Eighteen - Hymn to Hades

Sing to me O Muse

Sing of that celebrated son of Kronos

Host-to-Many, great Aidoneus

Pluto of the misty dark, lord of Erebos

Dark haired Hades, ruler of the dead.

At the beginning it was between you

And your most esteemed brothers

Zeus, the highest and best of the Gods

And Poseidon, the Shaker of Earth

That the realms were split

Above, between, below.

Olympus on high to father Zeus

The sea encircling

To great Poseidon

And the realms of the misty dark below

To Hades, Commander-to-Many

Lord and host of the endless dead.

Now you sit in perfect symmetry

Beside the slim ankled daughter

Of fair-tressed and awesome goddess

Demeter.

Now Persephone is your fertile wife

And all is as it should be.

But once it was not so.

Once Persephone played amidst the sweet fields

Lived her life in the brightness of day

Felt the sun upon her skin and smelt pollen

Upon the air.

But heavy thundering and mighty voiced Zeus

Had other plans for her

For every kingdom must have a Queen

Just as every man must have a wife

So it was thar the most celebrated son of Kronos

Hatched a plan with his many named brother

Lord of the misty dark

Of Zeus’s blood and of the same stock.

So it was, great Hades, that in your chariot of gold

Pulled by immortal horses

You ventured forth from the wide gates and halls of death

Past the shades like smoke

Past the insubstantial echoes of men

Who wallow in the undergloom of death

Up toward the sunlit fields beyond your realm.

I wonder how it felt to you, dark lord

To feel the sun on your skin

To feel the wind in your hair

And smell the sweet pollen of the field.

Was it loathsome

To one so accustomed to the silent rule

The perfect symmetry and order of your world

Your realm of dark places?

Perhaps it was so for you

For you are not meant to live in the lands above

Not destined to bicker with the petty gods

To be embroiled in the intrigues of Olympus.

Yours is a weightier deed

A deeper responsibility.

Your charges are many, and will grow

And grow

Until the end of all things

When you shall be master of all living, now dead

For in the end death claims us all

And in the end, your kingdom of Erebos

Shall be all that is left

To house our insubstantial shades.

O Hades, Commander-to-many

Perhaps it was painful for you

To see the bright sun and feel the cool air

Perhaps you longed to return to your

Kingdom of quiet order with all haste

But even if it were so

It is plain to see that there was something

Of the land above that you did

Desire.

Is it that even the Lord of the Dead

Longs for life?

For longing it was that drew you forth

Longing for life and light

A beacon to shine beside you in your halls

A Queen to share your burden

A fertile wife to welcome to your bed.

So it was that slim ankled Persephone

Caught your eye

And by Zeus’s design

You took her for your own

Riding off in your chariot of gold

Immortal horses rushing you home

With your new bride beside you.

She cried and struggled

For do not all mortals fight against

The sweet embrace of death?

But it was by Zeus’s design that it should be

And the design of all things that they should

One day fall

Into the servitude of you

In the misty gloom of your realm.

It was as it should be

As it was meant to be

For who can deny the grip of death

Or the will of the gods?

Who can deny that Persephone

Was meant to be your Queen?

But sorrow was in her heart

And in the heart of another

That fair tressed and awesome goddess

Her mother Demeter

Who out of sorrow for her missing child

Stopped the fields from growing

Keeping the seeds in the ground

And the mouths of mortals hungry.

When he saw this

Mighty voiced Zeus sought balance

And sent Hermes, the slayer of Argos

To bring the child into her mother’s presence once more

But with a honey sweet pomegranate seed

You did secure Persephone

Her feet planted in both worlds ever after

Half the year above, and half the year below.

So was balance kept, a symmetry above

As below, in the misty gloom

Where you Queen now sits by your side

As it should be.

There are those who sought to disrupt

Your perfectly ordered world

Heroes from the realms above

Who trespassed in your kingdom

Before it was their allotted time.

There was Jason and his comrades

Who sailed in the Argo

Who passed by Hades’ Cave on their long journey.

