#❘❙❚ ┊ hades. character study ➳ ❛ knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom ❜

[mystiika]

re; mythos children of hades

   part of the reason hades is known to have so few children is that he’s often regarded as an infertile god, as a god of the dead should, by his very nature, be incapable of fathering children. obviously i don’t deem that the case in my personal portrayal but yeah ! that’s likely why this list is as short as it is. a large majority of the info i’m also getting from the orphic hymns.

   tl;dr —  melinoë & macaria are hades’ children while the erinyes, zagreus, & plutus are not.

m e l i n o ë

   melinoë is a chthonic nymph or goddess who appears exclusively within the orphic hymns. she presides over propitiations offered to the ghosts of the dead. she’s said to roam the earth at night, accompanied by a procession of ghosts, terrorizing mortals in various ways & could drive them insane if she so chose. melinoë seems to be related to the moon, & was not someone whose attention you would want to draw. it’s also said that the only reason for her to be mentioned is to placate her, by showing that her nature is known & recognized, thus averting the harm she is capable of causing.

   melinoë was conceived when zeus disguised himself as hades, & slept with persephone on the shore of the cocytos, one of the five rivers that run through the realm of the dead. other tellings say that she is persephone’s daughter by both hades & zeus, who are aspects of each other in orphic lore. as a result she’s depicted as having limbs that are partly black & partly white, a manifestation of her dual chthonic & heavenly nature.

"melinoe, saffron-veiled, terrene, who from phersephone dread venerable queen, mixt with zeus kronion, arose, near where kokytos' mournful river flows; when, under plouton's semblance, zeus divine deceived with guileful arts dark phersephone. hence, partly black thy limbs & partly white, from plouton dark, from zeus ethereal bright. thy coloured members, men by night inspire when seen in spectred forms, with terrors dire; now darkly visible, involved in night, perspicuous now they meet the fearful sight. khthonion queen, expel wherever found the soul's mad fears to earth's remotest bound; with holy aspect on our incense shine, & bless thy mystics, & the rites divine " —  orphic hymn 71 to melinoë ( trans. taylor )

   in short, hades is not her father by blood but for all intents & purposes, she is still his daughter & he treats her as such.

m a c a r i a

   while macaria more well-known than melinoë ( among the public rather than scholars ), she’s actually really only mentioned in the suda, a byzantine encyclopedia that was compiled sometime in the 900s c.e. in this, it states she is a daughter of hades while her mother is unnamed. as a result i choose to assume that the mother is persephone, making her persephone & hades only child born of them & only them.

   macaria is the physical embodiment of a peaceful, blessed death & thus known as the goddess of the “blessed death”, rather than a violent one, & she would escort the soul in question to elysium, rather than hades or anyone else. even today, the word makaritis ( blessed one ) is used in greece to describe someone that has passed away.

"makaria ( blessed ) death. a daughter of haides. & a proverb : ‘go to blessedness’, instead of go to misery & utter destruction. or ‘go to blessedness’ is said by euphemism. since even the dead are called ‘blessed ones.’" —  suidas s.v. makariai ( trans. suda on line ); byzantine greek lexicon 10th century c.e

   she also shared her name with a daughter of heracles, who offered her life in sacrifice to persephone. as a result, they’re often discussed together.

t h e   e r i n y e s

   the erinyes ( also known as the furies ) are the three goddesses of earthly wrath. they preside over vengeance & retribution who punished men for crimes against the natural order. they were particularly concerned with homicide, unfilial conduct, offenses against the gods, & perjury. while they were sometimes represented as daughters of hades ( such as in orphic hymns 29 & 70 or statius, thebaid 12.557 & 11.47 ), it wasn’t the most common concept. in one source they’re also listed as poena’s children. the usual account, however, describes them as earth-born, being the child of gaia by the blood of ouranos. the next most popular option is as children of nyx. either way, hades is not generally the go-to. personally? without a doubt i think poena makes the most sense as a mother but that’s just me. i mean she’s the personification of retribution, vengeance, recompense, punishment & penalty for the crime of murder & manslaughter.

z a e g r u s

   there’s really only two different origins about who zagreus is. most commonly, persephone’s child & fathered by zeus ( who seduced persephone as a dragon ) rather than hades. there was one origin from an aeschylus fragment ( with no context ) that says the father was hades but in every other depiction, the father was zeus. following this putative understanding of zeus fathering him, as in orphic tradition, zaegrus’ birth & subsequent death both pre-date persephone’s marriage with hades. the only other time that we know of where zagreus is referred to as being hades’ son is in supergiant’s hades which tends to confuse people but for all intents & purposes, congratulations hades because you are not the father.

   as for zagreus himself, he’s a deity who is mainly only mentioned in the orphic hymns. he was generally believed to be the original incarnation of the olympian god dionysos. in this original incarnation, whether out of jealousy, anger, or both, hera had the titans attack him & rip him to pieces as an infant. the story of his conception, his death & rebirth is most notably recounted in the dionysiaca ( a set of 48 books compiled by one nonnos in the early 500s c.e ).

p l u t u s

   there are some depictions that say plutus is hades’ child due to his name but in actuality he is the child of demeter & iason. this would make him persephone’s brother rather than her son. & just as hades/pluton is the god of the wealth of the earth, plutus is a god of wealth in his own right, coming from the same root as “pluto”. officially he’s the god of wealth & agricultural bounty though the wealth aspect was added much later & originally was simply god of agricultural bounty.

[hellenic-devotional]

52 Deep Ass Witchcraft Questions >.<

What draws me to witchcraft? What draws me to witchcraft? Maybe the sense of belonging I feel, maybe it is the comfort I gain when I practice. I have always been drawn to the occult ever since I was a child. I cannot explain why I love it so much. It just feels right. I was lost when I was young. In the sense that I had lost my sense of family friendship and love (especially self-love).

How do I see the divine? I see them as wonderful companions and beings that I can learn and find guidance from. Lots of times they appear to me like shadows or shimmers like glittery blobs in front of me. Other times they chime into my head like ringing a doorbell or whispering in cryptic images, words, and sounds. 

What in witchcraft makes me happy? I love how I feel about all of it. I love the craft and the darker sides of magic. I especially love the ways I have connected more to others and especially myself through it all.

Do I want to follow a path that has to do with a little nature or a lot of nature? I would rather stay away from any kind of nature besides dirt, sea water, moon water etc since I have this insane ability to kill any plants in my care or near me. 

What areas of witchcraft would I like to learn more about? I would like to learn more about energy healing, soul work, conjuring, sea magic, and spirit work. I already work with most of these but I always want to collect more and more information. 

Where do my witchy talents lie? I’d say I am confident in my dream interpretations, scrying, and sea magic.

What kind of deities, if any, do I want to honour? I honour Hades, Poseidon, Selene mainly, but any other deity who asks for help or an offering is welcome in my space. I also have a small altar planned for my spirit companions and such.

How do I believe magic works? I believe it is a combined mix of supernatural forces, your own intentions, practice, faith, and energy.

Simple or elaborate spells/rituals? Why? I really love elaborate spells and rituals, however, I am not in a position to perform them with money, time, and having to keep my craft a secret being a constant issue. So I perform simple spells regularly XD I love them just as much as elaborate spells. 

What are my views on cursing/hexing? I am the biggest Pro Curse witch. I practice cursing, hexing, and jinxing on a regular basis. I love it! Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and I honestly couldn’t care less if someone hates me or my craft because I approve of curses. It is none of their business what I do.

