The Archetype of Katabasis

Sean Hill

Do similarities in literary traditions indicate a common event/story, or a mental

archetype shared by all of humanity? This paper will compare some of the most famous

descent motifs in ancient literature. It will also explore the credibility of an archetypal

explanation for such similarities. The most famous promoter of the concept of the

archetype was Carl G. Jung, whose writing I will apply to this study. It should be noted

that Jung’s archetypal explanation is not the only major one for the worldwide recurrence

of common myths. For the sake of space, though, I will only deal with the writings of

Jung.

One of the main sources for the archetypal katabasis is the Aeneid. Uncertain

about whether he should settle in Italy, Aeneas seeks the advice of his father in the

underworld. He is accompanied by a sibyl, much in the same way Virgil accompanies

Dante in the Comedia.

On they went dimly, beneath the lonely night amid the gloom, through the empty halls of Dis and his phantom realm, even as under the niggard light of a fitful moon lies a path in the forest, when Jupiter has buried the sky in shade and black Night has stolen from the world her hues.1

This is perhaps the most famous Graeco-Roman katabasis narrative. “Night” and

“gloom” invoke darkness, which, Jung would argue, is a common perilous archetype that

is a result of our early ancestor’s main predators being nocturnal. While The Aeneid is

one of the earlier pieces of written mythology, its influence comes from an even older

source, Plato.

In Book X of his Republic, Plato explains the immortality of the human soul to

Glaucon. After proving the soul’s immortality, he explains the myth of Er, in which a

man is said to have died and come back from the dead:

1 H. Rushton Fairclough, trans., “Virgil’s Aeneid” (London; Harvard University Press, 2006), 551.

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He returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above.2

The openings in the sky were for the coming and going of those who had lived good

lives, and the openings in the earth were for the coming and going of those who had been

evil. This is one of the earliest written records of the belief that one’s actions on earth

will affect one’s actions in eternity. Still, Plato was borrowing from an even earlier

source, the Odyssey.

In Book XI of Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus performs a ritual to seek the advice of

the dead prophet Teiresias. He travels to the “House of Hades” at the edge of the world

and makes a ritualistic sacrifice. The ghosts come and Teiresias prophecies about

Odysseus’ trip home. Odysseus’ return home depends on his actions over the course of

his journey. The allegory of Odysseus’ journey home to our journey into the afterlife is

obvious. Dante makes this illustration in the opening line of the Inferno: “Half way along

the road we have to go, I found myself obscured in a great forest, bewildered, and I knew

I had lost the way.”3 The “road we have to go” refers to the human course of life. Dante

had lost his way spiritually in the same manner Odysseus did physically multiple times.

Thus, in addition to katabasis, these stories exemplify the archetype of an epic life

journey.

2Benjamin Jowett, trans., “Plato’s Republic” (New York:Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004), 344.3 C. H. Sisson, trans., “Dante’s Divine Comedy,” (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1998), 47.

Nowhere is the association of a spiritual journey stronger than in Ancient

Egyptian mythology. To aid the deceased on their posthumous journeys, Egyptian tombs

almost always had model boats.

By the Middle Kingdom, an essential feature of the tomb equipment was the wooden model boat…The most important reason for including a model boat in the tomb was to allow the deceased owner to make a pilgrimage to Abydos, the sacred city of Egypt where Osiris was believed to be buried. 4

The importance of Osiris to the dead is a result of another katabasis narrative. In this

story, Osiris is killed by his brother, Seth, who dismembers Osiris’ body and scatters the

pieces throughout Egypt. Isis, Osiris’ wife, collects these pieces and puts them back

together, enabling Osiris to become an akh (the form of being that Egyptians believed

was taken on by the dead who dwelt with the gods). Since the Egyptians connected the

well-being of the soul with the well-being of the body, Osiris was able to go from

existence, to non-existence (when his body was cut up), back to existence (when Isis

reassembled him). After becoming an akh, Osiris descends permanently to the

underworld and becomes its ruler.5 The influence the physical body has on the soul’s

eternal status is present in Greek thought as well. This is evident in Book XI of the

Odyssey when Odysseus sees the ghost of Elpenor, who is not allowed to cross into the

underworld because his body was not buried.

Though it is not as old as Plato, Homer or the Egyptian myths, Metamorphoses is

certainly old enough to be useful to our study. Book X describes Orpheus’s descent to

and ascension from the underworld to seek his bride, Eurydice:

4 Rosalie David, “Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt.” (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1998), 155-1565 Rosalie David, “Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt.” 103.

