the myth of pluto

8/10/2019 The Myth of Pluto

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The myth of Plutos abduction of Persephone

PERSEPHONE was the goddess queen of the underworld, wife of the god Haides,

also known as Pluto. She was also the goddess of spring growth, who was worshipped

alongside her mother Demeter in the Eleusinian Mysteries. This agricultural-based cult

promised its initiates passage to a blessed afterlife.

Persephone was titled Kore (the Maiden) as the goddess of spring's bounty. Once

upon a time when she was playing in a flowery meadow with her Nymph companions, Kore

was seized by Pluto and carried off to the underworld as his bride. Her mother Demeter

despaired at her disappearance and searched for her throughout the world accompanied by the

goddess Hekate (the goddess of magic, witchcraft, night, moon, ghosts and

necromancy bearing torches.) When she learned that Zeus had conspired in her daughter's

abduction she was furious, and refused to let the earth fruit until Persephone was returned.

Zeus consented, but because the girl had tasted of the food of Pluto -- a handful of

pomegranate seeds -- she was forced to forever spend a part of the year with her husband in

the underworld. Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of the

meadows and the sudden growth of the new grain. Her return to the underworld in winter,

conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth.

In other myths, Persephone appears exclusively as the queen of the underworld,

receiving the likes of Herakles and Orpheus at her court.

Persephone was usually depicted as a young goddess holding sheafs of grain and a flaming

torch. Sometimes she was shown in the company of her mother Demeter, and the

hero Triptolemos, the teacher of agriculture. At other times she appears enthroned beside

Pluto.

The influence of the myth is to be found throughout literature and art over the

centuries.

Medieval and Renaissance literature and art

Albrecht Drer,Abduction of Proserpine on a Unicorn(1516)
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InDante'sDivine Comedy(written 13081321), Pluto presides over thefourth circle of Hell,

to which the greedy are condemned. The Italian form of the name isPluto, taken by

some commentators to refer specifically to Plutus as the god of wealth who would preside

over the torment of those who hoarded or squandered it in life Dante's Pluto is greeted as "the

great enemyand utters the famously impenetrable linePap Satn, pap Satn aleppe.Much

of this Canto is devoted to the power ofFortuna to give and take away. Entrance into the

fourth circle has marked a downward turn in the poet's journey, and the next landmark after

he and his guide cross from the circle is theStygian swamp, through which they pass on their

way to thecity of Dis (ItalianDite). Dante's clear distinction between Pluto and Dis suggests

that he had Plutus in mind in naming the former. The city of Dis is the "citadel of Lower

Hell" where the walls are garrisoned byfallen angels andFuriesPluto is treated likewise as a

purely Satanic figure by the 16th-century Italian poetTasso throughout his epicJerusalem

Deliveredin which "great Dis, great Pluto" is invoked in the company of "all ye devils that lie

in deepest hell."

Influenced by Ovid and Claudian,Geoffrey Chaucer (13431400 developed the myth of

Pluto andProserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) inEnglish literature. Like earlier

medieval writers, Chaucer identifies Pluto's realm withHell as a place of condemnation and

torment and describes it as "derk and lowe" ("dark and low"). But Pluto's major appearance in

the works of Chaucer comes as a character in "The Merchant's Tale," where Pluto is

identified as the "Kyng of Fayerye" (Fairy King. As in the anonymousromanceSir

Orfeo(ca.1300), Pluto and Proserpina rule over a fantastical world that melds classical myth

andfairyland.Chaucer has the couple engage in a comicbattle of the sexes that undermines

theChristian imagery in the tale, which is Chaucer's most sexually explicit. The Scottish

poetWilliam Dunbar ca. 1503 also described Pluto as a folkloric supernatural being, "the

elrichincubus / in cloke of grene" ("theeldritch incubus in cloak of green"), who appears

among thecourtiers ofCupid.

The namePluto for the classical ruler of the underworld was further established in English

literature byArthur Golding,whose translation of Ovid'sMetamorphoses(1565) was of great

influence onWilliam Shakespeare,Christopher Marlowe,and Edmund Spenser.Golding

translates Ovid'sDisas Pluto, a practice that prevails among English translators, despiteJohn

Milton's use of the LatinDisinParadise Lost.The Christian perception of the classical

underworld as Hell influenced Golding's translation practices; for instance, Ovid's tenebrosa

sede tyrannus / exierat("thetyrant[Dis]had gone out of his shadowy realm") becomes "the

prince of fiends forsook his darksome hole".
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Throughout theRenaissance, images and ideas fromclassical antiquity enteredpopular

culture through thenew medium of print.Leonardo da Vinci designed a set with a rotating

mountain that opened up to reveal Pluto emerging from the underworld; the drawing survives

and was the basis for a modern recreation.

Opera and ballet

Jean Raoux's Orpheus and Eurydice(171820), with Pluto

and Proserpina releasing the couple

The tragic descent of the hero-musician Orpheus to the underworld to retrieve his bride, and

his performance at the court of Pluto and Proserpina, offered compelling material

forlibrettists and composers of opera andballet.Pluto also appears in works based on other

classical myths of the underworld. As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a bassvoice, with the low vocal range representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as

inMonteverdi andRinuccini'sL'Orfeo(1607) andIl ballo delle ingrate(1608). In theirballo,

a form of ballet with vocal numbers, Cupid invokes Pluto from the underworld to lay claim to

"ungrateful" women who were immune to love. Pluto's part is considered particularly

virtuosic, and a reviewer at the premire described the character, who appeared as if from a

blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets,

but burdened with gold and jewels."

