Editing Pluto (mythology) (section)

== In Western art and literature ==
{{See also|Planets in astrology#Pluto}}
[[File:Charun hammer Cdm Paris 2783.jpg|thumb|upright|Etruscan Charun presiding over an execution]]

=== Christianization ===
[[Christian literature|Christian writers]] of [[late antiquity]] sought to discredit the competing gods of Roman and Hellenistic religions, often adopting the euhemerizing approach in regarding them not as divinities, but as people glorified through stories and cultic practices and thus not true deities worthy of worship. The infernal gods, however, retained their potency, becoming identified with the [[Devil]] and treated as [[demon]]ic forces by [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologists]].<ref>[[Friedrich Solmsen]], "The Powers of Darkness in [[Prudentius]]' ''Contra [[Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|Symmachum]]'': A Study of His Poetic Imagination," ''Vigiliae Christianae'' 19 (1965) 237–257; Margaret English Frazer, "Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ," ''Metropolitan Museum Journal'' 9 (1974) 153–161.</ref>

One source of Christian revulsion toward the chthonic gods was the arena. Attendants in divine costume, among them a "Pluto" who escorted corpses out, were part of the ceremonies of the [[gladiator]]ial games.<ref>K.M. Coleman, "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments," ''Journal of Roman Studies'' 80 (1990), p. 67.</ref> [[Tertullian]] calls the mallet-wielding figure usually identified as the [[Etruscan religion|Etruscan]] [[Charun]] the "brother of Jove,"<ref>[[Tertullian]], ''Ad nationes'' 1.10. [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] regularly calls the Roman ruler of the underworld ''Pluto'' in ''[[City of God (book)|De civitate Dei]]''; see 2.15, where Pluto and [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] are described as the brothers of Jove; 4.10, in noting their three-way division of sovereignty over the earth and with Proserpina as Pluto's spouse ''(coniunx)''; 4.11, in deriding the allegorizing of divinity in physical cosmogony; and 6.7, in denouncing the mysteries ''([[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#sacra|sacra]])'' as obscene.</ref> that is, Hades/Pluto/Dis, an indication that the distinctions among these denizens of the underworld were becoming blurred in a Christian context.<ref>Daniel P. Harmon, "The Religious Significance of Games in the Roman Age," in ''The Archaeology of the Olympics: The Olympics and Other Festivals in Antiquity'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), p. 242; Paul-Marie Duval, "Sucellus, the God with a Hammer," in ''American, African, and Old European Mythologies'' (University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 222.</ref> [[Prudentius]], in his poetic polemic against the religious traditionalist [[Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|Symmachus]], describes the arena as a place where savage vows were fulfilled on an altar to Pluto ''(solvit ad [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#ara|aram]] / Plutonis fera [[votum|vota]])'', where fallen gladiators were [[human sacrifice]]s to Dis and [[Charon (mythology)|Charon]] received their souls as [[Charon's obol|his payment]], to the delight of the underworld Jove ''(Iovis infernalis)''.<ref>Prudentius, ''Contra Symmachum'' 1.379–398; Donald G. Kyle, ''Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome'' (Routledge, 1998, 2001), p. 59.</ref>

=== Medieval mythography ===
Medieval mythographies, written in Latin, continue the conflation of Greek and Roman deities begun by the ancient Romans themselves. Perhaps because the name Pluto was used in both traditions, it appears widely in these Latin sources for the classical ruler of the underworld, who is also seen as the double, ally, or adjunct to the figure in [[Christian mythology]] known variously as the [[Christian teaching about the Devil|Devil]], [[Satan]], or [[Lucifer]]. The classical underworld deities became casually interchangeable with Satan as an embodiment of [[Hell]].<ref>Solmsen, "The Powers of Darkness," pp. 237–257; Frazer, "Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ", pp. 153–161.</ref> For instance, in the 9th century, [[Abbo Cernuus]], the only witness whose account of the [[Siege of Paris (885–886)|Siege of Paris]] survives, called the invading [[Vikings]] the "spawn of Pluto."<ref>''Dic igitur, praepulchra polis, quod Danea munus / Libavit tibimet soboles Plutonis amica'', ''Bella Parisiacae urbis'' 1.21, as noted by Nirmal Dass, "Temporary Otherness and Homiletic History in the Late Carolingian Age: A Reading of the ''Bella Parisiacae urbis'' of Abbo of Stain-Germain-des-Prés," in ''Difference and Identity in Francia and Medieval France'' (Ashgate Publishing, 2010), p. 106. In his earlier edition, translation, and commentary of the work, Dass gives "Speak, most wondrous of cities, of the gift the Danes brought for you, / Those friends of Pluto", in ''Viking Attacks on Paris: The 'Bella Parisiacae Urbis' of Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés'' (Peeters, 2007), pp. 28–29, but ''{{lang|la|soboles}}'' (classical Latin ''{{lang|la|suboles}}'') means "progeny, offspring," modified by ''{{lang|la|amica}}'', "dear, beloved."</ref>

