‘I need to cross,’ said Herakles. ‘If you don’t mess with me, I’ll not mess with you.’
He stepped into the boat and sat down, while Charon, his black teeth chattering behind his grimy white beard, pushed off and laboured to row them across, using his single long oar in the manner of a Venetian gondolier. He was not used to such a weight, or really any weight, in his ferry, and made a slow and clumsy job of it.
‘I don’t reckon with living customers,’ he said, when Herakles advised him to try harder or he would take the oar himself and throw the oarsman into the river.
‘You must have had a couple of them quite recently,’ said Herakles.
‘And that was right outside the regulations.’
‘Well, you’d better prepare yourself. I shall be coming back with one or both of them and a dog.’
‘A dog? What dog? There’s only one dog in Hades that I know of and I wouldn’t take that dog or any other dog in my boat for any money.’
‘Don’t worry! No money will be offered.’
‘All the same, I won’t have dogs in my boat. Filthy beasts! They leave piss and hairs wherever they go.’
‘Your boat is already as filthy as you are and when I come back you’ll take whatever I tell you to take, even if it’s a dog with three heads and a snake for a tail.’
‘Oh, if that’s your game, no worry! Cerberos will have you by the balls before I ever see you again, bad luck to you!’
Cerberos, however, could not have been more ingratiating when Herakles arrived at the gate of Hades soon after disembarking from the boat. All three of his heads were dipping and dobbing, his tongues drooling, his six ears laid back, his six huge eyes fawning, his serpent tail flapping happily, as Herakles passed through the great marble archway, which was lit on either side by long flares of natural gas (Athene had been wrong in thinking there was no light at all in Hades) and over which was carved on the outside ‘WELCOME TO THE KINGDOM OF HADES’, but on the inside ‘NO EXIT’.
Bat-like creatures were fluttering everywhere around him as he strode forward into the darkness beyond the gate, and there was a continuous whispering and squeaking, which he soon realised was nothing more than a recital of their own names – ‘I was Menoetios,’ ‘I was Telamon,’ ‘I was Hippodameia’, ‘I was Phaedra’, and so on. These were the most recent arrivals, still desperate to cling on to their individual identities. Herakles listened hard in case he might hear ‘I was Hylas’, but couldn’t be sure that he did. Perhaps, after all, the boy had survived in the arms of the amorous water nymphs. One shadow seemed to say ‘I was Antaios, son of Poseidon’ and another, ‘I was Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons’. He had slain so many by mistake or on purpose and had lost so many others, friends, lovers, relatives and acquaintances, by disease or accident or old age, that any or all of these whisperers might once have been known to him.
‘Shall I be like this,’ he wondered, ‘miserably insisting “I was Herakles” until oblivion sets in and it will no longer matter whether I was Herakles or some nameless slave?’
The thought at first depressed him, but then, as the whispering grew fainter and he understood that the silent shadows still fluttering round him were those of the longer dead, his spirits rose again.
‘Of course I shall, but not yet. The more reason to do what I have to do, to finish the twelfth Labour, to be Herakles still and return to the bright world in triumph.’
He did not imagine that with other heroes, poets, philosophers, healers and rulers who had benefited mankind he might spend the afterlife in the flowery meadows and sunlit glades of the Blessed Isles or Elysium, somewhere in the west, on the borders of the Ocean that encircled the earth. That was an idea dreamed up by poets, who perhaps hoped to go there themselves, long after Herakles’ time. In his time, whoever you were, whatever you had done, whether you were an Achilles or a Homer or an Agamemnon or a Plato, if you did not become an immortal or a constellation, you joined the shades in the underworld.
The night vision given him by Athene allowed him to see his way, but not to see very far. He seemed to be in a boundless space without walls or roof, though the smooth rock under his feet, the lack of any breeze and the cold, clammy atmosphere that he felt and smelt made him suspect that there was rock all around him. To test the acoustics and restore his courage, he shouted aloud:
‘I am Herakles, son of Zeus, a living man in the kingdom of the dead.’
