CERBERUS,

THE DOG OF HADES

Hermes, the guide of the dead, brings their spirits original: "psyches" to Pluto’s kingdom—spirits "that squeak like bats as they travel down the damp paths, past the streams of Ocean original: "Okeanos", past the gates of the sun and the land of dreams, to the meadow of asphodel in the dark realm of Hades, where the souls dwell: the phantoms of exhausted men." So begins the twenty-fourth book of the Odyssey. Later poets describe Charon, a grim boatman, receiving the dead at the River of Woe The Acheron; he ferries them across, provided that the fee for passage has been placed in their mouths and their bodies have been properly buried in the world above. Otherwise, they are left to chatter aimlessly on the near bank. Pluto’s house, with its wide gates crowded with guests, has a gatekeeper original: "janitor" named Cerberus original: "Kerberos", who is sometimes friendly and sometimes snarling.