In the ''Little Book on Images of the Gods'', Pluto is described as
<blockquote>
an intimidating personage sitting on a throne of sulphur, holding the scepter of his realm in his right hand, and with his left strangling a soul. Under his feet three-headed Cerberus held a position, and beside him he had three [[Harpies]]. From his golden throne of sulphur flowed four rivers, which were called, as is known, [[Lethe]], [[Cocytus]], [[Phlegethon]] and [[Acheron]], tributaries of the [[Styx|Stygian swamp]].<ref>''De deorum imaginibus libellus'', chapter 6, "De Plutone": ''homo terribilis in solio sulphureo sedens, sceptrum regni in manu tenens dextra: sinistra, animam constringes, cui tricipitem Cerberum sub pedibus collocabant, & iuxta se tres Harpyias habebat. De throno aurê eius sulphureo quatuor flumina manabunt, quae scilicet Lethum, Cocytû, Phlegethontem, & Acherontem appellabant, & Stygem paludem iuxta flumina assignabant''.</ref>
</blockquote>
This work derives from that of the [[Vatican Mythographer|Third Vatican Mythographer]], possibly one Albricus or Alberic, who presents often extensive allegories and devotes his longest chapter, including an [[excursus]] on the nature of the soul, to Pluto.<ref>The questions of authorship involving the ''De deorum imaginibus libellus''  and the ''Liber Ymaginum deorum'' ("Book of Images of the Gods") are vexed; Ronald E. Pepin, ''The Vatican Mythographers'' (Fordham University Press, 2008), pp. 7–9.</ref>

=== Medieval and Renaissance literature ===

In [[Dante]]'s ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' (written 1308–1321), Pluto presides over the [[Inferno (Dante)#Fourth Circle (Greed)|fourth circle of Hell]], to which the greedy are condemned.<ref>[[Dante]], ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'', Canto VII.</ref> The Italian form of the name is ''Pluto'', taken by some [[commentary (philology)|commentators]]<ref>For instance, [[Peter Bondanella]] in his note to the translation of [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]], ''The Inferno: Dante Alighieri'' (Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003), pp. 202–203. Dante may simply be preserving the longstanding conflation of Greek ''Plouton'' and ''Ploutos''; see [[Allen Mandelbaum]], note to his translation of ''The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno'' (Bantam Dell, 2004, originally published 1980), p. 357. In modern Italian, the name of the classical ruler of the underworld is ''Plutone''.</ref> to refer specifically to Plutus as the god of wealth who would preside over the torment of those who hoarded or squandered it in life.<ref>The tormented souls wail ''"Perché tieni? e "Perché burli?"'' ("'Why do you hoard?' 'Why do you squander?'"): ''Inferno'', Canto VII, line 30.</ref> Dante's Pluto is greeted as "the great enemy"<ref>''Il gran nemico'', ''Inferno'', Canto VI, line 115.</ref> and utters the famously impenetrable line ''[[Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe]]''. Much of this Canto is devoted to the power of [[Fortuna]] to give and take away. Entrance into the fourth circle has marked a downward turn in the poet's journey, and the next landmark after he and his guide cross from the circle is the [[Styx|Stygian]] swamp, through which they pass on their way to the [[Dis (Divine Comedy)|city of Dis]] (Italian ''Dite''). Dante's clear distinction between Pluto and Dis suggests that he had Plutus in mind in naming the former. The city of Dis is the "citadel of Lower Hell" where the walls are garrisoned by [[fallen angel]]s and [[Furies]].<ref>Bondanella, ''The Inferno'' p. 206; Mandelbaum, ''Inferno'' p. 69.</ref> Pluto is treated likewise as a purely Satanic figure by the 16th-century Italian poet [[Torquato Tasso|Tasso]] throughout his epic ''[[Jerusalem Delivered]]'',<ref>Ralph Nash, ''Jerusalem Delivered: An English Prose Version'' (Wayne State University Press, 1987), pp. xi and 475.</ref> in which "great Dis, great Pluto" is invoked in the company of "all ye devils that lie in deepest hell."<ref>Tasso, ''Jerusalem Delivered'', Canto 13.7, translated by Edward Fairfax (1907).</ref>

