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The three-headed
watchdog of Hades, Cerberus guards the entrance to the lower world. He watched
over the realm of the dead, forbade living people from entering, and prevented
the dead from leaving. Cerberus is a child of the giant Typhon and Echidna, a
monstrous creature herself, being half woman and half snake. Originally, Cerberus
was portrayed as having fifty or one hundred heads, but later with only three.
He had a serpent for a tail, and innumerable snakes on his back. Only a few spirits
ever managed to sneak past this creature. The living Orpheus lulled him to sleep
by playing the lyre. Heracles brought him to the land of the living for a while,
as the last of his Twelve Labors. In Roman mythology, the Trojan prince Aeneas,
and Psyche, were able to pacify Cerberus with honey cake. |
