4 WEEK Jan 26th
Greece and Rome:
Underworld
and Afterlife
ANCIENT MYTH EAS T
&WES T
Myths about Journey to Afterlife
The destinations of journey is another
realm:
1.
Underworld, Heaven, Hell, Intermediate
state/condition/place
Often Hero Adventures occur in this realm
Realm is characterized as dark, while the world
of the living is light
On journey, deceased encounters other
beings
2.
Shades of deceased relatives or companions
ferrymen, judges, demons, monsters
Journey of Deceased to the
Underworld
Encounter with either a Ker or
Keres or Thanatos
these are minor gods or spirits
Ker =
Violent Death: female spirit
of violent or cruel death
death in battle, by accident, murder or
ravaging disease
Thanatos =Death was more
Charon
A ferryman, who conveyed
the shades of the dead
across the river Styx of the
Underworld world
Only buried shades were
permitted to approach
Charon
For this service he was
paid by each shade with a
coin
Cerberus
Multi-headed (later Three-headed) hound
Guardian of Entrance to Underworld
Prevented the dead from ever leaving
Virgil, Aeneid 6. 417 ff :
"Huge Cerberus,
monstrously couched in a
cave confronting them,
made the whole region
echo with this threethroated barking. The
S ibyl, seeing the snakes
bristling upon his neck
now, threw him for bait a
cake for honey and wheat
infused with sedative
Judgment
Three judges:
Minos,
Rhadamanthys
and Aeacus
Elys ium/Is lands
o f the Ble s s e d
for those judged
to be good ; also
place for heroes
Tartarus for
Now I [Zeus], knowing
all this before you,
have appointed sons
of my own to be
judges; two from Asia,
Minos and
Rhadamanthys, and
one from Europe,
Aeacus. These, when
their life is ended,
Punishment of Sisyphus
Crime: Tried to kill his brother
Punishment: condemned to roll a
rock up a hill for eternity in
Tartarus
Tityos
Crime: attempted
to violate Leto
(Latona) mother
of Artemis and
A pollo
Punishment: tied
to the ground
everyday two
vultures descended
Tantalus
Crime: killed own
son, Pelops, cut him
up, boiled him, and
served him up in a
banquet for the gods
Punishment: eternal
deprivation of
nourishment
Hades
King of Underworld
Son of Cronus and
Rhea
Part of trinity with
Poseidon (sea) and
Zeus (sky)
Wife: Persephone
(Proserpina)
King and Queen of the
Underworld
Persephone
Daughter of Zeus and
Demeter
Name means "to bring"
or "cause death
Also known as Kore =
maiden
P ro pe r Burial and Fune rary Rite s
To ensure the proper
transition of deceased
from the world of the
living to the world of the
dead, the deceased
needed to be buried
and burial rites
performed.
The dead needed
regular nourishment
Odysseus sacrificing at
the Gates of the
Underworld
Homer, Iliad 23. 63 ff
There appeared to him [Achilles] the ghost of
unhappy Patroclus all in his likeness for
stature, and lovely eyes, and voice, and wore
such clothing as Patroclus had worn on his
body. The ghost came and stood over his
head and spoke a word to him : `Yo u s le e p,
Ac hille s ; yo u have fo rg o tte n me ; but yo u
w e re no t c are le s s f o me whe n I live d, but
o nly in de ath. Bury me as quic kly as may
b e , le t me pas s thro ug h the g ate s o f
Hade s . The s o uls , the imag e s o f de ad
Homer, Odyssey 11. 51 ff
The first to come was the spirit of my comrade
E lpenor. Not yet had he been buried beneath the
broad-wayed earth, for we had left his corpse
behind us in the hall of Circe, unwept and
unburied,
[Elpenor speaking to Odysseus] I beseech you .
. . for I know that as you will go from the house
of Hades you will touch at the Aiaian isle with
your well-built ship. There, then, O prince, I bid
Odysseus consulting Teiresias in
Underworld
(Review Reading I.8)
Power of Sacrificial Blood
Sacrificial Blood
restored human
senses to the
dead (temporarily):
recognition,
memories and
speech
Philosophers:
Homers Odyssey 11. 151 ff
I remained there steadfastly
until my mother came up and
drank the dark blood. At once
then she knew me, and with
wailing she spoke to me darkn
winged
ess
words : `My child, how did you
come beneath the murky
Homer, Odyssey 11.215
this is the appointed way with mortals
when one dies. For the sinews no longer
hold the flesh and the bones together,
but the strong might of blazing fire
destroys these, as soon as the life
leaves the white bones, and the spirit,
ligh
like a dream, flits away, and hovers to
t
and fro. But make haste to the light with
what speed you can, and bear all these
things in mind, that you can hereafter tell
Achilles on the Underworld
Homers Odyssey 11.486
So I [Odysseus] spoke, and he
[Achilles] straightway made answer
and said: `No, seek not to speak
soothingly to me of death, glorious
Odysseus. I should choose, so I
might live on earth, to serve as the
day laborer of another, of some
feeble man whose livelihood was
Hero Journeys to and from the
Underworld
Odysseus: Homers
O dys s e y
ca. 700 BCE (Reader I.8)
Aeneas: Vergils A e ne id
Augustan period 31 BCE 14 CE
(Reader I. 23)
Vergils Aeneid Book VI 701-703
F ather, let me clasp your hand, let me,
and do not draw away from my
embrace. So speaking, his face was
also drowned in a flood of tears. Three
times he tries to throw his arms round
his fathers neck, three times, clasped
in vain, that semblance slips though his
hands, like the light breeze, most of all
like a winged dream.
Aeneas Journey to Underworld
Reader I.23 recommended but not required for
Sybils advice:
course
bury dead friend
retrieve golden bough
Perform sacrifices to
gods of underworld incl.
P ersephone-Proserpine
Charon reluctant,
permits entry after
seeing Golden Bough
Cerberus is sedated
Vergils Aeneid VI.724-751
Transmigration of Souls and
Then we [some of the spirits] are sent through
Reincarnation
wide Elysium, and we few stay in the joyous
fields, for a length of days, till the cycle of time,
complete, removes the hardened stain, and
leaves pure ethereal thought, and the
brightness of natural air. All these others the
god calls in a great crowd to the river Lethe,
after they have turned the wheel for a thousand
years, so that, truly forgetting, they can revisit
the vault above, and begin with a desire to