Influenced by Ovid and Claudian, [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] (1343–1400)<ref>In ''The House of Fame'' (lines 1510–1511), Chaucer explicitly acknowledges his debt to Claudian "That bar up al the fame of helle, / Of Pluto, and of Proserpyne," as noted by Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 25.</ref> developed the myth of Pluto and [[Proserpina]] (the Latin name of Persephone) in [[English literature]]. Like earlier medieval writers, Chaucer identifies Pluto's realm with [[Hell]] as a place of condemnation and torment,<ref>In ''Troilus and Criseyde'' (lines 590–503), as noted by Rosalyn Rossignol, ''Critical Companion to Chaucer: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work'' (Facts on File, 2006), p. 540.</ref> and describes it as "derk and lowe" ("dark and low").<ref>Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale" 2082 and 2299.</ref> But Pluto's major appearance in the works of Chaucer comes as a character in "[[The Merchant's Tale]]," where Pluto is identified as the "Kyng of Fayerye" ([[Fairy]] King).<ref>Rossignol, ''Critical Companion'' pp. 432, 540.</ref> As in the anonymous [[Romance (heroic literature)|romance]] ''[[Sir Orfeo]]'' (''ca.'' 1300), Pluto and Proserpina rule over a fantastical world that melds classical myth and [[Álfheimr|fairyland]].<ref>John M. Fyler, "Pagan Survivals," in ''A Companion to Chaucer'' (Blackwell, 2000, 2002), p. 351.</ref> Chaucer has the couple engage in a comic [[wikt:battle of the sexes|battle of the sexes]] that undermines the [[Christian symbolism|Christian imagery]] in the tale, which is Chaucer's most sexually explicit.<ref>Seth Lerer, "The Canterbury Tales," in ''The Yale Companion to Chaucer'' (Yale University Press, 2006), p. 270. Pluto and Proserpina in ''The Merchant's Tale'' have been seen as Shakespeare's model for [[Titania (A Midsummer Night's Dream)|Titania]] and [[Oberon]] in ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', a view at least as old as Chaucer's editor [[Thomas Tyrwhitt]] (see [https://books.google.com/books?id=vM0_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA97 1798 edition]) and reiterated by [[Walter William Skeat]] in his edition of ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'' ([https://archive.org/details/completeworksge08chaugoog <!-- quote=pluto oberon. --> 1894 edition]).</ref> The Scottish poet [[William Dunbar]] ''ca.'' 1503 also described Pluto as a folkloric supernatural being, "the elrich [[incubus]] / in cloke of grene" ("the [[wikt:eldritch|eldritch]] incubus in cloak of green"), who appears among the [[courtier]]s of [[Cupid]].<ref>[[William Dunbar]], ''The Goldyn Targe'' (1503), lines 126–7, as cited by Ian Simpson Ross, ''William Dunbar'' (Brill, 1981), p. 252. Compare also [[Arthur Golding]]'s "elves of hell" to translate Ovid's ''Avernales ... nymphas'', "[[nymph]]s of [[Avernus]]" (''Metamorphoses'' 5.670, in his account of the abduction).</ref>

