Cerberus
In Greek mythology, Kerberos ("demon of the pit"), often called by the Latinized name Cerberus, was the hound of Hades --- a monstrous three-headed dog (sometimes said to have fifty or one-hundred heads), (sometimes) with a snake for a tail and innumerable snake heads on his back.He guarded the gate to Hades (the Greek underworld) and ensured that the dead could not leave and the living could not enter. His brother was Orthrus.
Cerberus is the offspring of Echidna and Typhon.
He was overcome several times
- Heracles' final labour was to capture Cerberus. First, Heracles went to Eleusis to be initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. He did this to absolve himself of guilt for killing the centaurs and to learn how to enter and exit the underworld alive. He found the entrance to the underwold at Tanaerum[?]. Athena and Hermes helped him through and back from Hades. Heracles asked Hades for permission to take Cerberus. Hades agreed as long as Heracles didn't harm him, though in some versions, Heracles shot Hades with an arrow. When Heracles dragged the dog out of Hades, he passed through the cavern Acherusia.
- Orpheus used his musical skills to lull Cerberus to sleep.
- In Roman mythology, Aeneas lulled Cerberus to sleep with drugged honeycakes.
- In Roman mythology, Psyche also lulled Cerberus to sleep with drugged honeycakes.
He can be found also in Dante's Divine Comedy, in Canto VI of Inferno (third circle)
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solid ice would never live to cross that river again. So, on the high
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neighbor, went to help him on very stormy or windy nights. Sometimes
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legs, and the first night he was unable to leave his shanty Jacky came
alone. Andy consented gratefully, and, with the horse at his heels,
Andy," laughed the boy as he struck a match and sheltered its flame from
belonged to us, or as if Andy were here. How's that?" But the old grey
expressive, but, try as he would, he could not speak and tell the boy
nose down to Jacky's shoulder, and in his own silent way coaxed the boy
Frenchman's shanty with the news that the grey had followed the lantern.
"Don't you believe it, Jacky," chuckled Andy. "The grey loves.
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