Do I want to practice something similar to my ancestors? I have not considered anything with my ancestors, my family is a mess and I’d rather not dig into their history.

What are the basic morals and ethics I feel I should live by? To strive to live to your fullest (arete), keeping duty, promise, and reverence toward the gods (eusebia), having moral purity; doing what is right always and keeping a strong moral compass (hagneia), live to gain wisdom and knowledge from everywhere and everyone (sophia), having self-control; denying temptations etc (sophrosune), practising hospitality, generosity, and courtesy always (xenia)

What in nature am I drawn to; the ocean, animals, the trees, etc? I am drawn to the deep earth, it’s minerals and gems, the ocean, sea, any body of water really, the moon, flowers, and old trees.

Which (witchy) holidays, if any, would I like to celebrate and how? Currently I do not celebrate any witchy holidays. But I plan to incorporate some into my practice soon (mainly Hellenic and Buddhist holidays).

How do I believe divination works? I believe divination comes through deep within yourself, the universe conversing with your spirit, entities, spirits, and deities communicating through the tools, and the energy through the devices themselves guiding the reader. When reading the signs, symbols, and images seen through divination there are so many secrets being told and unveiled at the hands of the reader.

Would I like to work with a group some of the time, all of the time or not at all? I would love to have a permanent and stable coven who is really casual with the craft and rituals. Although I do like performing spells alone, three people would be the strongest. 

Which aspects of witchcraft appeal to me most, which the least? The aspects that most appeals to me are the ability to express oneself, the openness for all possibilities, and a validation of my personal character. What I like least is the discourse it creates in some places and the prejudices against those who practice, and even the prejudice between groups of people who practice different crafts. I very much dislike the negative stigma that has been highlighted by social media, society, and most Hollywood productions.

What do I believe happens to us when we die? I believe that in death our souls will be able to travel to the afterlife that we deserve. We will be judged on our actions in life and placed in one of the hells, heavens, sanctuaries, or be reborn to learn the lessons we missed during our time on earth.

How do I see mythological creatures? I see mythological creatures as those who once had physical forms and some who still exist in the physical but are hidden from our naked eyes. Those who have become spirits still interact with the world but in a much different way than what they would have when they had physical forms.

When do I feel most magical? I feel the most magical when I am divining, speaking to my gods, and performing spells/curses...

How much is witchcraft woven into my daily life; is this too much, too little or just enough? I would like more of my craft to be a daily thing. So far I just discuss it and share information between blogs and friends. And the occasional ritual every so often.

What kind of witch do I feel I am? I am rather eclectic, I mainly focus on divination, sea and watercraft, and hedge magic.

Which texts/quotes best describe my current path? 

Do I like to research and gathering info, or do I like things handed to me? I love researching and finding out new things about witchcraft. Though it is also nice when people give me information as well.

Which things about witchcraft worry or scare me? What worries me the most in the craft is mainly messing up a ritual or reading and upsetting someone I am doing a spell for or a client who asks for a reading. I’m afraid of failing people,,, especially since this is something I say I am good at.

What is my favourite element? My favourite element would have to be water. 

How do I see gender (roles) in witchcraft? I don’t even know why this is asked. Like any other place in life a person’s gender shouldn’t affect anyone’s opinion of them.

Am I interested more in magic or spirituality? I think I have a more focused interest on the occult,,, however my practice is closely tied to my religions and culture so who is to say which I prefer more.

Do I like to be told how to do things, or would I rather figure it out on my own? It really depends on the situation. If I were to find myself capable enough to figure it out then sure, I would do that. However, if it was a situation in where I have no expertise or capability than I would much prefer to have someone instruct me.

What rules, if any, do I live by when it comes to witchcraft and magic? (1) never disrespect anyone else in the community, (2) always return what you are given, (3) deities, entities, spirits, and other beings are just as entitled to rightful treatment as you are so treat them with respect, (4) do not be closed minded; gather what you can from around you and use it to the fullest, (5) never use magic for ill intended personal gain, (6) curse all that you want, but never ever try to harm anyone’s life …

What do I gain from witchcraft and magic? I believe that I can gain a peace of mind when I practice my craft. It also becomes a whole new place for me to express myself, and to find my identity.

Formal or informal rituals/spells? Why? I believe both can be utilized in places where they are needed. Structure of my craft follows as its name intended,,, ride with the currents and adapt to the shape of the situation

What subject do I love to study? I like learning about ghosts, spirits, deities, entities, demons, dark spirits, curses, hexes, jinxes, sea/water magic, astrology, divination, interpretations, and potion making.

What is my favourite type of magic; candle, sympathetic, sigils, etc? I don’t think I really have a favourite?? However I do enjoy some nice summoning, conjuring and so forth.

What would my perfect witchy day be like? Sleeping in, brewing some home made magic tea, writing some curses, conversing with my guides and deities, taking some time in the day to make some successful future spells, going on a witch supply run with a fellow witch.

Would I want to be dedicated/initiated? I don’t really follow those rules? I’m a pretty secular witch as it is,,, I wouldn’t want to be initiated into a group where I do not completely trust those people. 

Who do I honour (ex: deities, ancestors, myself, etc), and how do I, or would I like to, honour them? I honour my patrons (Hades and Poseidon) and matron (Selene) with libations, burning foods as offerings, practicing magic with them, studying where they tell me I need to work on,,,

How do I create a sacred/witchy space? I begin with cleaning the area, clearer space a clearer mind, then I bless it with rosemary and celery seed incense, I set up my tools and altar, then I meditate and ask for the powers of my guides and patheon to aid me in blessing the space. I am trying to keep an aesthetic for my altars and still have to plan them,,, 

What do I believe is needed for a successful spell/ritual? I believe that the right amount of energy and focus is needed to complete a ritual perfectly. However I have not done many official rituals so I’d have to do that and come back to add more to this.

Which cultures do I draw from in my witchcraft? I draw from the Hellenic culture to my craft, I draw great inspiration from the Hellenic deities and stories.

What is my learning style; books, websites, videos, more hands-on? I like learning from all sources of information, though I’m not very fond of videos since I like to absorb the material at my own pace.

What, if anything, in my mundane life influences my witchcraft? I believe my emotions and lifestyle really influence my craft,,, because I am not allowed to practice such craft in my home I have to keep it secret from my family members and am forced to take other means of crafting and establishing a place to craft.

What are my hobbies, how do I (or can I) incorporate them in my witchcraft? I love to sleep?? So I do a lot of dream interpretations?? I really don’t know what kind of hobbies would mesh with witchcraft? I do like aesthetics so I strive to do everything to the aesthetic appeal.

Where do my non-witchy talents lie, how do I (or can I) incorporate them in my witchcraft? I am fairly good at planning large events and managing people, I believe I could do a great deal in organizing rituals, craft affairs or other occult like events.

What would my dream witchy life look like? What steps can I take to work towards it? My dream witch life would be me working amazingly at being a wedding and event planner, while owning my own supernatural and metaphysical store. Steps I could take to work towards it? Hmmm. Well I would have to finish school as one, secondly find and establish a place for myself in the wedding and events industry, then plan further to open my own cafe/supernatural/metaphysical store. (which I have made great plans for,,, however I have no idea which plan I would choose first).