The name ''Pluto'' for the classical ruler of the underworld was further established in English literature by [[Arthur Golding]], whose translation of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' (1565) was of great influence on [[William Shakespeare]],<ref>Shakespeare's references to Pluto are conventional. Pluto is associated with Hell in the "Roman" plays ''[[Coriolanus]]'' (I.iv, "Pluto and Hell!" as an exclamation) and ''[[Titus Andronicus]]'' (IV.iii, "Pluto's region," and "Pluto sends you word, / If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall"), as also in ''[[Henry IV, Part 2]]'' (II.iv): "I'll see her damn'd first; – to Pluto's damned lake, by this hand, to th' infernal deep, with [[Erebus]] and tortures vile also." Pluto's gates are a [[metaphor]] for strength in ''[[Troilus and Cressida]]'' (V.ii), where Pluto is also sworn by (III.iv and V.ii). The performance of Orpheus is referenced in ''[[The Rape of Lucrece]]'' (line 553): "And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays." Shakespeare also uses the name of Roman Dis, as in Perdita's catalogue of flowers in ''[[A Winter's Tale]]'' (IV.iii): "O Proserpina, / For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou lett'st fall / From Dis's waggon!"</ref> [[Christopher Marlowe]],<ref>In ''[[Doctor Faustus (play)|Doctor Faustus]]'' (III.ii, 1616 [[quarto]]), [[Mephistopheles]] invokes "Pluto's blue fire" in casting a spell of invisibility on the protagonist. In his translation of [[Lucan]]'s epic, Marlowe uses ''Pluto'' for ''Dis'' (''First Book of Lucan'', lines 449, where "Pluto" refers to the [[druid]]ic god [[Julius Caesar]] [[interpretatio romana|identified with]] Dis, and 576), but uses both names in the mythological narrative ''[[Hero and Leander (poem)|Hero and Leander]]''.</ref> and [[Edmund Spenser]].<ref>Spenser plays on the conflation of Pluto and Plutus: "but a little stride ... did the house of Richesse from hell-mouth divide" and "Here Sleep, there Richesse, and Hel-gate them both betwext" (24.5), as noted by Thomas E. Maresca, entry on "Hell", ''The Spencer Encyclopedia'', p. 352. See [[#Offspring|Offspring of Pluto (above)]] on the daughter Spenser invents for Pluto. His favored epithet for Pluto is ''griesly'', an [[archaism]] for "[[wikt:grisly|grisly]]" (''FG'' I.iv.11.1, II.vii.24.1, IV.iii.13.2, VI.xii.35.6, applied to Proserpina at I.i.37.4; Pluto named also at ''FG'' I.v.14.8, II.viii.24.1, VI.xii.35.6, VII.vii.5.9, and ''[[The Shepheardes Calender]]'' "October" 29).</ref><ref>Robert DeMaria Jr. and Robert D. Brown, ''Classical Literature and Its Reception: An Anthology'' (Blackwell, 2007), p. 453. Both ''Dis'' and ''Pluto'' appear in the works of Shakespeare and Marlowe, but ''Pluto'' with greater frequency; Spenser prefers the name Pluto.</ref> Golding translates Ovid's ''Dis'' as Pluto,<ref>[[Arthur Golding]], ''Ovid's Metamorphoses'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tdWe6KGKVOEC&q=pluto passim]'', with a few instances of [https://books.google.com/books?id=tdWe6KGKVOEC&q=Dis Dis]; Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 25.</ref> a practice that prevails among English translators, despite [[John Milton]]'s use of the Latin ''Dis'' in ''[[Paradise Lost]]''.<ref>For instance, at ''Paradise Lost'' 4.270, as cited by Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 25, where Proserpine is described as a flower fairer than those she was gathering and "by gloomy Dis / was gathered."</ref> The Christian perception of the classical underworld as Hell influenced Golding's translation practices; for instance, Ovid's ''tenebrosa sede tyrannus / exierat'' ("the [[tyrant]] ''[Dis]'' had gone out of his shadowy realm") becomes "the prince of fiends forsook his darksome hole".<ref>''Ovid's Metamorphosis Translated by Arthur Golding'', edited by Madeleine Forey, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), p. 164. Pluto rules over Hell throughout Spenser's ''Faerie Queene,'' as noted by Maresca, ''The Spenser Encyclopedia'', p. 352.</ref>

