Greek underworld Essays

  • Speech on The Underworld in Greek Mythology

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    Speech on The Underworld in Greek Mythology The Underworld, better known as Hades after the god who ruled it, was a dark and dreary place where the shades, or souls, of those who died lived. In the next few minutes, I will tell you about how one came to die, the topography of the Underworld, and the beings whom dwelled there. Your whole life was planned and plotted by the Fates. The Fates were the three goddesses who controlled the destiny of everyone from the time they were born to the time

  • The Ancient Greeks' Belief in the Underworld

    771 Words  | 2 Pages

    the Greeks believed was the origin of the world. The ancient Greeks while trying to further explain the world, invented beguiling myths (Evie). From these myths a world of human like gods and goddesses was formed (Evie). Through narratives, legends, and myths this world justified various abstract ideas, thus creating Greek mythology (Evie). A central element in Greek mythology is the underworld. The underworld is considered to be the place where one’s soul goes to after death. The underworld has

  • Greek Underworld Research Paper

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    The practicers of Greek mythology place a great deal of importance on the afterlife, and how one might get there. The underworld exists, there is no heaven, and the only way to receive eternal life is to be a god, or to be given this gift by a god. This is in no way trying to say the underworld is without a hierarchy of its own. The underworld is a hopeless place, divided into three levels: Elysium, Asphodel, and The Fields of Punishment. Burial is remarkably important in mythology, if buried incorrectly

  • Anubis, God Of The Dead.

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    Anubis is the Greek name for the ancient jackal-headed god of the dead in Egyptian mythology whose hieroglyphic version is more accurately spelled Anpu (also Anupu, Anbu, Wip, Ienpw, Inepu, Yinepu, Inpu, or Inpw). He is also known as Sekhem Em Pet. Prayers to Anubis have been found carved on the most ancient tombs in Egypt; indeed, the Unas text (line 70) associates him with the Eye of Horus. He serves as both a guide of the recently departed and a guardian of the dead. Originally, in the Ogdoad

  • A Study of a Dionysiac Sarcophagus

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    Art Museum A man dies. He winds his way down into the underworld to reach the banks of the river Acheron where he meets the ferryman Charon. He takes a coin from his mouth to pay the toll across. On the opposite bank he is greeted by a Maenad or perhaps Bacchus himself who offers him a kylix of wine. Drinking deep, the man is transformed and resurrected from death to a higher plane. Instead of living a miserable dream in the underworld he receives redemption from his god Dionysos, the Savior.

  • Alcestis

    1884 Words  | 4 Pages

    Alcestis is a myth that is "the most touching of all the Greek dramas to a modern audience" (Lind 213). It is a tragicomedy by the playwright Euripides and it centers on the king and queen of Thessalia. Admetus, the king, has been fated to die yet, due to his alliance with Apollo, is given the chance to find a replacement. His wife, Alcestis, volunteers for the position claiming that she cannot imagine life without her husband. After Alcestis submits her life, Admetus discovers the pain of loss and

  • Homer's Odyssey as a Moral Epic

    2530 Words  | 6 Pages

    is constantly weeping for Odysseus. Penelope's loyalty to her husband is contrasted vividly in the poem with the story of Clytemnestra's betrayal of her husband. Agamemnon is perpetually wailing and lamenting about his betrayal and death in the underworld. When the slain suitors tell him how they died, he cries out that Odysseus is fortunate because he had won himself a loyal wife.2 The moral theme of loyalty is also clear when Odysseus punishes Melanthios and the serving maids gruesomely for being

  • Comparing the Struggle in Dante’s Inferno and Book VI of The Aeneid

    4306 Words  | 9 Pages

    Similarly, the protagonist of The Aeneid, Aeneas, lacks the foresight necessary to make the journey through hell on his own and thus places his trust in the mythological prophet, the Sybil. Because the Sybil and Virgil already have knowledge of the underworld, their characters in The Aeneid and the Inferno are associated with history, both literally through Virgil’s poetry and metaphorically through their enduring wisdom in eyes of the pilgrim and Aeneas. For Aeneas and the pilgrim, however, religious

  • The Striding Apis Bull

    829 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Greeks combined the two together to form Zaparrus. Even though it is not quite clear, it is certain that Serapis is the shape Apis took after death. “Apis is called the “life of Osiris, the lord of heaven, tem (with) his horns (in) his head .”He is said to give life, strength, and health to thy nostrils forever.” At the beginning of the new Empire Osiris and Apis are united by priests of Memphis to represent a funeral character which, at the time, was considered a god of the underworld. This

  • The Rape of Proserpina and Eve's Fall in Milton's Paradise Lost

    3723 Words  | 8 Pages

    The Rape of Proserpina and Eve's Fall in Milton's Paradise Lost "She pluck'd, she eat" (PL IX.781). With these four monosyllables, Milton succinctly announces the Fall of Eve in Paradise Lost. Eve's Fall, however, is far more complex than a simple act of eating, for her disobedience represents a much greater loss of chastity. Indeed, Milton implies that the Fall is a violation not only of God's sole commandment but also of Eve herself, for Milton implicitly equates Dis's ravishment of Proserpina

