Acerca do "Hades" em Hesíodo

Abstract

A brief analysis of a famous passage in the Theogony (lines 717-819, which are supposed to be genuine, contrary to Jacoby and Mazon, except perhaps 807-819) and other scattered references to Hades and Tartarus throughout Hesiod’s works shows that there is not much difference between this poet’s idea of a gloomy afterlife and Homer’s picture of the same. Nevertheless, Hesiod’s descriptions are somewhat more precise, and a few touches have been added by him to the mass of tradition. Among these are to be numbered the entrance to Hades, built up like a neck-circlet, which is surrounded by a threefold wall of shadows (a topic which the present writer supposes, contrary to Mazon, to have naturally evolved from the usual στόμα, in order to emphasize the difficult access to that place), the presence of Cerberus at the door, the fairy-tale like description of the palace of Styx in the neighbourhood and perhaps the shining of the gates in 811, if the line be genuine. As to the Works and Days, only an epithet for Hades deserves particular attention, viz. the adjective κρυερός, which qualifies it in line 153, and may be compared with κρυόεις, which appears in Scutum, 255. After a survey of the meaning of both words, particularly in Hesiod, it is assumed that the author of the Scutum must have interpreted the first one in its proper, not in its figurative, meaning, and therefore replaced the usual formula ες Τάρταρον ήερόεντα by a new one, which had evolved from Hesiod’s new topic of coldness and presented a similar word-ending — Τάρταρον ες κρνόενθ\ This is connected with the ancient belief in a frozen Hades and with the usual practice of extending to the afterlife the characteristics of the tomb itself.