Book of Hades

Greek mythology

 

Praise for Hades

 

 

An old man, eloquent in his own nature, his hair and beard white as clear snow, dressed in graceful robes, kneeled on a small but decorative altar and high in front of him faced a skull.

A very young man opens the door of the hollow room, enters and with him his slung well-honed sword, then asks the old man; his grandfather.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Praying to Hades!” The old man replied.

 

“Hades… Why praying to Hades? Dare you say that which all men fear?”

 

“You should not despise that name! Especially you who longs to be renowned as a warrior that you are! With you every step might be an open door to death itself, danger at every move. Especially then you should hold dear to your heart Hades himself, more than any other god. Men should not despise that which is only natural to mortals. For after all death comes to us all!”

 

The young man asserts. “I do not despise it but it is something that should not be said!”

 

 “Tell me why?”

 

“Because…”

 

The old man strikingly interrupts “Because it is the custom of us all not to speak of it, only to curse what others hate!”

 

The young man says in an ostensive tone “But doesn’t mean that we should speak of it.”

 

“Listen” the old man began “My father and the father of my father before him and so on, prayed to Hades. I’ll tell you why they prayed to the lord of the dead and why I must too, I’ll tell you why I cannot ignore the lord of the shades as others do, I shall tell you then, why we hold Hades in high regard above all the other gods, more than the thundering Zeus himself.”

“Once, once the earth trembled, the earth shook to its core, it cracked open, far and wide, its fissures swallowed the folk along, men, women and children panicked, they wept as heavens on a rainy day thinking it was the end of the world, and men has always thought it was Poseidon’s wrath, master of the seas, the tempestuous earth- shaker but indeed it was Hades’ netherworld, enraged he shook the earth with all his godly might battling treacherous Thanatos and his revolting hordes.”

 

 “How do you know if this account of yours holds truth?” The young man asked.

 

“I shall show you!” The old man grabs a book encased in a golden chest, once opened; the book has a black rawhide cover with an inscription forged in gold that reads:

 

 

“You are mortal and I am god,

 I transcend all life; I am the culmination of all your deeds,

hatred and love, wisdom and ignorance, veracity and falsity, hope and despair,

the end of all things before you, all things come to pass along, you’ll decay,

and I’ll endure through the ages, forever through time”

 

 

“The book I’m about to show you, holds things that are overwhelming to the mind of men, too divine for mortals eyes to read and too incomprehensible for mortal men to understand, but nevertheless knowledge that will shape the hearts of those who read it forever.

Written by allowance of divine authority or by unknown universe’s natural forces through a man, whether blessed or cursed, is not known. The great poet’s senses were allowed to perceive what in reality happened in the plane of the gods. Somehow he was allowed to witness, perhaps permitted by Hades himself, to show the world who in reality was just even that he was a despised god or perhaps the gods themselves allowed this to be known, indeed is unknown, but him, the great poet after witnessing such things beyond human understanding, was blinded forever, and his ability to speak forever-gone too, unable to contemplate nature’s beauty ever again and unable to express in loud emotion what he had seen until his death. His only way to communicate and let the world know what he had witnessed was through his writing, his best attribute.”

 

 

 

 

“Welcome be yourself who by the indulgence

of your actions my domain you shall enter,

whether you are benevolent or vicious let Charon;

the ferryman, guide your lost soul to the gates of death.

Beyond the gates of oblivion you shall meet the three judges

where you shall be judged, then once judged upon your past acts

your soul shall be taken to your fated eternal dwelling.

Through here you shall not see light ever again.

For I alone hold the key to the gates of death,

neither sinner nor traitor shall ever leave my realm

for there too my three-headed hound of vice

guards the very gate of death.”

