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Then we are sent to spacious Elysium, a few of us to possess the blissful fields. Two gates of Sleep there are [in Elysium] , whereof the one, they say, is horn and offers a ready exit to true shades, the other shining with the sheen of polished ivory, but delusive dreams issue upward through it from the world below.
Thither Anchises, discoursing thus, escorts his son and with him the Sibylla, and sends them forth by the ivory gate: Aeneas speeds his way to the ships and rejoins his comrade. Goold Roman elegy C1st B. One passage conveys the adulterous Clytemnestra, and carries the Cretan queen [Pasiphae] whose guile contrived the wooden monstrosity of a cow. But see, the other group are hurried off in a garlanded vessel, where a happy breeze gently fans the roses of Elysium. Pliny identifies the mythical Islands of the Blessed with actual unidentified islands in the Atlantic Ocean.
Elysium] hath not yet received. As a reward for his piety he was sent to Elysium, a place whichthe ghosts of his dead countrymen were banned from since the land was under the curse of the Erinyes.
Not yet had the Eumenis [Erinys] met and purified him with branch of yew, not had Proserpine [Persephone] marked him on the dusky door-post as admitted to the company of the dead; nay his presence surprised the very distaff of the Fatae [Moirai, fates], and not till in terror beheld the augur did the Parcae [Moirai] break the thread. Mozley Roman poetry C1st A. Nor does he forbid him to remember thee, but fondly blends heart h with hearth, and takes part in turn in the affection of the lad. Enwreathe the shrines, and let festal altars gladden the place groves. Avaunt, ye hissing Furiae [Erinyes], avaunt the threefold guardian [Kerberos]!
Let the long road lie clear for the peerless spirits. Let him come, and approach the awful throne of the silent monarch [Haides] and pay his last due of gratitude and anxiously request for his son a long life. Elysium], among gatherings of heroes and spirits of the blest. Elysium], among gatherings of heroes and spirits of the blest, thou dost attend the Maeonian and Ascraean sages [Homer and Hesiod], thyself no feebler shade, and makest music in thy turn and minglest thy song with theirs.
What groans I uttered then! What lamentation did I make! Go, spirits of the blest and troops of Grecian bards, shower Lethaean garlands on the illustrious soul [Lethe was the river-border of Elysium], and point him to the [Elysian] grove where no Erinys disturbs, where there is day like ours and air most like to the air of heaven. Walsh Roman novel C2nd A.
Makaria trans. A daughter of Haides. Leuke, in Servius above, another personification of the realm.
Hades was very disinclined to let his subjects leave and — with very few exceptions — the only creatures who were allowed to freely go in and out were the Erinyes, also known as the Furies. According to the Iliad, written by the ancient poet Homer, the Underworld is located beneath the secret places of the earth; in the Odyssey also written by Homer the way down there lies over the edge of the world across Ocean.

In later poems there are various entrances to it through caves and beside deep lakes. Later poets describe it more and more vividly and it becomes a place where the evil are punished and the good rewarded. Of all the poets, the Roman Virgil tells of the geography of the underworld in greatest detail. Hermes leads the souls down the path to the underworld, to where Acheron pours into Cocytus.
There the ancient boatman, Charon, ferries the souls across. Charon only ferries those who can pay for his service, with the money placed on their lips during their funeral. Those who cannot pay are trapped between two worlds and must wait a hundred years before Charon ferries them for free.

Once on the other bank the souls face Cerberus, a three-headed dog with snake and dragon heads for its tail. His job is to guard the gates to the underworld. Cerberus will allow all to go in, but none to leave. Upon its arrival, each soul is brought before three judges: Rhadamanthus, Minos and Aeacus who pass sentence and either send them to eternal torment in a part of the Underworld named after its master, Hades, or to a place of blessedness, the Elysian Fields, sometimes said to not even be located in the Underworld.
Somewhere in the Underworld lies the great palace of Hades Pluto. Other than saying that it is many-gated and crowded with guests, no writer describes it. Around it are wide wastes, wan and cold, and meadows of asphodel, presumably strange, pallid, ghostly flowers. After death there is no annihilation in Greek Mythology. The dead are dead because they have a flavorless and unhappy existence in the Underworld.
Those who are practically dead but exist and dwell in all happiness in the Isles of the Blest or Elysium, are called Immortals.