Pluto's court as a literary setting could bring together a motley assortment of characters. In [[Huon de Méry]]'s 13th-century poem "The Tournament of the [[Antichrist]]", Pluto rules over a congregation of "classical gods and demigods, biblical devils, and evil Christians."<ref>John Block Friedman, ''Orpheus in the Middle Ages'' (Syracuse University Press, 2000), p. 238; ''Li Tournoiemenz Anticrit'' ''(Le tornoiement de l'Antéchrist)'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=o8QZAAAAYAAJ&q=pluton+OR+pluto text.]</ref> In the 15th-century [[dream allegory]] ''[[The Assembly of Gods]]'', the deities and personifications are "apparelled as medieval nobility"<ref>Theresa Lynn Tinkle, ''Medieval Venuses and Cupids: Sexuality, Hermeneutics, and English Poetry'' (Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 132.</ref> basking in the "magnyfycence" of their "lord Pluto," who is clad in a "smoky net" and reeking of sulphur.<ref>''The Assembly of Gods'', lines 82, 51, 311, 314, in the edition of Oscar Lovell Triggs (London, 1896).</ref>

Throughout the [[Renaissance]], images and ideas from [[classical antiquity]] entered [[popular culture]] through the [[Renaissance technology#Printing press|new medium of print]] and through [[masque|pageants]] and other public performances at festivals. The [[Corpus Christi (feast)|Fête-Dieu]] at [[Aix-en-Provence]] in 1462 featured characters costumed as a number of classical deities, including Pluto,<ref>Entry on "Popular Culture," ''The Classical Tradition'', p. 766.</ref> and Pluto was the subject of one of seven pageants presented as part of the 1521 [[Midsummer Eve]] festival in [[Tudor London|London]].<ref>Sheila Lindenbaum, "Ceremony and Oligarchy: The London Midsummer Watch," in ''City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe'', (University of Minnesota Press, 1994), p. 171; Maria Hayward, ''Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII's England'' (Ashgate, 2009), p. 290. The court of Pluto continued to inspire public pageantry into the late 19th century, when floats such as the "blazing 'Palace of Pluto'" were part of the [[New Orleans Mardi Gras|Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans]]; Henri Schindler, ''Mardi Gras Treasures: Costume Designs of the Golden Age'' (Pelican, 2002), p. 15.</ref> During the 15th century, no mythological theme was brought to the stage more often than Orpheus's descent, with the court of Pluto inspiring fantastical [[stagecraft]].<ref>Nino Pirrotta, ''Music and Theatre from [[Poliziano]] to Monteverdi'' (Cambridge University Press, 1992, originally published in Italian 1969), ''passim'', especially p. ix.</ref> [[Leonardo da Vinci]] designed a set with a rotating mountain that opened up to reveal Pluto emerging from the underworld; the drawing survives and was the basis for a modern recreation.<ref>Pirrotta, ''Music and Theatre from [[Poliziano]] to Monteverdi'', with [https://books.google.com/books?id=rDTeG7IG8jIC&dq=Pluto+%22rotating+stage+and+the+interior+of+Hades%22+-fabula&pg=PA274-IA6 Leonardo's drawing] (n.p.); Carlo Pedretti, ''Leonardo: The Machines'' (Giunti, 1999), p. 72.</ref>

=== Opera and ballet ===
The tragic descent of the hero-musician Orpheus to the underworld to retrieve his bride, and his performance at the court of Pluto and Proserpina, offered compelling material for [[libretto|librettists]] and composers of opera (see [[List of Orphean operas]]) and [[History of ballet|ballet]]. Pluto also appears in works based on other classical myths of the underworld. As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a [[bass (voice type)|bass voice]], with the low [[vocal range]] representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as in [[Claudio Monteverdi|Monteverdi]] and [[Ottavio Rinuccini|Rinuccini]]'s ''[[L'Orfeo]]'' (1607) and ''[[Il ballo delle ingrate]]'' (1608). In their ''[[ballo]]'', a form of ballet with vocal numbers, Cupid invokes Pluto from the underworld to lay claim to "ungrateful" women who were immune to love. Pluto's part is considered particularly virtuosic,<ref>Mark Ringer, ''Opera's First Master: The Musical Dramas of Claudio Monteverdi'' (Amadeus Press, 2006), pp. 34, 75, 103–104; Tim Carter, ''Monteverdi's Musical Theatre'' (Yale University Press, 2002), p. 95; [[Enid Welsford]], ''The Court Masque'' (Cambridge University Press, 1927), pp. 112–113.</ref> and a reviewer at the première described the character, who appeared as if from a blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets, but burdened with gold and jewels."<ref>Tim Carter, ''Monteverdi's Musical Theatre'' p. 81, quoting Follino, ''Compendio delle sontuose feste'' (1608), and p. 152.</ref>