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“The Thracian poet mourned her loss; when he had wept for her to the full in the upper world, he made so bold as to descend through the gate of Taenarus to the Styx, to try to arouse the sympathy of the shades as well.”6

This descent is different from that of Orpheus’ medieval counterpart, Sir Orfeo. Orpheus

surrounds himself with trees out in the wilderness after he has lost his wife, much in the

same way Odysseus surrounds himself with ghosts with his sacrifice. The music Orfeo

plays to attract the trees eventually brings about his death. Sir Orfeo, on the other hand,

surrounds himself with trees as a means of successfully getting his bride back:

Now on hard hethe he lith/with leves and gresse he him writh./He that hadde had castels and tours,/river forest, frith with flours,/now, thei it commenci to snew and frees,/this king mot make his bed in mese.7

Sir Orfeo makes the wilderness his home, enabling himself to see the king of the

underworld and follow him to the entrance to Hades.

In our study of Sir Orfeo, we noted how his descent into the wilderness served as

a “lateral katabasis,” that is, a journey into the unknown, uncivilized, savage, dark

wilderness, without literally moving towards the center of the earth. The Epic of

Gilgamesh employs this same form of katabasis. Gilgamesh, grieving from the death of

his best friend, Enkidu, sets out to find immortality. To do this, he must pass through a

harrowing journey to find the Noah figure, Utnapishtim, who possesses eternal life:

Then he reached Mount Mashu, which daily guards the rising and setting of the Sun, above which only the dome of the heavens reaches, and whose flank reaches as far as the Netherworld below.8

Gilgamesh’s journey through the mountain has characteristics common to katabasis

stories, particularly in the prevalence of darkness. “Dense was the darkness, light there

6 Mary M. Innes, trans., “Ovid’s Metamorphoses” (Baltimore; Penguin Books, 1973), 225.7“Sir Orfeo” in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: the Medieval Period, Joseph Black et al, ed. (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006), 217.8 Gilgamesh: Tablet 9. http://www.online-literature.com/anonymous/gilgamesh/9/.

was none, neither what lies ahead nor behind does it allow him to see.”9 Again, we see

association of lethality with darkness.

Eventually, Gilgamesh comes out of the mountain and into a garden full of fruits,

plants and vibrant colors. As with Orpheus, Gilgamesh is given the opportunity to obtain

what he came for, but fails. Utnapishtim tests Gilgamesh by having him try to stay

awake for one week, however, Gilgamesh is immediately unable to overcome sleep. In

the same way, Orpheus is unable to overcome the temptation to look back at Eurydice

while they are escaping from Hades. Lack of self-control prevents heroes like Gilgamesh

and Orpheus from obtaining their prize.

The opposite of this lack of self-control resulting in a failed mission is Christ’s

katabasis. Christ’s katabasis is interesting in that, instead of suddenly appearing on earth

as deities almost always do, he shrouds his arrival by using the vehicle of birth. Christ’s

katabasis does not stop on earth. He uses another natural means, death, to descend into

the underworld. Here, he frees, not the soul of a romantic love, but the souls of the

recipients of his unconditional a)ga/ph love. Jung would argue that, from birth, Jesus’

mind possessed the very archetypes for which he became famous. In any case, it is clear

that katabasis is central to arguably the most influential book in Western culture.

Even in Far Eastern culture, katabasis is a common motif. In Korean mythology,

Hwanin, the god of heaven and earth, “allowed his son Hwanung to descend to earth and

found a city on Mount T'aebaek (near modern P'yeongyang).”10 In Japanese mythology,

the first god and goddess, Izanagi and Izanami are mortals portrayed in a similar light to

Greek or Roman heroes. After dying from giving birth to Kagutsuchi the fire god,

9 Ibid.10 http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hwanin.html accessed 10/15/07.

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Izanami descends to the underworld and becomes its ruler. Her husband, Izanagi, makes

a katabasis in an attempt to rescue her, but instead of desiring such liberation, as Eurydice

is, Izanami rejects her husband’s rescue attempt.11 These stories do not meet the formula

of a mortal hero descending and coming back up. Nevertheless, by substantiating the

universality of the descent motif, it applies to our study of the katabasis archetype.

