Virgil, in the _AEneid_, vi. 417, has huge Cerberus
barking with triple jaws; his neck bristles with serpents. Ovid in his
_Metamorphoses_, x. 21, makes Orpheus, looking for dear Eurydice in
Tartarus, declare that he did not go down in order that he might chain
the three necks, shaggy with serpents, of the monster begotten of
Medusa. His business also is settled for all time; he is the terrible,
fearless, and watchful janitor, or guardian (_janitor_ or _custos_) of
Orcus, the Styx, Lethe, or the black Kingdom.[9] And so he remains for
modern poets, as when Dante, reproducing Virgil, describes him:[10]
"When Cerberus, that great worm, had seen us
His mouth he opened and his fangs were shown,
And then my leader with his folded palms
Took of the earth, and filling full his hand,
Into those hungry gullets flung it down."
Or Shakespeare, _Love's Labor Lost_, v. ii: "Great Hercules is presented
by this imp whose club killed Cerberus, the three-headed _canis_."
CLASSICAL EXPLANATIONS OF CERBERUS.
Such classical explanations of Cerberus' shape as I have seen are feeble
and foolishly reasonable.
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