Record #22
Cerberus
The monstrous multi-headed hound that guards the entrance to the underworld.
Original Text
If Hell is a house, the house of Hades, it is natural that it have its watchdog; it is also natural that this dog be fearful. Hesiod’s Theogony gives it fifty heads; to make things easier for the plastic arts, this number has been reduced and Cerberus’ three heads are now a matter of public record. Virgil speaks of its three throats; Ovid of its threefold bark; Butler compares the triple-crowned tiara of the Pope, who is Heaven’s doorman, with the three heads of the dog who is the doorman of Hell (Hudibras, IV, 2). Dante lends it human characteristics which increase its infernal nature: a filthy blackbeard, clawed hands that in the lashing rain rip at the souls of the damned. It bites, barks, and bares its teeth.
Bringing Cerberus up into the light of day was the last of Hercules’ tasks. (‘He drow out Cerberus, the hound of helle,’ writes Chaucer in ‘The Monke’sTale’.) Zachary Grey, an English writer of the eighteenth century, in his commentary on Hudibrasinterprets the adventure in this way:
This Dog with three Heads denotes the past, the present, and the Time to come; which receive, and, as it were, devour all things. Hercules got the better of him, which shews that heroick Actions are always victorious over Time, because they are present in the Memory of Posterity.
According to the oldest texts, Cerberus greets with his tail (which is a serpent) those entering into Hell, and tears to pieces those who try to get out. A later legend hashim biting the newly arrived; to appease him a honeycake was placed in the coffin of the departed.
In Norse mythology, a blood-spattered dog, Garmr, keeps watch over the house of the dead and will fight against the gods when hell’s wolves devour the moon and sun. Some give this dog four eyes; the dogs of Yama, the Brahman god of death, also have four eyes.
Both Brahmanism and Buddhism offer hells full of dogs, which, like Dante’s Cerberus, are torturers of souls.
Bringing Cerberus up into the light of day was the last of Hercules’ tasks. (‘He drow out Cerberus, the hound of helle,’ writes Chaucer in ‘The Monke’sTale’.) Zachary Grey, an English writer of the eighteenth century, in his commentary on Hudibrasinterprets the adventure in this way:
This Dog with three Heads denotes the past, the present, and the Time to come; which receive, and, as it were, devour all things. Hercules got the better of him, which shews that heroick Actions are always victorious over Time, because they are present in the Memory of Posterity.
According to the oldest texts, Cerberus greets with his tail (which is a serpent) those entering into Hell, and tears to pieces those who try to get out. A later legend hashim biting the newly arrived; to appease him a honeycake was placed in the coffin of the departed.
In Norse mythology, a blood-spattered dog, Garmr, keeps watch over the house of the dead and will fight against the gods when hell’s wolves devour the moon and sun. Some give this dog four eyes; the dogs of Yama, the Brahman god of death, also have four eyes.
Both Brahmanism and Buddhism offer hells full of dogs, which, like Dante’s Cerberus, are torturers of souls.