What would my dream sacred space/witchy home look like? What steps can I take to work towards it? I would love to live in a multi floored old semi detached town house. Where there is a fine kitchen, a grand bedroom, a study and an office space where I could work on  both my passions, witchcraft and wedding planning. I would like there to be a terrace as well, mainly for whatever artistic urges find me and I need a safe place to art it out. There would also be a reading area within the study where I place my alters and magic working area, in the study there would be a small stove as well so I can brew potions. I would like a bit of closet space in this house for all of my herbs, gems, and divination tools to be stored and protected. And of course a nice comfortable living space for my cat Nico to roam and make his domain. I would need a hella lot of money and good credit

What symbols correspond with me; runes, animals, flowers, gemstones, etc? Large serpents, Storms, Dreams, Blood, psionic abilities, Peaches, Moon and Sun, Twin flames

Am I an open and proud witch, or do I (need to) hide my craft? I need to hide my craft from my family, though everywhere else I am a big prideful witch who doesn’t shy from sharing about the craft.

What are my favourite witchy items/tools; divination tool, ritual tool, décor, clothing, etc? My favourite tools are my mirrors, pendulum, and tarot cards.

What is holding me back in my craft? I really think it is my own living situation, familial situation, and my financial situation that holds me back from truly exploring my craft. Alongside my growing mental and health issues.

What is my pre-spell/ritual routine? It really depends on what kind of spell I am working on. It can take up to a whole day to a few moments.

What are my ultimate witchy goals and how can I work towards them? My ultimate goal right now is to find my own place in the world before I really work hard on the plans I have for my craft. I needed to strengthen myself before I can do much more than what I am already doing as of now. My goal is to have enough funds to actually make a good enough alter for my deities and spirits, to someday own my own shop/cafe, and to finally find myself through my practice.

[mystiika]

                               illusion & reality

           you live in illusion & the appearance of things.               there is a reality, but you do not know this.              when you understand this, you will see that                                    you are nothing.                   & being nothing, you are everything.                                         that is all.

[mystiika]

what’s hades’ hate language?

take this quiz & answer the questions as truthfully as you can. repost, do not reblog !

torture.

torture is a rare, complex, & yet varied hate language. it can be many things, but its defining feature is knowing your enemy well enough to know exactly what will get to them. it can be as mild as ignoring someone you hate ‘cause you know it’ll drive them up the wall. it can be sitting in the same room as them & making horrible small talk with a smug look on your face cause you know they hate that. it can be the smallest things & it can be the most vulgar of things. the time you spend with your enemy is hell on earth for them. & you can do the same with the time you don’t spend with them. usually, for the other hate languages, i’d say your most likely [ crime ], but i don’t even wanna know for this one. you’re intelligent but god damn you’re a sick fuck.

tagged by: @wraithsea i tried to do baymax, i really did 😔 tagging: @reignofolympus, @stygicniron, @proditeur, @primasolaris for hawks, @praetorsgrace, @bulletballet, @feveredblurs for persephone, @bethelbound, @redemptioninterlude for faye, @vagomvndo for nasuada, @despairforme i’m so curious abt this one, @indeath, @phantombs​, & idk anyone who sees this feel free to say i tagged you !

[mystiika]

what sky are you?

sunset.

you are wistful goodbyes & unspoken promises. you are warmth & comfort for others. but sometimes you give so much of yourself that it leaves you cold inside. it's bittersweet, offering other people the care & affection you crave for yourself as well, but you wouldn't do any less if it means the people you love are content. you're very grounded, but you long for things you can't quite name — perhaps a time when your heart was full & your spirit free.

tagged by: @darkdefied​ ty ! tagging: @feveredblurs​ for seph, @heartsechoed​ for kayley, @secretf0rest​ for jangil, @manticxre​ for eunsoo, @redemptioninterlude​ for faye, @chvngc​ for chang’e, @vaeritate​ for yanlin, @collapsecolours​ for sakura, & @dxspereaux​ for harrison !

[mystiika]

re; hades’ ties with minthe & leuce

m i n t h e

   to start, i do not acknowledge minthe as a lover or consort of hades. there are a few different depictions but i personally use the story that she tried to ( or at the very least intended to ) seduce him but was killed by persephone before she could succeed. & honestly i don’t blame persephone in the slightest.

   minthe was a daughter of kokytos, said to be the most beautiful naiad-nymph, & was of mount mintha in elis ( southern greece ). she claimed she was more deserving of hades’ love than persephone, that she was superior in every way & went to the queen to gloat about how she was to steal hades away from her. in her anger, persephone turned her to dust. while he had no love for her, hades felt a sense of pity & it was from this dust that hades ( or persephone story depending ) caused hedyosmos ( mint ) to grow.

"For she had said that she was nobler of form and more excellent in beauty than dark-eyed Persephone and she boasted that Aidoneus would return to her and banish the other from his halls : such infatuation leapt upon her tongue. And from the earth spray the weak herb that bears her name." — Oppian, Halieutica 3. 485 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd A.D.)

"Near Pylos, towards the east, is a mountain named after Minthe, who, according to myth, [ claimed to be ] the concubine of Haides, was trampled under foot by Kore (Core) [Persephone], and was transformed into garden-mint, the plant which some call hedyosmos. Furthermore, near the mountain is a precinct sacred to Haides." — Strabo, Geography 8. 3. 14 (trans. Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.)

& in one of the depictions where it was persephone that turned her to mint rather than hades: "Persephone of old was given grace to change a woman's [Mintha's] form to fragrant mint." — Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 728 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.)

   the mint plant was also later closely associated with hades due to the fact that mint was likely used in ancient funerary rites to mask the smell of the dead & so came to be regarded as a sacred plant of his.

l e u c e

   leuce is a more complicated topic. in terms of timing it seems like a lot of sources agree that leuce pre-dates persephone. there are many depictions where she is mentioned to be a close companion of persephone & we’re left to assume she was either a friend or servant but i genuinely just don’t think hades would go behind persephone’s back to sleep with a close confidant. this in turn means that i rely on a lot on the tales that imply that her time with hades pre-dates that of his marriage with persephone.

   as for who leuce was, she was the daughter of oceanus & a simple nymph. she caught hades’ eye & so started an infatuation with her — him, as the result of her beauty, & her, as the result of his affections as well as the appeal of him as a god. hades, who had so little interest in the typical whims of most, took interest in her & his attention was flattering, of course, but more than that it made her feel special, it made her feel seen. but he was god of the underworld & had duties to attend to. he asked her to come with him to the underworld & naturally she agreed. it was there that she lived out the rest of her days, regrettably as a consort rather than a wife, but he still cared deeply for her. while he cared for her & gave her what he hoped was a happy life, she was still mortal & their time together was short. he wished he could extend her life but it would go against everything his role as a god stood for. so at the end of her life, he mourned her loss greatly & so hades turned her into a white poplar which he placed in the elysian fields.

   these trees could be found in elysium as well as scattered around the living realm. beyond this story she has no role in mythology, she was simply a women who managed to capture the elusive heart of the god of the dead. additionally, to celebrate the hero heracles’ own return from the underworld, he crowned himself with a branch of this tree.

"Leuce was a nymph, a daughter of Oceanus, who was carried off by Hades. After her death she was changed into a white poplar in Elysium. The white poplar was sacred to Hades. When Heracles returned form the underworld, he was crowned with poplar leaves." — R. E. Bell, Women of Classical Mythology (sourced from Servius on Virgil's Eclogues 4.250)

"Herakles found the white poplar (leukê) growing on the banks of the Akheron (Acheron), the river in Thesprotia, and for this reason Homer calls it Akherois (Acherois). So from the first down to the present all rivers have not been equally suited for the growth of plants and trees. Tamarisks grow best and in the greatest numbers by the Maiandros (Meander) . . . So it is no wonder that the white poplar grew first by the Akheron." — Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 14. 2 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.)