They saw the lofty headland

And the sheer cliffs looking out upon

The Bithynian Sea

They heard the murmur of the waves

And the rustling of the leaves

And felt the chill wind and saw the sparkling rime

Which marked that entrance to your dark domain

But they went no farther

They dared not journey into that misty gloom.

It was not until later that one of the Argo’s crew

Jason’s friend and companion true

Brave Orpheus ventured forth

To the wide-gated house of the dead.

Orpheus born of music

Whose voice could tame the beast

Enchant mountain rocks and rushing streams

But whose cry of pain could not stop death

From claiming his beloved Eurydice

Bitten by the watersnake

And taken from his side to dwell in Hades forevermore.

But he would not accept this truth

Could not accept the order of our world

His love held tight, though his love had fled

To the cold shores of Erebos.

He followed her there

Down the gorge of Taenarus,

Deep gate of the Underworld,

Past the black waters of the Styx

Past the flimsy shades and phantoms lost to light

Through the garden of fear and on toward the King of Terrors

Until he reached Pluto’s palace

And stood before the King and his Queen.

To the celebrated son of Kronos, dark haired Hades

And Persephone his august wife

He sang the song of Orpheus.

His voice echoed throughout your kingdom

To the very limits of the Underworld

Ixion’s wheel stopped turning

And the bloodless ghosts felt tears

Gushing down their insubstantial faces

Tantalus made no effort to quench his endless thirst

Cerberus gaped open his triple mouth

And Sisyphus sat idle on his rock.

Even the Furies were overcome by his voice

Their eyes overflowing as the song of Orpheus

Shook Erebos to its foundations.

How could you stand it Lord Pluto

To see your ordered realm turn to chaos?

The unchanging halls of Hades

Disrupted by a simple song.

So you banished him from your world

And sent the shade of Eurydice after

For him to hold once more in the lands above

So long as he did not look upon her face

While yet he stood in your domain.

But heart sick Orpheus could not wait

He longed to hear her voice, to kiss her lips

To see her sweet face once again

And so he turned, too early, to see his wife but a moment

Before she was taken from him once again

And he forever banished from Hades’ halls.

No comfort was there left for him

Only pain and loss and hope bereft

Even when the Bacchantes found him

And tore his flesh to pieces

There was no release for poor Orpheus

Only more pain as his head was plucked

From his marble pale neck

And cast into the river Hebrus

To float down into darkness, crying

Eurydice! Eurydice!

His cold lips and icy tongue crying

Eurydice!

But only the river banks did hear.

Not even the song of Orpheus

Could change the decree of Aidoneus

And even Herakles

Could not draw back from the embrace

Of that misty gloom.

He fulfilled his fearsome task

To fetch away the hound of Hades

And bring Cerberus from Erebos up to earth

With the help of Hermes, slayer of Argos

And gleaming-eyed Athene

And here he thought he had done what no man could do

Trespassed in the misty gloom

And returned alive to tell the tale.

But not even Herakles, the great hero himself

Could forestall his own journey

Into the undergloom of death

For it was there that Odysseus found him

With the other heroes of old

Great men who drank of the circle of blood

So that they might remember who they were

And talk a while with the living.

Even Odysseus was afeared to see

The souls of the dead come flocking up from Erebos

Brides and unmarried youths

Old men who had suffered much

Mothers and their tender girls

Troops of warriors wounded and men slain in battle

Blood stained armour still upon them

And all hungry to drink the blood of sacrifice

To remember who they were

To talk with the living once more.

For here it is plain to see

That all journeys, all quests, all lives end

For kings or for heroes

For mothers or for daughters

All stories end in Erebos

In the halls of Hades under the rule of

That celebrated son of Kronos

Hist and Commander-to-Many, great Aidoneus

Pluto of the misty dark, lord pf Erebos

Dark haired Hades, ruler of the dead.

So do not call your subjects too early great lord

And when into your keeping we fall

Let us rest well within the wide gated house of the dead

Our fate having swallowed us up.

So hail to you great lord

May my hymn bring to you the sweet anguish

That you have brought to me

And now I shall remember you

And another song too.