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CERBERUS (sir-bér-us):
The hideous three headed Hellhound from Greek Mythology that guarded the gates of Hades. |
Cerberus, in Greek mythology, a three-headed, dragon-tailed dog that guarded the
entrance to the lower world, otherwise known as Hades. According to Horace, Cerberus possessed
one hundred heads. Hesiod is content to give him fifty, but most sources agree that he had only
three. The center one was that of a lion, while on one side was that of a dog, and on the other
was that of a wolf. His shape was that of the dogs who haunted the battlefields in the dark of the
night, feasting on the bodies of the fallen warriors.
Cerberus' father was Typhon, a huge dragon-like monster. His mother Echidna had the head and torso
of a beautiful woman, though the lower part of her body was that of a speckled serpent. She liked to
dwell in a cave where she ate men raw. With her husband Typhon she raised a monstrous brood which included
the Hydra, the Chimaera, Orthrus, and, some say, the Sphinx.
Cerberus was the watchdog of hell. There he lay, chained to the gates of Acheron, fawning on the
spirits entering Hades and devouring those who tried to escape. His Egyptian incarnation was Anubis,
the dog who guarded the tombs and conducted the souls to the underworld
Only a few heroes ever escaped Cerberus's guard; the great musician Orpheus charmed it with his lyre, and
the Greek hero Hercules captured it bare-handed and brought it for a short time from the underworld to the
regions above. In Roman mythology both the beautiful maiden Psyche and the Trojan prince Aeneas were able
to pacify Cerberus with a honey cake and thus continue their journey through the underworld. Cerberus is
sometimes pictured with a mane of snakes and 50 heads.
Hercules last and most difficult labor was to bring Cerberus up from Hades. When the fearless hero found the hellhound, he
applied a swift strangle-hold to the monster's throat. Cerberus' barbed and poisonous tail whipped the air but, unable to pierce
the lion pelt, the monster soon choked and yielded. Hercules bound him with adamantine chains and dragged him to the upper
world. As Cerberus vehemently resisted his captor, barking furiously with all three mouths, his slaver dripped on some fields,
giving birth to a poisonous plant called aconite; thus named because it flourishes on bare rocks. It is also known as 'hecateis,'
because Hecate were the first to use it. Medea tried to poison Theseus with it, and the Thessalian witches used it in preparing
the ointment which enabled them to fly. In medieval times, French witches concocted a similar ointment. Its main ingredients
were aconite, abortificient parsley, bat's blook (to assist nocturnal vision), belladonna, hemlock, and cowbane. The modern
name for aconite is wolfsbane.
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.'
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.
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:
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'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.'
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Medieval authors report that Cerberus openly stalks the surface of the earth, mingling with mankind. He is described as
possessing a violent and hurtful nature, and is known to plot and endeavor brutal and sudden mischief. As one commentator
says: 'When he makes incursions sometimes he lies hidden and sometimes he offers open violence; he is much delighted in al
things done wickedly and mischievously.' He is also said to be a marquis in the demonic hierarchy of hell, a rank which puts him
at the head of nineteen legions of demons.
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