 

 Hades epitaph at the Gates of Death

 

Book of Hades

I

 

The Poet’s call

 

O’ muses, judicious nymphs of Hellas

wise daughters of mighty Zeus,

grant me your genius, above all you Calliope,

the most sagacious, “queen of muses” and you

Clio, “the glorious one” let my verse flow like

the fiery rivers that stream throughout mother Gaia,

set my words free like when the rivers spring

from their high-spirited fountains,

Let me be the recalled bard of sages

After cities rise and fall in ages

And in pages that my name be shown

Among those whose fame is to be known

 

 

Hades untold tale

 

Sing muse! Sing to me of Hades, the god of the shades,

whose impressive sight and ferocity the raging titans feared

in the divine battle of Gods, long before the time of man.

sing now amongst the lands of mortal men too and tell,

tell how Hades, the less liked of all the everlasting Gods,

the most hated, saved mankind from the ever-growing shadows of darkness.

 

In the netherworld, the land of icy wind and cold mists of night,

where Helios, the sun god never brings its bright light across the dusky

plains and never the moon shines upon the far and wide deadlands,

where the dead roam, some blind and deaf,

where legendary Tantalus, that murderous man,

that when the world was in his prime, stole ambrosia,

the precious source of the Gods immortality and

the secrets of the deathless he revealed to his people,

deceived the immortal Olympians as he sacrificed

and fed handsome Pelops; his own son, to the gods.

Punished for his trickery, he stands in a pool of water

beneath a fruit tree with low branches, that whenever

he wishes to reach for the fruit, the branches raise his intended

meal from his grasp and whenever he bents down to get a drink,

the water recedes before he is able to drink for his thirst.

There too, is son of King Aeolus of Thessaly, the famed Sisyphus, craftiest of men, who his killing of his guests and travelers,

seduction of his niece and betrayal of mighty Zeus

went not unpunished, for compelled he now is,

to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but close before

he has reached the top of the steeply hill,

the rock always escapes him and he begins again

and again, for all eternity. And Pirithous too mighty Zeus’s own son,

by oath brother in arms of famous Theseus, son of tempestuous Poseidon, who accompanied Pirithous to abduct Hades’ own wife Persephone

and by Hades, forever bound to the throne of forgetfulness.

A dark, rocky place in the soil of misfortune and sin indeed.

There on the dark throne, in his divine palace great in size

full of all gorgeous things, there Aidoneus Hades, Lord of the shades,

handsome as a god that he is, but ever-fearful and ferocious,

formidable in battle too, there beyond the gates of oblivion he rules beneath the earth, engulfed in haze and night. Stern, cruel,

and unpitying he is, but still just and graceful as glorious death itself.

so tell muse of Hades deeds The “wealthy one” whose by mortals he is called, for when their time comes for them be buried, buried they are with their valuable treasures, making Hades the wealthiest of all the Gods,

but none goes to the netherworld with all his immense wealth.

 

Only the wicked and the cursed,

to curse they whisper his name, such is the act,

that to call his wrath upon man is in sooth a demise,

but one day, hopefully amongst mortal men,

his name called will be not just as a curse but as a bless as well.

 

The treachery

 

The hatred, the greed, the envy,

 

In his Sanctuary of shadows

they scheme against their overlord.

The Death god Thanatos the claimer of souls,

child of dark Night, awful, pitiless god, hateful towards all

his heart cold as ice and hard as bronze

and with him vengeful Tisiphone, jealous Megaera

and ever-angered Alecto, the merciless furies,

daughters of the Night, feared by men and gods,

in laughter they all plot to dethrone and slay

their high and mighty king, but only if the fates are willing.

So the fates spin out the future! …he suspects, this is Hades fear.

 

How can he stand his ground against all his own rebelling gods at once –one god alone?

 

 

Treacherous Thanatos thirsty for souls,

to rebel against his high lord Hades

searches between the bridge of life and death

to seize unvirtuous souls for his unholy horde

and his greed always growing strong

for the condemned are many and the blessed are few.

To dethrone him he contemplates in his mind,

to overrun and invade the mortal world

then seize all Great Olympus for himself,

to rule or trod under his feet is not known.

 

Evil’s hope

 

Then the soul gripper Thanatos

after having seized more of the fallen from the earth above

he spread high his long wings, and set off to reach the lost

crossing the boundless nexus of the earth to the netherworld

and firm with his mind set to speech he landed on Tartarus

land of vilest shades where there reside All those

who offended the gods, broke oaths in their names

and all those sinners who swore in vain

And in their need to calm all their everlasting pain

now they all cry for help.