[mystiika]

re; hades’ kidnapping & tricking of persephone

   hades just on the brain ( as he so often is ). under the cut bc it’s just a little too long for the dash i think

   so i’ve been thinking about hades & persephone’s relationship. i’m not implying that what i’m saying here is absolutely & unequivocally the truth, but the reality is that the texts are old. the translations we have could be biased, they could add or remove elements to the story that would completely change what we know today & i genuinely just don’t think it’s as black & white as what people write it. for one, the interpretation relies so heavily on the understanding/interpretation of persephone as a person. so many stories we tell about hades & persephone is heavily biased & that part isn’t something you can argue. there’s nothing that says that a bias removes credibility 100%, but at the same time, a lack of other tellings leaves room for questions. while biased & objective are not mutually exclusive, there is still a distinct difference. there’s also the argument that the greeks & romans would never tell a story that rejoiced in hades’ kidnapping of persephone. they worshiped demeter as goddess of the harvest. they resented hades for resulting in the seasons with no harvest & rejoiced every year when persephone was returned to her mother & demeter once again bestowed the gifts of her agriculture to the people. that alone would influence the perception of hades within the legends we’re told about him.

   hades was hated for his kidnapping & forced marriage of persephone which we see most heavily detailed in demeter’s view of what happened ( most popularly told in homeric hymn to demeter ). we see how heartbroken she is to find her daughter was taken & all blame is put on hades for carrying out the actions & on zeus for allowing it to happen. the reality is that it’s hard to find things about persephone’s feelings directly via first person. as far as i can tell, we see very little from the perspective of persephone that wasn’t also told through the lens of a grieving mother. we do see some “objective” third person view of the story, but just because the story seems objective from a narrator in 3rd person, doesn’t mean that the real-life person telling the story is also unbiased. we see some of this in metamorphoses book 5 which tells the story of the abduction. & not to remove possible blame from hades, in a lot of these stories it was actually the result of aphrodite & cupid inserting themselves. aphrodite saw hades in the mortal realm, doing his job to maintain the balance & circling the lands of sicily to make sure there were no signs of a possible disaster. but instead of letting him return to his kingdom in piece, she told cupid to shoot hades with his best arrow as a way to expand her reach into his kingdom as well. so if anything, there should have been just as much blame on her as there was on zeus or hades from this alleged abduction.

   in some tellings we can see more from persephone herself, part of the argument being that we need to “unvictimise” her. if we remove the possibility for romance in persephone’s story then we also remove her agency. conversely, many people argue that romantic readings of persephone can perpetuate problematic & potentially outdated ideas about female sexuality, making romance out of an ugly story of sexual abuse into one of a consensual union. it’s said that these versions replicate monolithic & misogynistic mythology rather than showing a feminist & female-empowered depiction of what happened. can’t say i agree with it all that much but as with anything, interpretation is subjective.

   but it’s also worth noting that while we have the famous title “the r*pe of persphone”, it’s not a direct translation to the word we know of it in modern society. in the ancient context of the subject, the word "r*pe" referred to the traditional translation of the latin “raptus” meaning "seized" or "carried off", & did not literally mean sexual violence. i will say there are nuances within the texts that some say imply examples of hades forcing himself on her — such as the argument that eating the seeds ( & the tricking of persephone to do so ) was euphemism for sex. but of course there are also plenty of depictions where she ate the seeds willingly which would only further support the idea hades didn’t do such a thing. with that in mind, in my interpretation of the story hades did not, & has never, r*ped her in the modern sense of the word & it was a GROSS mistranslation that has done nothing but taint their story in a worse light than it was or ever needed to be. while i don’t necessarily follow it, there’s also the story that she resisted eating while in the underworld, knowing what would happen but eventually ate the seeds anyway & hades had nothing to do with it at all. & in my personal interpretation with my persephone, the reality is that she did eat them of her own volition as this is a decision she lead & one that i agree with.

side note: regardless of if she ate them willingly, the general accepted school of thought is that she ate them without knowing the consequences. but as discussed with my persephone, we opt to ignore that. so with that in mind, i don’t think he tricked her into anything per say. although naïve of the world due to her mother’s influence & it’s possible hades leaned into that, persephone isn’t stupid. she knew what she was doing when she ate them & we won’t budge on that.

   now, in the past i’ve gone back & forth about the validity of the tale of her abduction. at first i accepted the stories at face value, then i rejected the idea of her being kidnapped completely because i wanted their story to be one of love, but the more i think about it, it’s a lot more nuanced than that.

 the way hades loves can be intense. it’s passionate & full, but it could also be obsessive at times ( & possessive to a degree ). i’ve already said that there’s very few examples of hades falling in love which means he’s inexperienced in how to deal with those romantic feelings. he also has no healthy loving/romantic relationship he could model his behaviour after. he’s flying by the seat of his pants & the marriage that he builds with persephone is them both figuring out things as they go along.

   in every example we have of him loving someone, his first thought is to take them to the underworld where he could keep them at his side — protected & loved ( such as with the tale of leuce in the mythos or & maria & marie in the riordanverse ). the idea that he would take a woman he loves & force her to give up life as she knew it for a life in the underworld, hidden away from everyone & everything she loved? it looks like the textbook definition of manipulative & possessive at a toxic level.

   but ! we know ( without a doubt ) from the myths that hades viewed persephone as his equal & allowed her to rule with him as such. in their marriage he didn’t just treat her as property & he gave her autonomy & freedom in a way that demeter didn’t ( though to what degree is up to interpretation ), & while yes she was required to return to him for half the year, she was still quite free within the underworld. she was no longer naïve the way she’d been under her mother, & being with hades opened her up to things she’d have had very little chance of experiencing before their union. at first he shut her out to keep her from the nitty gritty of the underworld, not wanting her to deal with the loss & heartbreak he once had to get over. but in the end he stopped doing that, knowing she was smart enough & strong enough to handle it in her own way. they have a level of trust that’s hard to ignore. she missed her mother & the realm she’d known, but hades treated her like an adult. he trusted her & it’s hard not to fall in love when someone treats you the way you want to be treated. knowing this deep respect hades had for persephone being her own person & capable of making decisions for herself, it find it hard to believe she’d have been taken to the underworld without some degree of consent for it.

   one of the things we know without question, is that it was love at first sight for hades. as i mentioned earlier with him being shot by cupid’s arrow, he saw her picking flowers in the field & it was as if spring itself bloomed in his chest. the underworld was dark & lonely, & hades admired the kindness & tenderness he saw in persephone as she played with the nymphs. he kept going back to see her again, his heart growing ever softer in the process. for a nice depiction of his view/feelings of this is outlined in this poem over here.

   as for the kidnapping, that’s where it gets a little trickier. at this point, we know persephone to have been this beautiful maiden, attracting the attention of many gods. however, demeter had an obsessed love for her daughter in her own right & kept all men away from her. she meant to keep her innocent & pure forever, always by her mother’s side. hades would have known there was no sense going to demeter, so instead he went to zeus for help. we already know that zeus had a hand in it of course, but in my interpretation it was more under the ruse of allowing hades the time to woo persephone without fearing an interruption from her mother, rather than giving direct consent to a malicious abduction but that’s a reflection of hades & not zeus. & i do not give zeus any credit where that’s concerned. his treatment of women in the mythos is less than favourable & i have no doubt that he’d have had no issues with hades taking persephone for himself without regard for her own feelings about the matter.