[[File:Jean Raoux – Orpheus and Eurydice.jpg|thumb|left|[[Jean Raoux]]'s ''Orpheus and Eurydice'' (1718–20), with Pluto and Proserpina releasing the couple]]
The role of Pluto is written for a bass in [[Jacopo Peri|Peri]]'s ''[[Euridice (Peri)|Euridice]]'' (1600);<ref>George J. Buelow, ''A History of Baroque Music'' (Indiana University Press, 2004), p. 37.</ref> [[Giulio Caccini|Caccini]]'s ''[[Euridice (Caccini)|Euridice]]'' (1602); [[Luigi Rossi|Rossi]]'s ''[[Orfeo (Rossi)|Orfeo]]'' (1647); [[Antonio Cesti|Cesti]]'s ''[[Il pomo d'oro]]'' (1668);<ref>Kristiaan Aercke, ''Gods of Play: Baroque Festive Performances as Rhetorical Discourse'' (SUNY Press, 1994), p. 230.</ref> [[Antonio Sartorio|Sartoris]]'s ''[[Orfeo (Sartorio)|Orfeo]]'' (1672); [[Jean-Baptiste Lully|Lully]]'s ''[[Alceste (Lully)|Alceste]]'', a ''[[tragédie en musique]]'' (1674);<ref>Piero Gelli and Filippo Poletti, ''Dizionario dell'opera 2008'' (Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2005, 2007), p. 36.</ref> [[Marc-Antoine Charpentier|Charpentier]]'s [[chamber opera]] ''[[La descente d'Orphée aux enfers]]'' (1686);<ref>Charpentier's Pluto is a [[bass-baritone]].</ref> [[Georg Philipp Telemann|Telemann]]'s ''[[Orpheus (Telemann)|Orpheus]]'' (1726); and [[Jean-Philippe Rameau|Rameau]]'s ''[[Hippolyte et Aricie]]'' (1733).<ref>Gelli and Poletti, ''Dizionario dell'opera 2008'', p. 625.</ref> Pluto was a [[baritone]] in [[Proserpine (Lully)|Lully's ''Proserpine'']] (1680), which includes a duo dramatizing the conflict between the royal underworld couple that is notable for its early use of musical characterization.<ref>James R. Anthony, ''French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau'' (Amadeus Press, 1997), p. 115.</ref> Perhaps the most famous of the Orpheus operas is [[Jacques Offenbach|Offenbach]]'s satiric ''[[Orpheus in the Underworld]]'' (1858),<ref>Pluto does not have a singing role in [[Christoph Willibald Gluck|Gluck]]'s ''[[Orfeo ed Euridice]]'' (1762).</ref> in which a [[tenor]] sings the role of ''Pluton'', disguised in the giddily convoluted plotting as Aristée ([[Aristaeus]]), a farmer.

Scenes set in Pluto's realm were [[orchestration|orchestrated]] with [[Instrumentation (music)|instrumentation]] that became conventionally "hellish", established in Monteverdi's ''L'Orfeo'' as two [[cornet]]s, three [[trombone]]s, a [[bassoon]], and a [[Regal (musical instrument)|régale]].<ref>Aercke, ''Gods of Play'', p. 250; Ringer, ''Opera's First Master'', p. 71.</ref>

Pluto has also been featured as a role in ballet. In Lully's "Ballet of Seven Planets'" interlude from [[Francesco Cavalli|Cavalli]]'s opera ''[[Ercole amante]]'' ("[[Hercules]] in Love"), [[Louis XIV]] himself danced as Pluto and other characters; it was a spectacular flop.<ref>Andrew Trout, ''City on the Seine: Paris in the Time of Richelieu and Louis XIV'' (St. Martin's Press, 1996), pp. 189–190; Buelow, ''A History of Baroque Music'', p. 160.</ref> Pluto appeared in [[Jean-Georges Noverre|Noverre]]'s lost ''La descente d'Orphée aux Enfers'' (1760s). [[Gaétan Vestris]] danced the role of the god in [[Florian Johann Deller|Florian Deller]]'s ''Orefeo ed Euridice'' (1763).<ref>Daniel Heartz, ''Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720–1780'' (W.W. Norton, 2003), pp. 488–492.</ref> The ''Persephone'' choreographed by [[Robert Joffrey]] (1952) was based on [[André Gide]]'s line "king of winters, the infernal Pluto."<ref>Sasha Anawalt, ''The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company'' (University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 66.</ref>

