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Difference between revisions of "Cerberus"

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[[Category:Mythological Creatures]]
[[Image:cerberus2.jpg|frame|Cerberus]]
[[Image:cerberus2.jpg|frame|Cerberus]]
Description:
Description:
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From Monstrous.com
From Monstrous.com
[[Category:Greek mythology]] [[Category:Psychopomps]] [[Category:Animal]]

Revision as of 10:29, 15 August 2006

Cerberus

Description:

According to Horace, Cerberus possessed one hundred heads. Hesiod wrote that he had fifty, while most sources agree to only three. The center head was in the shape of a lion, while the other two were in the shape of a dog and a wolf, respectively. He also had a dragon's tail and a thick mane of writhing snakes.


Origin:

It is generally thought that Cerberus was born to Echidne, a half-woman, half-serpent, and Typhon, the most fierce of all creatures.

Cerberus has a brother, Orphus, which is also a monstrous dog with two heads. Cerberus’ Egyptian correspondent is Anubis, the dog who guarded the tombs and conducted the souls to the underworld. A similar dog, Garm, is guarding the house of deaths in the Norse mythology. These monsters were probably inspired from the dogs that haunted the battlefields in the dark of the night, feasting on the bodies of the fallen warriors.


Symbol:

The three heads relate to the threefold symbol of the baser forces of life. They represent the past, the present and the time yet to come. Dante described Cerberus as “il gran vermo inferno” thus linking the monsters with the legendary worms and orms.


Role:

Cerberus is the watchdog of Hell. He is often pictured with Hades, his master. He can be found on the banks of the river Styx, where he had the task of eating any mortals who attempted to enter, and any spirits who attempted to escape.


Magic:

As Cerberus vehemently resisted Heracles, barking furiously, his saliva dripped on the ground, giving birth to a poisonous plant called aconite; thus named because it flourishes on bare rocks. It is also known as 'hecateis,' because Hecate was the first to use it. Medea tried to poison Theseus with it, and the Thessalian witches used it in preparing the ointment that enabled them to fly. The modern name for aconite is wolfsbane.

Ancient Greeks and Romans placed a coin and a small cake in the hands of their deceased. The coin was meant as payment for Charon who ferried the souls across the river Styx, while the cake helped to pacify Cerberus. This custom gave rise to the expression 'to give a sop to Cerberus,' meaning to give a bribe or to quiet a troublesome customer.


Stories:

Cerberus is best known for playing a part in Hercules' final labor. Hercules had to go to the Underworld and bring Cerberus back to the surface of the earth without using his arrows or his club. Hercules grabbed Cerberus by the throat and dragged him to Mycenae through a crack in the surface of the earth. Having accomplished this, Hercules dispatched Cerberus to guard one of the secret groves of Demeter but the dog eventually made his way back to Hades where he still guards the entrance.


In another legend, Orpheus makes the same journey to the underworld to bring back his lover, Eurydice. He manages to soothe Cerberus with his lyre.


In the Aeneid, the Trojan hero, Aeneas descends to Tartarus to visit his father Anchises. He is escorted by the Bybil of Cumae, and upon encountering 'huge Cerberus barking from his triple jaws, stretched at his enormous length in a den that fronts the gate,' she throws him a cake seasoned with honey and poppy seeds. Now Cerberus, “his neck bristling with horrid snakes, opening his three mouths in the mad rage of hunger, snatches the offered morsel, and spreads on the ground, relaxes his enormous limbs, lies now extended at the vast length over all the cave. Aeneas, now that hell's keeper is buried in sleep, seizes the passage and swiftly over-passes the bank of that flood whence there is no return.”

Quote : Virgil described him by saying:

'No sooner landed, in his den they found the Triple porter of the Stygian sound, Grim Cerberus, who soon began to rear His crested Snakes, and armed His bristling hair.'

'Orcus' warder, blood-besmeared, Growling o'er gory bones half-cleared Down in his gloomy den.'


In Dante's Inferno, Cerberus was the tormenting genius of the third circle. There the gluttonous and incontinent souls could be found immersed in turbid water. Hail and snow poured down through the dark air upon their grimacing faces. Cerberus took care to see that each soul received its due share of torment:

'Cerberus, a monster fierce and strange, with three throats, barks dog-like over those that are immersed in it. His eyes are red, his beard greasy and black, his belly wide, and clawed his hands; he clutches the spirits, flays and piecemeal renders them. When Cerberus, the great Worm, perceived us, he opened his mouth and showed his tusks: no limb of him kept still. My guide, spreading his palms, took up earth; and, with full fists, cast it into his ravening gullets. As the dog, that barking craves, and grows quiet when he bites his food, for he strains and battles only to devour it: so did those squalid visages of Cerberus the Demon, who thunders on the spirits so, that they would fain be deaf.'


From Monstrous.com