   the ground splitting open to swallow her seems like a bit of embellishment imo since there were other less conspicuous entrances. & from the outside, i think it really did look like she was being kidnapped — stealing away in the chariot of a man she didn’t know, taken away to the underworld by a god who everyone thought was worse than death himself. it would give anyone cause for concern & demeter reacted the way any mother would; distraught, searching high & low for her daughter; eventually finding her way to zeus, cursing him out for allowing such a thing to happen. it was then that she swore to every god on olympus that she wouldn’t allow a single stalk of wheat to grow until her daughter was returned to her. other stories talk of her burning down food or corn already grown & more still talk of a drought. but regardless of details, the fact was that through demeter rescinding her gifts to the world, she claimed countless victims ( mainly through starvation or dehydration ) in protest until the other gods would help her retrieve persephone from hades.

   meanwhile, persephone saw a handsome man with a spark of kindness & love in his eye, already seeing something beyond the dark gaze others were caught on. she viewed him as something different than the suitors before & for good reason. he was a god who needed nothing & no one, he had nothing to gain by perusing her beyond persephone’s affections. he stole her away on his chariot that day, but she went willingly. maybe there was a tinge of fear, but met with someone tall, dark, & handsome, there’s a thrill there too.

   & frankly, i’m not sure that anyone would believe her if she said she went with him of her own volition & that’s more a reflection of the times than anything & the control demeter had always had over her.. he was god of the dead & persephone didn’t know him before that fateful day in the fields. any feelings she developed for him might have been seen by the others as the result of some form stockholm syndrome to an extent ( or something similar ). then came his “trick” to force her into spending half a year in the underworld at his side which did nothing to add credibility to his point of view.

   as a side note: the cult of persephone was especially strong in sicily & southern italy. & besides the eleusinian mysteries, there were sanctuaries to the goddess across the greek world, most notably at locri epizephyrii, mantinea, megalopolis, & sparta. & there, there were annual festivities celebrating persephone's marriage & her picking of flowers rather than the opposite hatred most other greeks felt for what had transpired.

[mystiika]

re; hades’ sexual + romantic orientation

   so i categorise hades as being heterosexual & greyromantic but i figured i should probably give a reason why. so ( as far as i know ), hades is one of the few gods we don’t have examples of there being any same-sex lovers — unlike some of the other gods where we know of them having had lovers of more than one gender. so naturally, this is where i get the heterosexual aspect from.

   now, the greyromantic i understand can be a little confusing since, at the very least, we know him to be deeply in love with persephone. but ace/aro orientations are both very much a spectrum. so for hades when i say greyromantic, i mean it in the sense that he experiences romantic attraction in-frequently between person to person but when he has romantic feelings for someone ( ie. persephone ) then it's a constant romantic attraction that does not waver.

   this same concept applies to the riordanverse as we know how deeply hades cared for & loved maria di angelo. as far as i’m concerned, those two are the only women hades has ever truly loved ( tho since it’s complicated, an explanation for his relationship with leuce is linked below ). any other possible lovers were a mere infatuation or driven by a sexual desire rather than a romantic one.

   it’s worth mentioning that in the riordanverse hades also had a child with marie levesque. that being said i got the impression that he cared far more for hazel than marie & haven’t totally settled on his exact feelings for marie. that being said, i think part of that is the result of the fact that majority of the series regard hades as his greek form & therefore since he had hazel in his roman form, i think it’s natural that he’d be a little more emotionally removed than himself as hades. as a result, i don’t think i’ll ever see his feelings for her anywhere near the same level as maria.

edit: a more in-depth post can be found here, but in the mythos, his two “known” consorts are leuce & minthe. while i do not acknowledge minthe as one of hades’ lovers, i do think that he had feelings for leuce as well as marie. i just think it was more an infatuation than a deep love like with what he felt for persephone ( or maria ).

[mystiika]

   i mean you can read if you want? but it’s mainly for my own notes to refer back to.    hades in ovid metamorphoses book v & the orphic hymns

Bk V:332-384

Calliope sings: Cupid makes Dis fall in love

 ‘This much she played on her lute, with singing voice. Then called on us, - but perhaps you are not at leisure, or free to listen to a repetition of our music?’ ‘Do not stop’ said Pallas, ‘but sing your song again as you arranged it!’ and she sat amongst the light shadows of the grove. The Muse renewed her tale ‘We gave our best singer to the contest. Calliope, who rose, with her loose hair bound with ivy, tried out the plaintive strings with her fingers, then accompanied the wandering notes with this song.

 ‘“Ceres first turned the soil with curving plough, first ripened the crops and produce of the earth, first gave us laws: all things are Ceres’s gift. My song is of her. If only I could create a song in any way worthy of the goddess! This goddess is truly a worthy subject for my song.

 ‘“Trinacris, the vast isle of Sicily, had been heaped over the giant’s limbs, and with its great mass oppressed buried Typhoeus, he who had dared to aspire to a place in heaven. He struggles it’s true and often tries to rise, but his right hand is held by the promontory of Ausonian Pelorus, and his left hand by you, Pachynus. Lilybaeum presses on his legs, Etna weighs down his head, supine beneath it, Typhoeus throws ash from his mouth, and spits out flame. Often, a wrestler, he throws back the weight of earth, and tries to roll the high mountains and the cities from his body, and then the ground trembles, and even the lord of the silent kingdom is afraid lest he be exposed, and the soil split open in wide fissures, and the light admitted to scare the anxious dead.

 ‘“Fearing this disaster, the king of the dark had left his shadowy realm, and, drawn in his chariot by black horses, carefully circled the foundations of the Sicilian land. When he had checked and was satisfied that nothing was collapsing, he relinquished his fears. Then Venus, at Eryx, saw him moving, as she sat on the hillside, and embraced her winged son, Cupid, and said ‘My child, my hands and weapons, my power, seize those arrows, that overcome all, and devise a path for your swift arrows, to the heart of that god to whom the final share of the triple kingdom fell. You conquer the gods and Jupiter himself, the lords of the sea, and their very king, who controls the lords of the sea. Why is Tartarus excepted? Why not extend your mother’s kingdom and your own? We are talking of a third part of the world. And yet, as is evident to me, I am scorned in heaven, and Love’s power diminishes with mine.

 ‘“‘Don’t you see how Pallas, and the huntress Diana, forsake me? And Ceres’s daughter too, Proserpine, will be a virgin if we allow it, since she hopes to be like them. But you, if you delight in our shared kingdom, can mate the goddess to her uncle.’ So Venus spoke: he undid his quiver, and at his mother’s bidding took an arrow, one from a thousand, and none was sharper, more certain, or better obeyed the bow. Then he bent the pliant tips against his knee, and with his barbed arrow struck Dis in the heart.”’

