electra, and sister of the Harpies. In the earlier poets she is a virgin goddess, but later writers make her wife of Zephyrus, and mother of Eros. She is frequently represented on vases and in bas-reliefs as a youthful winged virgin, dressed in a long tunic, with a herald's staff and a pitcher in her hands.—The broad coloured ring in the eye is called the Iris (see EYE). Iris is also the name of one of the Planetoids (q.v.), discovered in 1847.