THE GODS OF THE UNDERWORLD[44]
=44. The Underworld= was the region of darkness inhabited by the
spirits of the dead and governed by Pluto (Hades) and Proserpina, his
queen. According to the Iliad, this realm lay "beneath the secret
places of the earth."[45] And from the Odyssey we gather that it is not
in the bowels of the earth, but on the under side at the limits of the
known world, across the stream Oceanus, where is a waste shore, the
land of the Cimmerians, shrouded in mist and cloud, never lighted by
the sun "neither when he climbs up the starry heavens nor when again
he turns earthward from the firmament."[46] From that land one goes
beside the stream till he reaches the dank house of Hades. The realm
of darkness is bounded by awful rivers: the Styx, sacred even among
the gods, for by it they sealed their oaths, and the Acheron, river of
woe,--with its tributaries, Phlegethon, river of fire, and Cocytus,
river of wailing. Hither past the White Rock, which perhaps symbolizes
the bleaching skeletons of the dead, and past the gates of the sun,
it is the duty of Hermes (Mercury) to conduct the outworn ghosts of
mortals. One of the Greek dramatists, Sophocles, tells us that this
shore of death is "down in the darkling west."[47] In later poems we
read that Charon, a grim boatman, received the dead at the River of
Woe, and ferried them across, if the money requisite for their passage
had been placed in their mouths and their bodies had been duly buried
in the world above.[48] Otherwise he left them gibbering on the hither
bank. The abode of Pluto is represented as wide-gated and thronged
with guests. At the gate Cerberus, a three-headed, serpent-tailed dog,
lay on guard,--friendly to the spirits entering, but inimical to those
who would depart. The palace itself is dark and gloomy, set in the
midst of uncanny fields haunted by strange apparitions. The groves of
somber trees about the palace,--the meads of Asphodel, barren or, at
best, studded with futile bushes and pale-flowered weeds, where wander
the shades,--and the woods along the waste shore "of tall poplars and
willows that shed their fruit before the season" are, without any
particular discrimination, celebrated by the poets as the _Garden of
Proserpine_.
[Illustration: FIG. 34. THE GREEK UNDERWORLD]
[Illustration: FIG. 35. HERMES CONDUCTING A SOUL TO CHARON]
Here life has death for neighbor,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labor,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes,
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
* * * * *
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's, who fears to greet her,
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.
[Illustration: FIG. 36. HYPNOS]
She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow,
And flowers are put to scorn.
* * * * *
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light;
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight;
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal:
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.[49]
[Illustration: FIG. 37. A FURY]
=45. Tartarus and the Elysian Fields.= With the ghosts of Hades the
living might but rarely communicate, and only through certain oracles
of the dead, situate by cavernous spots and sheer abysms, deep and
melancholy streams, and baleful marshes. These naturally seemed to
afford access to the world below, which with the later poets, such as
Virgil, comes to be regarded as under the ground. One of these descents
to the Underworld was near Tænarum in Laconia; another, near Cumæ in
Italy, was Lake Avernus, so foul in its exhalations that, as its name
portends, no bird could fly across it.[50] Before the judges of the
lower world,--Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanthus,--the souls of the dead
were brought to trial. The condemned were assigned to regions where
all manner of torment awaited them at the hands of monsters dire,--the
fifty-headed Hydra and the avenging Furies. Some evildoers, such as
the Titans of old, were doomed to languish in the gulf of Tartarus
immeasurably below. But the souls of the guiltless passed to the
Elysian Fields, where each followed the chosen pursuit of his former
life in a land of spring, sunlight, happiness, and song. And by the
Fields there flowed the river Lethe, from which the souls of those that
were to return to the earth in other bodies drank oblivion of their
former lives.
=46. The Islands of the Blest.= Homer mentions, elsewhere, an Elysium
of the western seas, which is a happy land, "where life is easiest
for men: no snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain; but
always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill West to blow cool
on men."[51] Hither favored heroes pass without dying, and live under
the happy rule of Rhadamanthus. The Elysium of Hesiod and Pindar is
likewise in the Western Ocean, on the Islands of the Blessed, the
Fortunate Isles. From this dream of a western Elysium may have sprung
the legend of the island Atlantis. That blissful region may have been
wholly imaginary. It is, however, not impossible that the myth had
its origin in the reports of storm-driven mariners who had caught a
glimpse of occidental lands. In these Islands of the Blest, the Titans,
released from Tartarus after many years, dwelt under the golden sway of
the white-haired Cronus.[52]
There was no heavy heat, no cold,
The dwellers there wax never old,
Nor wither with the waning time,
But each man keeps that age he had
When first he won the fairy clime.