“Venus of Eryx, from her mountain throne, Saw Hades and clasped her swift-winged son, and said: ‘Cupid, my child, my warrior, my power, Take those sure shafts with which you conquer all, And shoot your speedy arrows to the heart Of the great god to whom the last lot fell When the three realms were drawn. Your mastery Subdues the gods of heaven and even Jove, Subdues the ocean’s deities and him, Even him, who rules the ocean’s deities. Why should Hell lag behind? Why not there too Extend your mother’s empire and your own….? Then Cupid, guided by his mother, opened His quiver of all his thousand arrows Selected one, the sharpest and the surest, The arrow most obedient to the bow, And bent the pliant horn against his knee And shot the barbed shaft deep in Pluto’s heart.” ― Ovid, Metamorphoses

Bk V:385-424

Calliope sings: Dis and the abduction of Proserpine

 ‘“Not far from the walls of Enna, there is a deep pool. Pergus is its name. Caÿster does not hear more songs than rise from the swans on its gliding waves. A wood encircles the waters, surrounds them on every side, and its leaves act as a veil, dispelling Phoebus’s shafts. The branches give it coolness, and the moist soil, Tyrian purple flowers: there, it is everlasting Spring. While Proserpine was playing in this glade, and gathering violets or radiant lilies, while with girlish fondness she filled the folds of her gown, and her basket, trying to outdo her companions in her picking, Dis, almost in a moment, saw her, prized her, took her: so swift as this, is love. The frightened goddess cries out to her mother, to her friends, most of all to her mother, with piteous mouth. Since she had torn her dress at the opening, the flowers she had collected fell from her loosened tunic, and even their scattering caused her virgin tears. The ravisher whipped up his chariot, and urged on the horses, calling them by name, shaking out the shadowy, dark-dyed, reins, over their necks and manes, through deep pools, they say, and the sulphurous reeking swamps of the Palici, vented from a crevice of the earth, to Syracuse where the Bacchiadae, a people born of Corinth between two seas, laid out their city between unequal harbours.

 ‘“Between Cyane and Pisaean Arethusa, there is a bay enclosed by narrow arms. Here lived Cyane, best known of the Sicilian nymphs, from whom the name of the spring was also taken. She showed herself from the pool as far as her waist, and recognising the goddess, cried out to Dis, ‘No’, and ‘Go no further!’ ‘You cannot be Ceres’s son against her will: the girl should have been asked, and not abused. If it is right for me to compare small things with great, Anapis prized me and I wedded him, but I was persuaded by talk and not by terror.’ Speaking, she stretched her arms out at her sides, obstructing him. The son of Saturn could scarcely contain his wrath, and urging on the dread horses, he turned his royal sceptre with powerful arm, and plunged it through the bottom of the pool. The earth, pierced, made a road to Tartarus, and swallowed the headlong chariot, into the midst of the abyss.

Bk V:425-486

Calliope sings: Ceres searches for Proserpine

 ‘“Cyane, mourning the abduction of the goddess, and the contempt for the sanctities of her fountain, nursed an inconsolable grief in her silent heart, and pined away wholly with sorrow. She melted into those waters whose great goddess she had previously been. You might see her limbs becoming softened, her bones seeming pliant, her nails losing their hardness. First of all the slenderest parts dissolve: her dusky hair, her fingers and toes, her feet and ankles (since it is no great transformation from fragile limbs to cool waters). Next her breast and back, shoulders and flanks slip away, vanishing into tenuous streams. At last the water runs in her ruined veins, and nothing remains that you could touch.

 ‘“Meanwhile the mother, fearing, searches in vain for the maid, through all the earth and sea. Neither the coming of dewy-haired Aurora, nor Hesperus, finds her resting. Lighting pine torches with both hands at Etna’s fires, she wanders, unquiet, through the bitter darkness, and when the kindly light has dimmed the stars, she still seeks her child, from the rising of the sun till the setting of the sun.

 ‘“She found herself thirsty and weary from her efforts, and had not moistened her lips at any of the springs, when by chance she saw a hut with a roof of straw, and she knocked on its humble door. At that sound, an old woman emerged, and saw the goddess, and, when she asked for water, gave her something sweet made with malted barley. While she drank what she had been given a rash, foul-mouthed boy stood watching, and taunted her, and called her greedy. The goddess was offended, and threw the liquid she had not yet drunk, mixed with the grains of barley, in his face. His skin, absorbing it, became spotted, and where he had once had arms, he now had legs. A tail was added to his altered limbs, and he shrank to a little shape, so that he has no great power to harm. He is like a lesser lizard, a newt, of tiny size. The old woman wondered and wept, and, trying to touch the creature, it ran from her and searched out a place to hide. It has a name fitting for its offence, stellio, its body starred with various spots.

 ‘“It would take too long to tell through what lands and seas the goddess wandered. Searching the whole earth, she failed to find her daughter: she returned to Sicily, and while crossing it from end to end, she came to Cyane, who if she had not been changed would have told all. But though she wished to, she had neither mouth nor tongue, nor anything with which to speak. Still she revealed clear evidence, known to the mother, and showed Persephone’s ribbon, fallen, by chance, into the sacred pool. As soon as she recognised it, the goddess tore her dishevelled hair, and beat her breast again and again with her hands, as if she at last comprehended the abduction. She did not know yet where Persephone was, but condemned all the lands, and called them thankless and unworthy of her gift of corn, Sicily, that Trinacria, above all, where she had discovered the traces of her loss.

 ‘“So, in that place, with cruel hands, she broke the ploughs that turned up the soil, and, in her anger, dealt destruction to farmers, and the cattle in their fields, alike, and ordered the ever-faithful land to fail, and spoiled the sowing. The fertility of that country, acclaimed throughout the world, was spoken of as a fiction: the crops died as young shoots, destroyed by too much sun, and then by too much rain. Wind and weather harmed them, and hungry birds gathered the scattered seed. Thistles and darnel and stubborn grasses ruined the wheat harvest.

Bk V:487-532

Calliope sings: Ceres asks Jupiter’s help

 ‘“Then Arethusa, once of Elis, whom Alpheus loved, lifted her head from her pool, and brushed the wet hair from her forehead, saying ‘O great goddess of the crops, mother of that virgin sought through all the earth, end your fruitless efforts, and do not anger yourself so deeply against the faithful land. The land does not deserve it: it opened to the abduction against its will. It is not my country, I pray for: I came here as a stranger. Pisa is my country, and Elis is my source. I am a foreigner in Sicily, but its soil is more to me than other lands. Here is my home: here are my household gods. Most gentle one, preserve it. A fitting time will come for me to tell you, how I moved from my country, and came to Ortygia, over such a great expanse of sea, when you are free of care, and of happier countenance. The fissured earth showed me a way, and slipping below the deepest caverns, here, I lifted up my head, and saw the unfamiliar stars.

 ‘“‘So, while I glided underground down there, among Stygian streams, with these very eyes, I saw your Proserpine. She was sad indeed, but, though her face was fearful still, she was nevertheless a queen, the greatest one among the world of shadows, the powerful consort, nevertheless, of the king of hell!’ The mother was stunned to hear these words, as if petrified, and was, for a long time, like someone thunderstruck, until the blow of deep amazement became deep indignation. She rose, in her chariot, to the realms of heaven. There, her whole face clouded with hate, she appeared before Jove with dishevelled hair.

 ‘“‘Jupiter I have come to you in entreaty for my child and for your own’ she cried. ‘If the mother finds no favour with you, let the daughter move you, and do not let your concern for her be less, I beg you, because I gave her birth. See, the daughter I have searched for so long, has been found, if you call it finding to lose her more surely, if you call it finding merely to know where she is. I can bear the fact that she has been abducted, if he will only return her! A spoiler is not worthy to be the husband of your daughter, even if she is no longer my daughter.’ Jupiter replied ‘Our child is a pledge and a charge, between us, you and I. But if only we are willing to give things their right names, the thing is not an insult in itself: the truth is it is love. He would not be a shameful son-in-law for us, if only you would wish it, goddess. How great a thing it is to be Jupiter’s brother, even if all the rest is lacking! Why, what if there is nothing lacking at all, except what he yielded to me by lot? But if you have such a great desire to separate them, Proserpine shall return to heaven, but on only one condition, that no food has touched her lips, since that is the law, decreed by the Fates.’