What groans I uttered then! The ancient inhabitants of the Nile valley had the same idea as to the direction of the true summit of the earth. According to Hesychius this was the Theban acropolis, so named because it contained the temples of the gods. Then the official opener, or priest patesi , and the navigational openers or eggshaped, string suspended loadstones with little arms and feet attached , which hung in the poops of the Phoenician vessels. Pausanias
So life and death are qualities of existence, not lack of it. Oceanus and Styx. Between the world of the living and that of the dead there are, it is said, great rivers and dread streams. First, greatest and outermost is Oceanus, which winds about the earth and the sea with nine rings, but is also a subterranean river.
The river Styx river of Hate , which is a primordial figure too daughter of Oceanus , is a branch of Oceanus and a tenth part of his water is allotted to her. So Styx, which flows out from a rock, is the tenth ring, though some say that Styx itself corrals the souls in the Underworld with nine rings. The Oath of the Gods. For this reason Zeus caused oaths to be sworn by the water of Styx. Styx is sometimes considered to be the river the souls must cross to enter the realm of the dead, though at other times it appears that the souls may cross the river Acheron river of Woe , or embarking here in vessels and navigating its stream, come to the Acherusian Lake.
Some say that it is in this lake that the ferryman Charon takes the two obols for the fare. According to some into Acheron flow Pyriphlegethon river of Fire and Cocytus river of Wailing , which is a branch of the Styx. But others say that the river Acheron, turbid with mud, pours all its sand into the stream of Cocytus and the place where all these rivers meet is known as the Stygian marsh. Still others say that these rivers have no bottom or foundation and that they, coming in and out from Tartarus, oscillate and wave up and down from one side of the earth to the other.
The river Acheron, which flows through various desert places, is said to come to the Acherusian Lake, where the souls of most of the dead remain, some for a longer time, some for a shorter, until they are reborn. The river Pyriphlegethon, which is a stream of lava rolling in its torrent clashing rocks, also builds a large lake boiling with water and mud. Pyriphlegethon comes to the edge of the Acherusian lake, but does not mingle with its water and neither does the Styx, which coming close to the Acherusian Lake, passes round in a circle and falls back into Tartarus under the name of Cocytus.
Tartarus, Cosmic Place.
Tartarus is the lowest abyss beneath the earth where all waters originate; all rivers flow into the chasm of Tartarus and flow out of it again. Tartarus is, they say, a gloomy place as far distant from earth as earth is from the sky. For, it is said, a brazen anvil falling down from heaven nine nights and days would reach the earth upon the tenth: and again, a brazen anvil falling from earth nine nights and days would reach Tartarus upon the tenth.
Still others say that Tartarus yawns deep under the shades, extending down twice as far as the view upward to Heaven. Tartarus and the Underworld are the realm of Erebus, which is pure Darkness.
Tartarus, Place of Punishment. Tartarus is also a place of punishment. Round it runs a fence of bronze, and night spreads in triple line all about it. Some say that the gates are of iron and the threshold of bronze, and others that there is a threefold wall around it. Around this triple wall flows Pyriphlegethon with its flames and its clashing rocks. The entrance, in which there is an enormous portal has pillars of solid adamant that not even the gods could break. At the top of its tower of Iron sits the Erinye Tisiphone 1, with her bloody robe, and sleepless day and night, guards the entrance.
Arrival to Hades. As men and women die Hermes leads their souls to the Underworld, past the streams of Oceanus, past the White Rock Leucas , past the Gates of the Sun and the Land of Dreams, until they reach the Asphodel Fields, where the spirits dwell living the flavourless existence of a shadow or phantom. This is not a place of punishment, but there is no pleasure and the mind is confused and oblivious with the exception of Tiresias.
In the Entrance. In the midst of all this an Elm can be seen and False Dreams cling under every leaf.
The dead seem to know the location of Hades less than the living, as several entrances to Hades were known from all times one of them is in Taenarum, another in Cumae; Odysseus arrived to Hades navigating the stream of Oceanus. The souls descending to Hades carry a coin under the tongue in order to pay Charon, the ferryman who ferries them across the river.
Charon may make exceptions or allowances for those visitors carrying a certain Golden Bough. Otherwise is this Charon appallingly filthy, with eyes like jets of fire, a bush of unkempt beard upon his chin, and a dirty cloak hanging from his shoulders. However, although Charon embarks now one group now another, some souls he keeps at distance. These are the unburied: none may be taken across from bank to bank if he had not received burial.