The night falls never from on high,
Nor ever burns the heat of noon;
But such soft light eternally
Shines, as in silver dawns of June
Before the sun hath climbed the sky!
* * * * *
All these their mirth and pleasure made
Within the plain Elysian,
The fairest meadow that may be,
With all green fragrant trees for shade,
And every scented wind to fan,
And sweetest flowers to strew the lea;
The soft winds are their servants fleet
To fetch them every fruit at will
And water from the river chill;
And every bird that singeth sweet,
Throstle, and merle, and nightingale,
Brings blossoms from the dewy vale,--
Lily, and rose, and asphodel,--
With these doth each guest twine his crown
And wreathe his cup, and lay him down
Beside some friend he loveth well.[53]
=47. Pluto (Hades)= was brother of Jupiter. To him fell the sovereignty
of the lower world and the shades of the dead. In his character of
Hades, the viewless, he is hard and inexorable.
By virtue of the helmet or cap given him by the Cyclopes, he moved
hither and yon, dark, unseen,--hated of mortals. He was, however,
lord not only of all that descends to the bowels of the earth, but
of all that proceeds from the earth; and in the latter aspect he was
revered as Pluto, or the giver of wealth. At his pleasure he visited
the realms of day,--as when he carried off Proserpina; occasionally he
journeyed to Olympus; but otherwise he ignored occurrences in the upper
world, nor did he suffer his subjects, by returning, to find them out.
Mortals, when they called on his name, beat the ground with their hands
and, averting their faces, sacrificed black sheep to him and to his
queen. Among the Romans he is known also as Dis, Orcus, and Tartarus.
But Orcus is rather Death, or the Underworld, than ruler of the shades.
[Illustration: FIG. 38. HADES]
=48. Proserpina (Persephone)= was the daughter of Ceres and Jupiter.
She was queen of Hades,--a name applied both to the ruler of the shades
and to his realm. When she is goddess of spring, dear to mankind,
Proserpina bears a cornucopia overflowing with flowers, and revisits
the earth in duly recurring season. But when she is goddess of death,
sitting beside Pluto, she directs the Furies, and, like her husband, is
cruel, unyielding, inimical to youth and life and hope. In the story of
her descent to Hades will be found a further account of her attributes
and fortunes.
=49. The Lesser Divinities of the Underworld= were:
1. _Æacus_, _Rhadamanthus_, and _Minos_, sons of Jupiter and judges of
the shades in the lower world. Æacus had been during his earthly life a
righteous king of the island of Ægina. Minos had been a famous lawgiver
and king of Crete. The life of Rhadamanthus was not eventful.
2. _The Furies_ (_Erinyes_ or _Eumenides_), Alecto, Tisiphone, and
Megæra, born of the blood of the wounded Uranus. They were attendants
of Proserpina. They punished with the frenzies of remorse the crimes of
those who had escaped from or defied public justice. The heads of the
Furies were wreathed with serpents.
3. _Hecate_, a mysterious divinity sometimes identified with Diana and
sometimes with Proserpina. As Diana represents the moonlight splendor
of night, so Hecate represents its darkness and terrors. She haunted
crossroads and graveyards, was the goddess of sorcery and witchcraft,
and wandered by night, seen only by the dogs whose barking told of her
approach.
[Illustration: FIG. 39. DEATH, SLEEP, AND HERMES LAYING A BODY IN THE
TOMB]
4. _Sleep_, or _Somnus (Hypnos)_, and _Death (Thanatos)_, sons of
Night.[54] They dwell in subterranean darkness. The former brings to
mortals solace and fair dreams, and can lull the shining eyes of Jove
himself; the latter closes forever the eyes of men. _Dreams_, too, are
sons of Night.[55] They dwell beside their brother Death, along the
Western Sea. Their abode has two gates,--one of ivory, whence issue
false and flattering visions; the other of horn, through which true
dreams and noble pass to men.[56]
FOOTNOTES:
[44] For interpretation and illustration, see corresponding sections of
Commentary.
[45] Iliad, 22, 482; 9, 568; 20, 61.
[46] Odyssey, 10, 508; 11, 20; 24, 1.
[47] Sophocles, [OE]dipus Rex, 177.
[48] Æneid, 6, 295.
[49] From The Garden of Proserpine, by A. C. Swinburne.
[50] Æneid, 6.
[51] Odyssey, 4, 561.
[52] Hes. Works and Days, 169.
[53] From The Fortunate Islands, by Andrew Lang.
[54] Iliad, 14, 231; 16, 672.
[55] Odyssey, 24, 12; 19, 560. Æneid, 6, 893. Ovid, Metam. 11, 592.
[56] For genealogical table, see Commentary.