Despite the prevalence of all the previous traditions, people obviously were not

born with these traditions memorized; rather they learned them from the people they were

around. Conversely, Jung clearly states that archetypes are natural; human minds do not

develop archetypes as a result of their environment. In Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the

Psychology of C. G. Jung, Jolande Jacobi quotes Jung: “It is a mistake to suppose that the

psyche of the newborn child is a tabula rasa in the sense that there is absolutely nothing

in it.”12 Jung argues that the human mind inherently has concepts that may lie dormant,

but are still there. While speaking of the archetype of an all-powerful life-giver, Jung

says, “so this idea has been stamped on the human brain for aeons. That is why it lies

ready to hand in the unconscious of every man. Only, certain conditions are needed to

cause it to appear.”13

So, according to Jung, the human mind has a set of archetypes that lie waiting to be

triggered. This seems clear enough, but whence do these archetypes originate? Are they

strictly limited to humans?

I have often been asked where the archetypes or primordial images come from. It seems to me that their origin can only be explained by assuming them to be

11 This myth is described in the Encyclopedia Mythica on http://www.pantheon.org/articles/i/izanami.html12 Jolande Jacobi, “Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C. G. Jung” (New York; Pantheon Books, 1959), 44.13 C. G. Jung On the Psychology of the Unconscious from “The Essential Jung,” (Princeton; Princeton University Press, 1983), 70.

deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity…The archetype is a kind of readiness to produce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas. Hence, it seems as though what is impressed upon the unconscious were exclusively the subjective fantasy-ideas aroused by the physical process. Therefore we may take it that archetypes are recurrent impressions made by subjective reactions. 14

It seems that since an archetype is merely the result of constantly repeated reactions, the

criteria for archetypes do not constrict them solely to humans. Jung goes on to say:

There is nothing to prevent us from assuming that certain archetypes exist even in animals, that they are grounded in the peculiarities of the living organism itself and are therefore direct expressions of life whose nature cannot be further explained.15

An example of a “subjective fantasy-idea” as mentioned in the above quote, might

be the rocky area or mountain that always surrounds the entrance to the underworld. The

Aeneid says, “A deep cave there was, yawning wide and vast, of jagged rock, and

sheltered by dark lake and woodland gloom.”16 Book X of the Odyssey: “There is a spot

where into Acheron run Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, a stream which is an off-shoot of

the waters of the Styx; a rock here forms the meeting-point of the two roaring rivers.”17

In Gilgamesh, the entrance to the Netherworld is through a mountain. This tradition

continues in Medieval literature as seen when Sir Orfeus is following the king of the

underworld: “He no spard neither stub no ston./In at a roche [rock] the levedis rideth,/and

he after, and nought abideth./When he was in the roche [rock] y-go,/Wele thre mile other

mo.”18 Thus, not only the katabasis itself, but also the environment surrounding the

katabasis is common to the archetype.

14 Jung On the Psychology of the Unconscious, 70-71.15 Ibid, 71.16 H. Rushton Fairclough, trans., “Virgil’s Aeneid,” 549.17 George H. Palmer, trans., “Homer’s Odyssey, 129.18 “Sir Orfeo” in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: the Medieval Period, 218.

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The notion that archetypes exist in the human mind helps explain some of the

common elements in the examples I have used, such as the entrance to Hades being

surrounded by rocky terrain. Since the overarching similarities in world myths are so

numerous, Jung’s archetypal theory is a useful tool in explaining some of the workings of

the human mind. This concept in itself does not convincingly answer whether similarities

between the more major myths such as the flood came from archetypes or whether they

descended from an actual event. Still, familiarity with Jung’s theory is a critical aspect of

understanding the patterns of world literature.

Works Cited

David, Rosalie, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt 1998, Oxford; Oxford University

Press.

Fairclough, H. Rushton, trans., Virgil’s Aeneid, 2006. London: Harvard University

Press.

Gilgamesh: Tablet 9. <http://www.online-literature.com/anonymous/gilgamesh/9/>

[Accessed October 15, 2007].

Hwanin. Encyclopedia Mythica from Encyclopedia Mythica Online.

<http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hwanin.html> [Accessed October 15, 2007].

Innes, Mary M., trans., Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1973. Baltimore: Penguin Books.

Izanami. Encyclopedia Mythica from Encyclopedia Mythica Online.

<http://www.pantheon.org/articles/i/izanami.html> [Accessed October 15, 2007].

Jolande, Jacobi, 1959. Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C. G. Jung. New

York; Pantheon Books.

Jowett, Benjamin, Plato’s Republic. 2004. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics.

Jung, Carl G. 1983. The Essential Jung, Princeton; Princeton University Press.

Palmer, George H., trans., Homer’s Odyssey, 2003, New York: Barnes & Noble Classics.

Sisson, C. H., trans., Dante’s Divine Comedy, 1998, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sir Orfeo, 2006 in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period,

Joseph Black et al, ed., Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006.