The role of Pluto is written for a bass inPeri'sEuridice(1600) which includes a duo

dramatizing the conflict between the royal underworld couple that is notable for its early use

of musical characterization.Perhaps the most famous of the Orpheus operas isOffenbach's

satiricOrpheus in the Underworld (1858) in which atenor sings the role ofPluton, disguised

in the giddily convoluted plotting as Ariste (Aristaeus), a farmer.

Scenes set in Pluto's realm wereorchestrated withinstrumentation that became

conventionally "hellish", established in Monteverdi'sL'Orfeoas twocornets,

threetrombones,abassoon,and argale.
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Pluto has also been featured as a role in ballet. In Lully's "Ballet of Seven Planets'" interlude

fromCavalli's operaErcole amante("Hercules in Love"),Louis XIV himself danced as Pluto

and other characters; it was a spectacular flop. Pluto appeared inNoverre's lostLa descente

d'Orphe aux Enfers(1760s).Gatan Vestris danced the role of the god in Florian

Deller's Orefeo ed Euridice(1763). ThePersephonechoreographed byRobert Joffrey (1952)

was based onAndr Gide's line "king of winters, the infernal Pluto."

Fine art

Rembrandt'sAbduction of Proserpina(ca.1631)

The abduction of Proserpina by Pluto was the scene from the myth most often depicted

byartists, who usually follow Ovid's version. The influentialemblem book (Iconologia)

ofCesare Ripa (1593, second edition 1603) presents the allegorical figure of Rape with a

shield on which the abduction is painted. Jacob Isaacsz, the first teacher ofRembrandt,

echoed Ovid in showing Pluto as the target ofCupid's arrow whileVenus watches her plan

carried out; thetreatment of the scenebyRubens is similar. Rembrandt incorporates

Claudian's more passionatecharacterizations.The performance of Orpheus in the court of

Pluto and Proserpina was also a popular subject.

Modern literature

After the Renaissance, literary interest in the abduction myth waned until the revival of

classical myth among theRomantics. The work of mythographers such asJ.G. Frazer and

Jane Ellen Harrison helped inspire the recasting of myths in modern terms

byVictorian andModernist writers. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles(1891),Thomas

Hardy portrays Alec d'Urberville as "a grotesque parody of Pluto/Dis" exemplifying the late-

Victorian culture ofmale domination, in which women were consigned to "an endless

breaking on the wheel of biological reproduction."
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The forests have departed, but some old customs of their shades remain. Many

however linger only in a metamorphosed or disguised form. The MayDay dance []

was to be discerned [] in the guise of the clubrevel, or 'clubwalking', as it was

there called. [] Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking inprocession and dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women

[]. The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia. It had walked for

hundreds of years, if not as benefitclub, as votive sisterhood of some sort; and it

walked still. (Tess1819)

Both the title of Tess's First Phase, "The Maiden," suggesting Persephone's virginal status

before her abduction by Pluto, and Hardy's description of the Marlott festivities as a "local

Cerealia," referring to the Roman celebrations held in honour of Ceres during eight days in

the month of April, alert us to a telling link between Tess and the figures of Demeter and

Persephone. An obstructive critical prejudice dismisses Hardy's mythological framework

in Tessas little more than the faltering display of classical scholarship by a selfeducated

vulgarian.However, from the moment when Hardy modified the description of the Marlott

clubwalking from "Vestal rite" in the manuscript to "local Cerealia" for the Graphic

serialization, he was convinced that the DemeterPersephone myth, far from being an

ornamental detail, would be seamlessly woven into the imaginative fabric of his narrative.

Hardy incorporates some of the emblems of Demeter and Persephoneflowers and a basket

of fruitto link his young heroine to the unified goddess. Tess's most distinctive trait is her

"flowerlike mouth," and she carries a "bunch of white flowers" (Tess 19) in her left hand

during the Marlott procession. After visiting Alec d'Urberville she suddenly blushes at the

spectacle of "roses at her breast; roses in her hat; roses and strawberries in her basket to the

brim" (Tess 47). In most accounts of the abduction of Persephone, the divine maiden is

picking roses as well as poppies when Hades or Pluto transports her off to the Underworld.

Hardy modifies this flower scene by having Alec take Tess to the "fruitgarden" where he

feeds her strawberries of the "British Queen" variety and then adorns Tess's hat and basket of

fruit [page 206] with roses.

A similar figure is found inThe Lost Girl(1920) byD.H. Lawrence, where the character

Ciccio acts as Pluto to Alvina's Persephone, "the deathly-lost bride paradoxically

obliterated and vitalised at the same time by contact with Pluto/Dis" in "a prelude to the

grand design of rebirth." The darkness of Pluto is both a source of regeneration, and of

"merciless annihilation." Lawrence takes up the theme elsewhere in his work; in The First
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Lady Chatterley(1926, an early version ofLady Chatterley's Lover), Connie Chatterley sees

herself as a Persephone and declares "she'd rather be married to Pluto than Plato," casting her

earthy gamekeeper lover as the former and her philosophy-spouting husband as the latter.
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the myth of pluto

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