The sound echoed and re-echoed. Evidently he was in a vast cavern. The silent shadows surging round him disappeared at the sound of his voice, but they returned as the echoes died away. He had another thought: somewhere among the shadows must be his late wife Megara and their children, whom he had killed in his madness and who were indirectly responsible for his being here at all. He stopped walking and shouted again:
‘Megara! Megara!’
And waiting where he was until the echoes faded and the shadows began to gather round him again, he held out his hand until he thought something lighter than a fly touched it.
‘Forgive me, dearest wife!’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing when I took away your life and theirs – our lovely children’s. I was not myself, but the plaything of an angry goddess. The gods know how I grieved for you then and wanted to end my own life, and would have done if Athene had not prevented me. But now that I see with my own eyes what my madness made of you, when you might have enjoyed so many more years under the sun, I can almost wish, as the goddess Hera did, that I’d never been born to do you such harm.’
Tears filled his eyes and momentarily sharpened his vision, so that he seemed to catch a glimpse of his wife’s sad face before the shadow in front of him drifted away among all the others.
Soon afterwards he came to another gateway, this time closed by a great door of adamant, a substance never found anywhere else, but often invoked on earth for its diamond-like hardness. And like a diamond, it was transparent. Through it Herakles could dimly see a courtyard set about with cypresses and beds of asphodel, and beyond that the steps and portico of Hades’ palace. Remembering Athene’s advice about behaving politely, he knocked on the door gently with his club and when there was no answer, knocked again harder and again harder still, until, exasperated, he put his shoulder to it, exerted his great strength and tried to force it open. His efforts were useless. This was a door that resisted even the mighty muscles of Herakles. Tired and frustrated, he leant against the door, when it suddenly slid silently sideways and he fell full-length across the threshold. Lying there bruised and disconcerted, he heard coarse laughter behind him and twisting his head round saw a huge figure all in black, its face hidden in a black beard and a black helmet, its pale eyes glistening as if with moonlight through the visor.
‘The Lion recumbent!’ said this figure, his sarcastic voice deeper and more reverberant than any Herakles had ever heard. ‘Welcome to my kingdom! No, don’t try to get up! I do not permit mortals to enter my palace and if you have a favour to ask me you can do so from where you are. It shows proper respect.’
‘Great Hades, king of the underworld,’ said Herakles. ‘Since all we mortals are certain one day to be your subjects, we cannot but show you proper respect and I am honoured to lie at your feet.’
‘So you should be,’ said Hades. ‘Mortals tend to forget, when they worship and make constant sacrifices to my brothers Zeus and Poseidon, that their days on earth or at sea are extremely few compared to the aeons they will spend in my kingdom.’
‘Believe me,’ said Herakles, ‘it’s not because they forget you, Great Hades, but rather because they have you constantly in mind and, since they are by birth and nature creatures of the sun and air and fear the dark, do everything they can to placate your brothers, so as to spin out those few days on earth as long as possible.’
‘Is that so?’
‘In fact I would go so far as to say that although Father Zeus rules earth and sky and Poseidon the sea, the ruling force for mortal men is i
nevitably you, sir. And consider the pyres we build for our greatest warriors when they die, and the domed tombs for our kings. Aren’t these sacrifices and monuments to you? And since mortals are always fighting and regularly losing their kings, these sacrifices happen somewhere nearly every day and the monuments are nearly as frequent.’
Herakles was at first surprised to discover that such a powerful god could be so jealous of his brothers and so ignorant of the minds of men, but then he remembered that all his own troubles came from Hera’s jealousy of his mother, and guessed that Hades had no experience of men’s minds, which they had more or less lost by the time they reached his kingdom. But he felt that at least he was not annoying, was perhaps even pleasing this terrible god, and was ready to continue his ignominious flattery as long as it took to stimulate whatever generous instincts Hades might have.
