Читать книгу The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome - Ultimate Collection - Homer - Страница 33

Table of Contents

The Greeks, who found in this world so much that was interesting, beautiful, and heroic, utterly dreaded the coming of death to take them from this very real present life and plunge them into an unknown future. They believed, indeed, in a life after death, but it was a shadowy and unreal one, not to be compared to the most humdrum existence on the sun-lit earth. The great hero Achilles, when his shade appeared before Odysseus on his visit to the world of the dead, earnestly declared:

Nay, speak not comfortably to me of death, O great Odysseus! Rather would I live upon the earth as the hireling of another, with a landless man that hath no great livelihood, than bear sway among all the dead that be departed. (Odyssey, XI. 488 ff.)

Just where the realm of the dead was is uncertain. In the Odyssey Homer tells of a land far to the west, by the river Ocean, beyond the setting of the sun, where in eternal darkness and mist lived the souls of the departed; but generally people thought of this gloomy land as being far beneath the earth, in the darkness of the lower world. Near Cumæ, in the vicinity of Naples, where volcanic vapors, hot springs, and strange upheavals of the ground suggest the nearness of mysterious powers below the earth, a cave with unexplored depths offered entrance to the land of. the dead, and A ver’nus, a lake whence rose deadly vapors, was thought to be but the overflow of the rivers of Hades. Other localities in Greece and the islands afforded passage for the departing soul to its long home, and permitted occasional intercourse between the dead and the living.

To this gloomy land, wherever it was, the soul, when it left the body, journeyed under the guidance of the god Hermes. Though the body of the dead might lie upon his bed in his own home, or upon the battle-field, the soul, thought of as a tiny winged creature in form like the living man, but insubstantial and shadowy, joined the great throng of pale shades that were always unhappily waiting on the shores of the river Ach’e ron. Here he must wait in uneasy expectation until the friends he had left behind him should give his body due burial with sacrifice and provide him with a small coin, an obol, for his passage money. Only then would old Charon, the terrible ferryman of the dead, receive him into his leaky skiff and set him across the hated stream. For all Hades was cut off from approach by its rivers, Acheron, River of Woe, and its branches, Co cy’tus, River of Wailing, and Phleg’ethon, River of Fire. The fourth river of Hades was the Styx, by which the gods swore their unbreakable oaths. Once across the Acheron the soul must pass by the three-headed watch-dog, Cer’berus, to appease whom he was provided with a little cake made of seed and honey. Then he entered through the wide gates of Hades into that immense home of the dead, open in hospitality to all men, as the Greeks grimly said.

Fig. 57. Charon in his Skiff.

Here Hades, or Pluto reigned, the dark and hateful brother of Zeus, and beside him the stolen Persephone (Proserpina), no longer young and happy as when she played with the nymphs in the bright fields of Sicily, but stern and cruel on the throne beside her black lord. When the Cyclopes gave to Zeus the thunderbolts and to Poseidon the trident as the symbols of their power, they gave to Pluto the helmet of darkness that made its wearer invisible. Only twice do we hear of the infernal king leaving his kingdom to appear in the light of the sun; once when he came to carry off Persephone, and again when the hero Heracles had wounded him, he was forced to visit Olympus to get the help of the divine physician. Pluto had deputed judges to weigh each dead man's good and evil deeds and assign each to his proper place—Minos (see p. 230) the former just king of Crete, his brother Rhad aman’thus, and Æ’a cus (see p. 283), the righteous grandfather of the hero Achilles. H the soul was condemned, the Furies, or Eu men’i des, avengers of crime, terrible with their snaky locks, drove the criminal before them to a place of punishment yet lower than Hades and buried in threefold night, while the righteous were led to the place of the Blessed.

In the place of torment, Tar’tar us, were those Titans whom Zeus had overthrown, the rebellious giants, and wicked men who here paid the penalty for their crimes against the gods. Impious Ixi’on for his inhuman cruelties was bound to a fiery wheel and racked and torn by its swift revolutions. Sis’y phus (see p. 236), who tried to cheat even Death, must forever roll up-hill a heavy stone, which ever rolled down. Tantalus (see p. 281), who abused the hospitality of the gods, ever tortured by hunger and consuming thirst, tried vainly to reach fruits hung just above his head, or stooped to drink the water which always eluded his parched lips. From this comes our word tantalise. The forty-nine daughters of Dan’a us, who had murdered their husbands, hopelessly fetched water in leaky vessels. (See p. 199.) All the air sounded with groans and shrieks, and the Furies drove the victims who would escape back to their endless torture.

The Elysiau Fields were originally regarded as the last home only of a few favored heroes, sons of the gods, but afterwards men thought of them as peopled by others too, those who, through their noble lives or perhaps through participation in the Mysteries of Demeter, were admitted to this glorious companionship. These fortunate ones lived in calm happiness in the Elysian Fields or Island of the Blest.

Far from gods and men, at the farthest end of the earth, in the deep-flowing ocean, where the earth bears thrice in a year.— Hesiod, Works and Days, 197 ff.

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.— Odyssey, IV. 566 ff.

Here the heroes feasted or wandered together through the flowery fields, contended in games and enjoyed a repetition of the pleasures of the upper world.

Fig. 58. Heracles carrying off Cerberus.

Though the lower world was generally closed to the living, yet some few heroes visited it in life. Heracles came to carry off the watch-dog Cerberus. The hero Odysseus (Ulysses) came by the advice of the sorceress Circe, to ask about his future course, Æneas, the Trojan ancestor of the Romans, came for the same purpose. These stories will be told in detail later on. (See pp. 223, 311, 343.)

One man won his entrance and safe departure through his divine gift of music. This was Or’pheus, son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope, who had learned from his father to play the lyre so marvelously that at his song wild beasts became tame, serpents came out of the earth to listen, the very stones obeyed his will. When his wife Eu ryd’i ce died from the sting of a snake, he followed her to Hades, by his music persuading even grim Charon and the dog Cerberus to let him pass in. Pluto, too, yielded to his song and allowed him to carry away Eurydice, on condition that he would not look back at her until he should reach the upper world. But just as they were about to come to the light of earth, the desire to see his beloved wife overpowered Orpheus, and he turned and looked at her. Then Hermes gently took Eurydice by the hand and led her back to the home of the dead. Orpheus refused to be comforted and rejected the advances of all other women. In the end, he met his death by the violence of some frenzied Bacchantes. Charmed by his music, the stones they threw fell harmless at his feet, until the mad shouts of the women drowned the strains of his lyre. Then they killed him and tore him limb from limb. His head and lyre, floating down the river, still gave forth melodious sounds. The Muses buried the fragments of his body, and above his grave the song of the nightingale is sweeter than anywhere else in the world.

Fig. 59. Parting of Orpheus and Eurydice.