there is who by a hateful fate pronouncing sentences awards the penalties for deeds committed in the realm of Zeus; but the good, enjoying sunlight ever equally by night and day, receive a life more free from griefs than ours, not harassing earth with strength of hand nor ocean wave for scanty sustenance. But all who joyed in keeping of their oaths, among the honoured of the gods rejoice in tearless life; the others bear affliction too dreadful to be looked upon. They who have thrice endured on either side the grave to keep their souls unsullied by injustice, pursue the road of Zeus to Kronos' tower; there the ocean breezes blow round the islands of the blest, and the golden flowers are glowing, some on land from glistening trees, some the water nourishes; there with chaplets made of these the blest twine their hands and heads by the just decrees of Rhadamanthus, whom Father Kronos, spouse of Rhea, throned above all gods, keeps as assessor ever ready by him." Fragments of the Pindaric Threnoi contain similar ideas, for example one[1] which Professor Conington has translated thus—
"But the souls of the profane,
Far from heaven removed below,
Flit on earth in murderous pain
'Neath the unyielding yoke of woe;
While pious spirits tenanting the sky
Chant praises to the mighty one on high."
But Athenian life was not destined to popularise such ideas. In the Frogs of Aristophanes we have, though of course in caricature, a picture of Hades little in advance of the Odyssean. Bacchus, with a lion's skin thrown over his saffron-coloured robe and armed with a club, imitates Hercules, and, as Hercules had gone to fetch
- ↑ ψυχαὶ δ᾽ ὰσεβέων ὑπουράνιο
γαίᾳ πωτῶντᾱι ἐν ἄλγεσι φονίοις, κ.τ.λ.
Hades recalls the presence of Blood-revenge in the spirit-world of the Grendel. See passage from Beowulf translated above.