Hades laughed again, the same harsh sound as before, something between the bark of a fox and the braying of a donkey. His whole kingdom seemed to crouch under it like a small animal mesmerised by a predator.
‘I knew you had a reputation for brute force and some cunning. Your solution to the cleansing of Augeias’ cowsheds amused me, your quick thinking when it came to the problem of the Hydra’s heads was impressive and you did well to outwit that proud Amazon. Of course you were prompted by Athene, but still your responses were very creditable.’
‘Thank you, sir. Such praise from you …’
‘What I didn’t know was that you were capable of this unctuous sycophancy. Where did you learn to talk like a courtier? Surely you don’t trouble to flatter your despicable cousin Eurystheus?’
He laughed again, and this time its caustic, malicious tone jangled Herakles’ nerves to the point of making him almost lose his temper.
‘Lying on the ground at someone’s feet tends to encourage sycophancy,’ he said, trying to keep his tone lighter than his words.
‘Is that it? I thought you were accustomed to conversing with gods.’
‘They generally disguise themselves to make it easier for me.’
‘Ah, yes. Athene spoils her favourites and Artemis has been more than kind to you too. And you are used to lording it over your fellow mortals. But in my kingdom, in my presence, you are nothing. I hope you understand that. A mere hulk of mortal flesh in the borrowed skin of a dead lion.’
Herakles said nothing, for fear that whatever he said, humble or proud, would only exacerbate what now seemed to be the god’s real dislike of him. And then, somewhere behind Hades, he heard a female voice:
‘Don’t be a bully!’
‘It takes a bully to tame a bully,’ said Hades. ‘Mortals like him, given unnatural powers, unfairly favoured by certain gods, grow conceited and troublesome. You know how he treated my poor servant Death. Death does what he has to do, it is not in his contract to be physically assaulted, terrorised and prevented from bringing souls to my kingdom.’
‘I’m sure he never meant to offend you, but only to do a favour to a friend. In any case, Death will be able to go back for Alcestis at a later date, and for her husband into the bargain. It was only a postponement. And you can’t say he is short of work.’
‘That’s irrelevant. The point is that I do not tolerate threats to my staff.’
‘And what about your relations? Have you no feelings for them?’
‘My relations do not come into this.’
‘No? Herakles is the son of your brother and my own cousin. I think you owe him more consideration than to make him lie at your feet and be lectured when he has had the courtesy to undertake such a difficult journey and call on us for the first time. Your brother might well take your treatment of his son as an insult to himself and I certainly find it most embarrassing. As for your staff, how sensitive are they to threats or beatings? Does Death have any feelings at all?’
‘Get up, nephew!’ said Hades. ‘My wife always has the last word.’
Herakles got quickly to his feet and found himself still dwarfed by both Hades and Persephone, who, here in their own realm, did not trouble to reduce themselves to mortal dimensions. Persephone contrasted strikingly with the black form of her husband. She too was dressed in black, but like her mother Demeter and the other gods of the upper world she shone with her own light. Herakles bowed his head so as not to meet their eyes and thanked them both.
‘Whatever my wife may say,’ said Hades, ‘I don’t think you came here just to make a courtesy call on your relations. All the same, I suppose one must observe the conventions. We cannot invite you into our palace, but we can offer you refreshment. A beaker of pomegranate wine perhaps?’
Herakles shook his head and politely declined, though he was very thirsty. He knew from his initiation at Eleusis that even to taste anything in the underworld, as Persephone herself had after she was abducted, was to become part of it. This was why Persephone had to spend half the year as Hades’ queen in spite of the grief and anger of her mother. The initiates at Eleusis drank pomegranate wine in memory of Persephone’s mistake, but that was merely symbolic. Here in the kingdom of the dead it would be a fatal mistake.
‘No?’ said Hades. ‘State your business, then! What is it you want?’