  • Pueblo View of Death and the Relationship of Rain

    840 Words  | 2 Pages

    as involved in a system of alternation and continuity-indeed, a fundamental relationship of cycles. These opposites form what we can call a bipartite view. For black there is white and for something like the heavens there must be a corresponding underworld below us. As part of this bipartite view, death is "birth" into a new world, and many Pueblo burial practices parallel those of birth except that four black lines of charcoal separate the dead from his home in the village while four white lines

  • Love In Ovid's Metamorphoses

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    sympathize with Ceres; instead, he holds on to his fraternal loyalties and states that “Prosperina may come back… [if] she has not touched food” (V.704-706). It is unclear whether or not Jupiter knows that Prosperina has already eaten eaten food from the underworld, but it is plausible to assume that he has some indication given his authority over fate. As impassioned as Ceres’ pleading may have been, her love for Prosperina does not sufficiently move Jupiter. Confronted again with Ceres’ agony, Jupiter’s

  • The Egyptian Book of the Dead

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    passage for the soul of a deceased person into the Underworld. Some of the ending chapters include instructions on not dying a second time, meaning how not to die in the underworld and thus having no chance of being reborn or living a full afterlife. The original text--at least, the bits and pieces that modern scholars possess--consists of a set of hymns, beginning with the Hymn to Osiris. This hymn is meant to call up the king of the underworld and make him aware of the presence of the soul. After

  • Fifth Business

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even though he knew he might never find the little Madonna again, he had to keep looking. It is while searching that Dunstan’s journey While searching for the little Madonna, Dunstan reaches the second part of his journey, which is the underworld. The underworld is a part of the journey which Dunstan will not be able to complete alone. When he meets with Paul, who is now known as Faustus Legrand, Dunstan realizes that Paul had stolen his pocket-book. “Because somebody at Le grand Cirque forain de

  • The Personification of Death in Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    The personification of Death is done by means of a princess of the Underworld in Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus. This Princess is very powerful, yet surprisingly vulnerable. For no one is allowed to love in the Underworld, the Princess falls in love with a famous poet named Orpheus and goes to drastic measures to be with him. But in the end she cannot be with her love, and she realizes this and does what is forbidden in the Underworld and defies time and sends back her love to whom he loved before her.

  • Sundiata

    961 Words  | 2 Pages

    definition of an epic is that an epic is a long, narrative poem with a hero that goes on a quest. What is the hero? Well, the characteristics of a hero is that they all go on a quest, which is a long, arduous journey, he usually descends to the underworld, and many other traits are possessed that determine if a hero is an epic hero. Does an epic have characteristics like an epic hero? The answer is yes. An epic has several characteristics. The characteristics of an epic are that an epic must have

  • Treatment of Women in Homer's Odyssey

    882 Words  | 2 Pages

    hero or has an important position such as king, the woman is successful. The way women in The Odyssey are treated is based on appearance, the things men want from them, and whether the woman has any power over men. During Odysseus' journey to the underworld he sees many different types of women. We hear about their beauty, their important sons, or their affairs with gods. We hear nothing about these women's accomplishments in their lifetime. Odysseus tells how Antiope could "boast a god for a lover

  • Characters of Dark City

    781 Words  | 2 Pages

    Murdoch knew how to tune, Mr. Hand was injected with Murdoch’s memories so he could think like Murdoch, and defeat him. Mr. Hand is a Stranger himself, he takes orders from Mr. Book.  Mr. Book is the antagonist in the book. He is the leader of the Underworld ruled by the Strangers.  He is very wise and thinks up the procedures for taking over the city.  He assigns each one of the strangers to a sector in the city.  When he got news that a man named John Murdoch was immune to their tunning, he knew he

  • Comparing the Orpheus Myth and Conrad's The Secret Sharer

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    Parallels in the Orpheus Myth and Conrad's The Secret Sharer The myth of Orpheus and his descent into the underworld is paralleled in Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer," revealing a common theme, the narrator's self-fulfillment through the conclusion of his symbolic and inward quest. This parallel, which may be called archetypal, serves to increase the reader's sense of identification with Conrad's narrator, and it lends an otherworldly tone to the work as a whole. Likewise, these echoes of

  • A Comparison of The Aeneid and Metamorphoses

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    underlying meaning in the Underworld scene in Vergil's The Aeneid (lines 356 through 1199).  I will also focus on three scenes in Ovid's Metamorphoses.  Both epics contain a larger message about the importance of the Roman past for its present and future under Augustus. The story of Aeneas in the Underworld can be interpreted as a brilliant rendition of the story of Rome's past, present, and future.  When Aeneas descends into the Underworld, he is escorted by the Sibyl