by Janet Grischy

Created on: September 06, 2008   Last Updated: June 28, 2010

Hades is the lord of the dead. He and his brothers and sisters defeated the Titans, the previous generation of gods, and the three brothers divided up all their creation. Zeus won the earth for his dominions, Poseidon the wide oceans, and Hades took Hell.

There are many emblems of his infernal power. The Helm of Darkness belongs to Hades, though he has loaned it on occasion to other gods. It confers the invisibility of the darkest night, the deepest cavern. The three-headed dog Cerberus is another of his possessions; it guards the entrance to his domain. His flower is the heavy-scented narcissus, and his tree, the gloomy Cyprus, ornaments graveyards. He carries the keys to death.

Men above sacrifice black animals to Hades, sheep or horses, and when they do, they avert their eyes. They pound their hand upon the ground to be sure they have his attention when they cut the innocent animal’s throat. They address him by epithets as they make their petition, saying the wealth giver, the illustrious, the giver of good counsel, or the host of many, to avoid saying his name.

He is not a cruel god, the later Greeks came to say, but the god who maintains the balance. The earth would choke with life if not for Hades. He punishes harshly those who try to leave his realm and fail, but certain heroes have come and gone: Hercules, Odysseus,  Psyche, and others less well known. Theseus and Pirithous came to his realm to try to steal the dark god’s wife. Theseus was rescued by Hercules, but Pirithous will never leave.

Orpheus, the greatest Greek musician, came to the underworld to try to rescue his wife, struck dead of snakebite in a sunlit field. Hades was moved by Orpheus’ poignant song, and showed mercy. He decreed that the singer might lead Eurydice up to the surface, but only if he did not look back at her on the long and rocky journey. The musician almost won her free, but at the last, she cried out. He turned to her, and she was lost.

Persephone, goddess of spring, is Hades’ queen. She is the daughter of Demeter, the mother-goddess of agriculture. Hades stole Persephone from a meadow where she gathered spring flowers among her friends the sea nymphs. Four black horses pulled his golden chariot from the gaping ground beside her, and he leaned out to grasp her to him, and drag her down beside him into darkness.

Worn down by Demeter, Zeus told his brother to let Persephone go. By then though, she had eaten six red pomegranate seeds (or eight, or three, depending on the myth) and so must spend a third of each year with Hades in the underworld, sharing his black iron throne. Some say it was she who took pity on Eurydice, knowing how the girl loved to hear the wind playing in the green leaves, and permitted Orpheus to try to lead her back to the world.

Some say Persephone pines for the sunlit world of her girlhood, and some say that even as blossoming spring unfolds she longs for dark Hades.

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