‘I have two favours to ask,’ said Herakles, ‘and I hope you will not be offended. Neither is on my own behalf, but at the request of others.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘The first is that you will be so gracious as to release two living men who very foolishly came here on a mission that they should have known was not only impossible but insolent …’
Hades laughed his terrible laugh and turned to his wife.
‘What do you think, Persephone? Have they been punished enough?’
‘I have nothing against Theseus,’ she said. ‘He came only to honour his oath and whether among gods or men, oaths must always be honoured, whatever the consequences. But Peirithoös can hardly be punished enough for thinking that I might be a suitable wife for him.’
‘Well,’ said Hades, ‘you may take Theseus, but not the other.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But only if you can free him!’ Hades laughed again. ‘You will need all your strength and Theseus will not enjoy the experience. Not at all!’ He was bubbling with his malevolent laughter: ‘Ha, ha, ha! And then, sore as he will be – ha, ha, ha! – you will have to get him past my little dog at the gate. And get yourself past too. Ha, ha, ha! Yes, quite a problem for you to solve there, nephew.’
‘Since you mention the dog,’ said Herakles, ‘I should say that that is the second favour. I would like to take Cerberos with me, you see, though of course I shall bring him back.’
‘You want to borrow Cerberos?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You want to take him home to your cousin?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You want him to sit by your cousin’s door and keep out strangers?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘No, he wouldn’t be much good at that. He’s trained to keep people in, not out.’
‘Quite.’
‘You want him to sniff the fresh air and run about in the green fields after rabbits?’
‘Not quite.’
‘You’ll keep him on a lead in case he scares the sheep? Not to speak of the shepherds.’
‘I daresay he’ll need more restraint than a lead.’
‘I daresay he will.’
There was a brief silence and then the storm broke. It was Hades laughing again, but this time so loud and long that it was as if a volcano were erupting. The pillars of the gateway shook, the adamantine door rattled in its grooves, small pieces of rock fell around them, the cypresses and asphodels in the courtyard swayed as if in a wind, Herakles felt the ground under his feet heave. For the first time he understood something of the real power of the three greatest gods. It was not just that they ruled their kingdoms of earth, sky, sea and underworld; they were their kingdoms and their kingdoms were them. People often referred to the underworld just
as Hades – and rightly so, he realised, for there was no essential difference between the place he was in and the black figure towering over him, whose laughter shook the whole of his kingdom and must have disturbed even the Titans in Tartaros.
At last the noise and physical repercussions stopped. There was another silence. Herakles did not care to break it. It seemed clear that he would fail in this last Labour and even if he succeeded in returning to the upper world would have lost his reputation, would be a mere husk of himself, the hero emptied and emasculated, Herakles humiliated.
‘What do you think of that, Persephone?’ said Hades. ‘Did you ever hear such cheek? I must admit I’m beginning to appreciate this little bastard relation of ours – he makes me laugh. I haven’t laughed so much for quite a while – not since we sat those two insolent fellows on their Chairs of Forgetfulness. What is it about living mortals? There’s something in them which they seem to lose when they’re dead.’
‘You should spend more time in the upper world,’ said Persephone, ‘or invite more of the living ones to visit us here. As for Herakles’ request, why shouldn’t he borrow Cerberos?’
‘Well, isn’t that obvious? He’s our watchdog, he prevents anyone leaving our kingdom.’
‘Does he? It seems to me he’s only there for show. How can anyone leave our kingdom when they’re mere shadows of themselves without bodies? Even if Charon were willing to ferry them back across the Styx, they could only float about on the far shore or back where they came from, frightening the living. And we have so many and will get so many more, since they breed like fleas up there, that we’d hardly miss a few.’
‘You’re right as always, my dear.’
And with a nod of his head which rumbled thunderously around the caverns of the underworld, Hades signified that he had granted Herakles’ request.
‘Of course, you’ll have to catch your little doggie before you can take him away with you,’ he said to Herakles. ‘And you’re not to do him any harm with your weapons, you must use your bare hands. That should be amusing.’
Arcadian Nights Page 17