Eucharis (fiction)

Eucharis, who does not appear in Greek mythology, was one of the nymph Calypso's attendants in Fénelon's novel Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699), a modern prose epic which incorporates Homeric themes.

Its theme of the conflict between duty and love is a persistent one, central in French 17th-century classical theater, but peripheral to the Odyssey in spite of its erotic episodes.

A sub-theme in Les Aventures de Télémaque, that of spiritual education, is summed up within the novel by Mentor, who says, "He who has not felt his weakness and the violence of his passions is not yet wise; for he does not yet understand himself and does not know how to distrust himself.

She also appears, somewhat elliptically, in Arthur Rimbaud's Après le déluge: Eucharis (Εὔχαρις) is from the Greek compound εὖ prefixed to χάρις (meaning grace or charm, the prefix "eu-" denoting good or beautiful).

There may also be a connotation of granting sexual favors (from the verb χαρίζειν - charizein).