Bk V:533-571

Calliope sings: Persephone’s fate    

 ‘“He spoke, and Ceres felt sure of regaining her daughter. But the Fates would not allow it, for the girl had broken her fast, and wandering, innocently, in a well-tended garden, she had pulled down a reddish-purple pomegranate fruit, hanging from a tree, and, taking seven seeds from its yellow rind, squeezed them in her mouth. Ascalaphus was the only one to see it, whom, it is said, Orphne bore, to her Acheron, in the dark woods, she not the least known of the nymphs of Avernus. He saw, and by his cruel disclosure, prevented Proserpine’s return.              Then the queen of Erebus grieved, and changed the informant into a bird of ill omen: she sprinkled his head with water from the Phlegethon, and changed him to a beak, plumage, and a pair of huge eyes. Losing his own form he is covered by his tawny wings, and looks like a head, and long, curving claws. He scarcely stirs the feathers growing on his idle wings. He has become an odious bird, a messenger of future disaster, the screech owl, torpid by day, a fearful omen to mortal creatures.

 ‘“He indeed can be seen to have deserved his punishment, because of his disclosure and his words. But why have you, Sirens, skilled in song, daughters of Acheloüs, the feathers and claws of birds, while still bearing human faces? Is it because you were numbered among the companions, when Proserpine gathered the flowers of Spring? When you had searched in vain for her on land, you wanted, then, to cross the waves on beating wings, so that the waters would also know of your trouble. The gods were willing, and suddenly you saw your limbs covered with golden plumage. But, so that your song, born, sweetly, in our ears, and your rich vocal gift, might not be lost with your tongues, each virgin face and human voice remained.

 ‘“Now Jupiter, intervening, between his brother and grieving sister, divides the turning year, equally. And now the goddess, Persephone, shared divinity of the two kingdoms, spends so many months with her mother, so many months with her husband. The aspect of her face and mind alters in a moment. Now the goddess’s looks are glad that even Dis could see were sad, a moment ago. Just as the sun, hidden, before, by clouds of rain, wins through and leaves the clouds.

Orphic Hymn 17 to Pluton

Pluto, magnanimous, whose realms profound are fix’d beneath the firm and solid ground, In the Tartarian plains remote from fight, and wrapt forever in the depths of night; Terrestrial Jove [Zeus Khthonios], thy sacred ear incline, and, pleas’d, accept thy mystic’s hymn divine. Earth’s keys to thee, illustrious king belong, its secret gates unlocking, deep and strong. ‘Tis thine, abundant annual fruits to bear, for needy mortals are thy constant care. To thee, great king, Avernus is assign’d, the seat of Gods, and basis of mankind. Thy throne is fix’d in Hade’s dismal plains, distant, unknown to rest, where darkness reigns; Where, destitute of breath, pale spectres dwell, in endless, dire, inexorable hell; And in dread Acheron, whose depths obscure, earth’s stable roots eternally secure. O mighty dæmon, whose decision dread, the future fate determines of the dead, With captive Proserpine [Kore], thro’ grassy plains, drawn in a four-yok’d car with loosen’d reins, Rapt o'er the deep, impell’d by love, you flew 'till Eleusina’s city rose to view; There, in a wond'rous cave obscure and deep, the sacred maid secure from search you keep, The cave of Atthis, whose wide gates display an entrance to the kingdoms void of day. Of unapparent works, thou art alone the dispensator, visible and known. O pow'r all-ruling, holy, honor’d light, thee sacred poets and their hymns delight: Propitious to thy mystic’s works incline, rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.

Orphic Hymn 28 to Pluton

Daughter of Jove [Zeus], almighty and divine, come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline: Only-begotten, Pluto’s [Plouton’s] honor’d wife, O venerable Goddess, source of life: 'Tis thine in earth’s profundities to dwell, fast by the wide and dismal gates of hell: Jove’s [Zeus’] holy offspring, of a beauteous mien, fatal [Praxidike], with lovely locks, infernal queen: Source of the furies [Eumenides], whose blest frame proceeds from Jove’s [Zeus’] ineffable and secret seeds: Mother of Bacchus [Eubouleos], Sonorous, divine, and many-form’d, the parent of the vine: The dancing Hours [Horai] attend thee, essence bright, all-ruling virgin, bearing heav'nly light: Illustrious, horned, of a bounteous mind, alone desir’d by those of mortal kind. O, vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight, sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight: Whose holy form in budding fruits we view, Earth’s vig'rous offspring of a various hue: Espous’d in Autumn: life and death alone to wretched mortals from thy power is known: For thine the task according to thy will, life to produce, and all that lives to kill. Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increase of various fruits from earth, with lovely Peace; Send Health with gentle hand, and crown my life with blest abundance, free from noisy strife; Last in extreme old age the prey of Death, dismiss we willing to the realms beneath, To thy fair palace, and the blissful plains where happy spirits dwell, and Pluto [Plouton] reigns.

[mystiika]

re; hades’ horses

hades’ chariot is depicted as being pulled by four immortal, sable-black horses with mains of black or purple fire. as far as i know, the only time we’re given names for the horses in classical/ancient literature is via claudius claudianus’s the abduction of proserpine ( 1.284–285 )

orphnaeus crudele micans aethonque sagitta ocior et stygii sublimis gloria nycteus armenti ditisque nota signatus alastor.

orphnaeus, savage & fleet, aethon, swifter than an arrow, great nycteus, proud glory of hell's steeds, & alastor, branded with the mark of dis.

orphnaeus comes from, or is etymologically connected to, the greek word orphnē, which means ‘darkness’, ‘night’ aethon ( greek aithōn ) means ‘blazing’, ‘burning’ nycteus is connected to the greek ‘nuks’ & the latin ‘nox’; both mean ‘night’ alastor was a name &/or epithet of various individuals, including the furies as well as zeus; meaning ‘destroyer’ or ‘avenger’

[mystiika]

tag drop 22/?

[mystiika]

   i feel like it’s probably worth talking about how zeus & hades are two sides of the same coin. i mean in orphism, they’re epithets for each other but even outside of orphism, hades is still sometimes referred to as zeus chthonios.

   if you want to get into the etymology, the epithet is the greek word χθόνιος ( khthónios ), which means 'underground' or 'subterranean'. english has borrowed the term as chthonian & chthonic, especially in reference to gods & spirits related to the greek underworld. you’ll also sometimes see χθών being used which is a shortened version, khthón. so, these chthonian gods, or gods of the earth, is a subdivision of the greek pantheon. in this usage, chthonios gets its meaning from a contrast, implicit or explicit, with ‘olympian’ or ‘heavenly’ gods. gods can be chthonian in two ways.1.chthonios was applied as a cult-title to individual gods, notably hermes, demeter, hecate & ( once ) gaia. but when it was used in reference to hades, they would say zeus chthonios aka zeus of the underworld

    in the case of zeus,  this usage goes back to homer & hesiod. the epithet was normally given to a god who was connected with both the upper & the lower worlds, & served to show that in a particular ritual context it was the chthonian aspect that was being appealed to. the case of zeus chthonios is more complicated, since in some contexts he seems to be less ‘zeus when active in the underworld’ but instead a distinct figure, ‘the underworld equivalent to zeus’, i.e. hades

   so zeus carries the epithet chthonios & its cognates ( ei. katachthonios ) both in mythical narratives & in cult-related contexts. the identification of hades as the underworld zeus, or some variant thereon, has a long pedigree; already in the iliad, hades is referred to as zeus katachthonios. passages referring to zeus with the epithet chthonios form a small but particularly interesting subset of such references. passages which refer to hades as zeus often illustrate an ambiguous shared trait between the two; as such aeschylus uses the trope in discussing the erinyes in passages which evoke a striking impiety against both zeus & hades. zeus chthonios in cult is also usually seen as an underworld deity or at best as ambivalent

other examples of hades being called zeus chthonios would be euripides’ alcestis 237 & andromache 544, hesiod's theogony 767; pausanias' graeciae descriptio 2.2.8 & 5.14.8

while the available sources are few, they indicate that the cult of zeus chthonios is primarily agricultural, with no obvious affiliation to the underworld. zeus chthonios in cult thus seems a different kind of being from the zeus chthonios in literary, mythical narratives. that being said, though more closely tied to the name plouton over hades, he has a strong connection with agricultural fertility. this of course only serves as further proof of similarities.