 

Once there he stood high on the peak

of one of the mountains in the valleys of sin,

gazing down upon the mass multitudes of the dammed and the lost,

of crowds of souls so vast as the sands that inhabit the seas

and called to them so loud to even make the deaf hear his bawl.

 

“As the hearsay by the slipping tongues of the dark valleys, all of you know what I intend.”

                       

“Shades of unforgiving Tartarus, I am Thanatos and all of you recalls,

that when your string of life was cut by the sharp blades of mortality

and the blood of your body flowed no more throughout your veins,

 I seized your soul as a God that I am and the duty that lies with it.

But now, clenched souls in the abysmal valley of despair,

Hear me! For this chance is only one in the lands of eternal sorrow,

Shall you join me against dreaded Hades and in return we will conquer beyond your deepest wishes, the dark clouds shall give way to the once-

gone faintness of real dreams, and let once again the bright light of hope shine upon you, as when soul and body were one and jointly walked the cruel earth, for I too, long to breath the pure air of true life,

 let us walk through the bridge of life once more.

And you, over there, Shade of endless misery!

What shell covered your soul on lively ground?

And what punishment has been imposed to you forever to carry on?”  

 

The shade in turmoil responds,

“I am Lycaus’ shade!  Many men I killed

all who were suitors to the one I loved

and many gods’ promises I broke

many men’s oaths too, in their name I plowed

and by the judges to carry on my given burden

in woe and misery forever to wander

every step reminded for my caused slaughter

always my memory erased when I grow madder

and again I find myself in wonder

walking on the eternal path of torment.”

 

“Shades” Thanatos began Join me and you shall be released,

I have the power I am God too, stand by me;

and you Lycaus lead those who stand with me.

I offer you freedom but freedom you must earn

and Hades what has he to offer? Eternal pain, endless misery,

and unceasing agony and woe forever to course in your soul.

So dwellers of the deepest hell,

where in your endless misery you cry for help

fear not dreaded Hades, for what can be worst than

the torment of your unceasing agony that

echoes all across the depths of Tartarus.”

 

In all their naught hearing such words

makes their sores turn to hope,

All the souls, all the fallen, all the dammed

and the lost, sinners and traitors, heroes and cowards

they all murmured, then howled and blared in praise of hope

they wept with bitter hatred and some in great fear and others in rejoice “Our burdens may come to and end” they all cried out,

-So anxious to plant their feet on earthly ground.

 

 

 

The shame

 

In the midst of all the Chaos in the plains of disdain

A  faint glimmer of hope yet remains,

the lord of the netherworld himself,

to avert evil with evil the dreadful Hades intends

 

In his dark chariot, drawn by four coal-black horses;

drawn by one of finest beasts mother Gaia bore with poise

all born to race the gusty winds

Hades who marshals the dead, whose dark-splendor

rivals the brilliancy of the nocturnal moon,

Charioted against the heavenly blows

he strove hard and fast, gripping strong glistening reins,

on his way behind leaving a trail of flames

And swept high the blazing skies of he underworld

All while in weighing thought he spoke to his own shade in grace

“Not even in hell, why can mortal men carry on their own burdens?

Burdens they brought upon their fates, cowards they are,

Such their appearance in build and beauty

they resemble us the gods, what a shame!

 

furious Hades fought his way to mount Olympus,

dwelling of the everlasting gods.

 

Upon reaching mount Olympus

He entered the abode of the Olympians

city of Gods and mighty king Zeus

ruler of vast heavens, commander of storm and thunder,

power-head of the universe, there he rules them all

and men are their pawns like a game of chess

his abode full of pleasant things to the eyes of mortals

riches by the lot, It’s grandeur unmatchable beyond human greediness

there where the fates of men are spared or retained

and where Assemblage and council is called when needed.

Reviews

[Lace]

Wow. This is...deep.