   in a lot of ways, the existence & stories of the two brothers are a really good example of antithetic parallelism. two brothers, two gods, but wildly different lives. in the case of hades, he’s really just in the underworld minding his own business. he’s quite separate from the gods, mainly conducting his role as a god with a rather passive attitude, & as a result he’s quite isolated. by comparison, zeus seems like the total opposite. zeus is all-pervasive, his role leaves him to impact & influence all sorts of aspects of human life through justice or xenia or what have you. his cults are massive & a multitude of them, his myths legion. on the other hand, hades is almost an anomaly among the gods because while immensely powerful & important to maintaining the balance between realms, he has almost no cult or following. but again, all this is merely public perception & isn’t necessarily accurate the the real role hades plays.

as a sort of credit: while largely based on my own thoughts or research, some parts of the above was taken from a short essay on the topic of similarities between zeus & hades as zeus chthonios ( in particular, the paragraph discussing cult mentions ). unfortunately there was never any indication of author so there’s no one to credit & at this point i’m not even totally sure where i found it since i saved the pdf directly to my computer :(

[mystiika]

a myth of devotion, louise glück ( 1943 ) rewritten in part by yours truly to better fit my interpretation of hades but was largely kept the same

when hades decided he loved this girl he built for her a duplicate of earth, everything the same, down to the meadow, but with a bed added. everything the same, including sunlight, because it would be hard on a young girl to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness gradually, he thought, he’d introduce the night, first as the shadows of fluttering leaves. then moon, then stars. then no moon, no stars. let persephone get used to it slowly. in the end, he thought, she’d find it comforting. a replica of earth except there was love here. doesn’t everyone want love? he waited many days, weeks, months, building a world, watching persephone in the meadow. persephone, a smeller, a taster. if you have one appetite, he thought, you have them all. doesn’t everyone want to feel in the night the beloved body, compass, polestar, to hear the quiet breathing that says i am alive, that means also you are alive, because you hear me, you are here with me. and when one turns, the other turns, left to match and mold to the other that’s what he felt, the lord of darkness, looking at the world he had constructed for persephone. the thought crossed his mind, one quickly shaken away, that there’d be no more smelling here, certainly no more eating. guilt? terror? the fear of love? these things he couldn’t imagine; no lover ever imagines them. he worries for her, greatly so, but there was nothing to do, simply offer his affections and hope it was enough. he dreams, he wonders what to call this place. first he thinks: the new hell. then: the garden. in the end, he decides to name it persephone’s heart. fitting, he thinks. a beautiful heart, where his own had been captured, held delicate in her hands, not unlike the flowers she’d picked.

a soft light rising above the level meadow, behind the bed. he takes her in his arms. he wants to say i love you, nothing can hurt you but he thinks this is a lie, so he says in the end you’re dead, nothing can hurt you which seems to him a more promising beginning, more true.

[mystiika]

re; pluto’s twin sister + what she might have been

   just thinking abt how according to euhemerus, pluto actually had a twin sister who died as an baby. & i wonder about what kind of relationship glauce would have had with pluto if she’d lived. so in the theogony of euhemerus, the gods were treated as mortal rulers whose deeds were immortalised by tradition. in the ennius that translated euhemerus into latin about a hundred years later ( like 3rd century b.c.e i think? ) where we learn about the children of saturn ( kronus ) & ops ( rhea ), it’s one of the only mentions we have about glauce & a story that never really crossed over into their greek counterpart. though technically there were a ton of other mythological people named glauce, they just had no connection to pluto.

Then Saturn took Ops to wife. Titan, the elder brother, demanded the kingship for himself. Vesta their mother, with their sisters Ceres [Demeter] and Ops, persuaded Saturn not to give way to his brother in the matter. Titan was less good-looking than Saturn; for that reason, and also because he could see his mother and sisters working to have it so, he conceded the kingship to Saturn, and came to terms with him: if Saturn had a male child born to him, it would not be reared. This was done to secure reversion of the kingship to Titan's children. They then killed the first son that was born to Saturn. Next came twin children, Jupiter and Juno. Juno was given to Saturn to see while Jupiter was secretly removed and given to Vesta to be brought up without Saturn's knowledge. In the same way without Saturn knowing, Ops bore Neptune and hid him away. In her third labor Ops bore another set of twins, Pluto and Glauce. (Pluto in Latin is Dis pater;[158] some call him Orcus.) Saturn was shown his daughter Glauce but his son Pluto was hidden and removed. Glauce then died young. That is the pedigree, as written, of Jupiter and his brothers; that is how it has been passed down to us in holy scripture.

   but yeah in general i think a lot about what glauce could have been if she’d lived as hades’ twin ( or as pluto’s for that matter ). i think she could have been a good lifeline to the other olympians that he never got with his other siblings. the connection of twins within mythology is monumental & i feel like having the close support of family & an understanding from her that he wouldn’t have gotten from someone else could have made a world of difference to his perception of family.

   what i can’t fully decide is what kind of goddess she’d have been, like what she’d be the goddess of. part of me thinks she’d have gone with hades to the underworld or at least tried to. but given hades’ fierce protection we know him to have over other people he cares about, i don’t think he’d have wanted to “drag her down with him” so to speak, & insist she find a role with the others on olympus.

   i’d also like to think she’d act as a sort of counter to hades — though not directly. he’s seen as taking away from the life humans, so i think it would be an interesting synergy if glauce had been a goddess of giving to the humans. similar to prometheus, hermes, athena, & hephaestus in a sense. for prometheus, he’s seen as the champion of humanity, giving of the arts & sciences. primarily hermes is the messenger god but he’s often considered the god of invention & is credited a lot with giving humans a number of advancements. athena due to her connection of handicrafts, then with hephaestus as the god of the forge, he’s known to have given a lot of useful tools to mortals as well.

   with this in mind, i think glauce could have been a goddess of creativity, working in tandem with all these other gods since there isn’t a single god with the designated task of creativity. i think it also makes sense for her to have taken on some of the roles of coeus, who was the titan god of intellect & due to his name meaning "query, questioning" or "intelligence", he’s also somewhat associated with curiosity.

   the funny thing is that while curiosity is the driving force of advancements, it’s also something that takes away as much as it gives. which again makes her both a counterpart to hades who seems to only take, while still having the similarity of taking herself despite how giving her role can be & actively is. it’s something i really wish were real, & i suppose if euhemerus was able to bring glauce into existences through his story, there’s no logical reason i can’t add it to my own interpretation but idk. glauce: twin of hades & goddess of creativity & curiosity. sounds pretty sick imo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