=== Fine art ===
[[File:Dürer - Die Entführung auf dem Einhorn - Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum.png|thumb|[[Albrecht Dürer]], ''Abduction of Proserpine on a Unicorn'' (1516)]]
[[File:Rembrandt - The Rape of Proserpine - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Rembrandt's ''Abduction of Proserpina'' (''ca.'' 1631)]]
The abduction of Proserpina by Pluto was the scene from the myth most often depicted by [[fine art|artists]], who usually follow Ovid's version. The influential emblem book ''[[Iconologia]]'' of Cesare Ripa (1593, second edition 1603) presents the allegorical figure of Rape with a shield on which the abduction is painted.<ref>Frederick Kiefer, ''Shakespeare's Visual Theatre: Staging the Personified Characters'' (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 60–61.</ref> [[Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg]], the first teacher of [[Rembrandt]], echoed Ovid in showing Pluto as the target of [[Cupid]]'s arrow while [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] watches her plan carried out (location of painting unknown). The [[:File:Ovid Met 5 395ff – Rubens – Pluto taking Proserpina.jpg|treatment of the scene]] by [[Rubens]] is similar. Rembrandt incorporates Claudian's more passionate [[characterization]]s.<ref>Amy Golahney, "Rembrandt's Abduction of Proserpina," in ''The Age of Rembrandt: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting'' (Penn State University Press, 1988), p. 30; Eric Jan Sluijter, ''Rembrandt and the Female Nude'' (Amsterdam University Press, 2006), pp. 109–111.</ref> The performance of Orpheus in the court of Pluto and Proserpina was also a popular subject.

Major artists who produced works depicting Pluto include:
* [[Albrecht Dürer|Dürer]], ''Abduction of Proserpine on a Unicorn'' (1516), [[etching]]. Dürer's first English biographer called this work "a wild, weird conception" that "produces a most uncomfortable, shuddering impression on the beholder."<ref>[[Mary Margaret Heaton]], ''The History of the Life of Albrecht Dürer of Nürnberg'' (London, 1870), p. 187; Walter L. Strauss, ''The Complete Engravings, Etchings, and Drypoints of Albrecht Dürer'' (Dover, 1973), p. 178.</ref> The source or significance of the [[unicorn]] as the form of transport is unclear; Dürer's preparatory drawing showed a conventional horse. Pluto seems to be presented in a manner that recalls the [[Wild Hunt#Leader of the Wild Hunt|leader of the Wild Hunt]].<ref>Strauss, ''The Complete Engravings'', p. 178.</ref>
*[[Caravaggio]], ''Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto'' (Italian ''Giove, Nettuno e Plutone'', ''ca.'' 1597), a [[mural|ceiling mural]] (pictured under [[#Orphic and philosophical systems|Theogonies and cosmology above]]) intended for viewing from below, hence the unusual perspective. Caravaggio created the work for a room adjacent to the [[alchemy|alchemical]] [[Distillation#History|distillery]] of [[Cardinal (Catholic Church)|Cardinal]] [[Francesco Maria Del Monte]], his most important [[patronage|patron]]. The three gods hover around a translucent globe that represents the world: Jupiter with his eagle, Neptune holding a bident, and Pluto accompanied by a bluish-gray horse and a [[Cerberus]] who resembles a three-headed [[Border Collie|border collie]] more than a [[hellhound]]. In addition to personifying the [[classical elements]] [[Air (classical element)|air]], [[Water (classical element)|water]], and [[Earth (classical element)|earth]], the three figures represent "an allegory of the [[applied science]] of alchemy".<ref name="Gilbert-p124-125" />
* [[Jan Brueghel the Elder]], [[:File:Jan Brueghel (I) - Orpheus in the Underworld - WGA03564.jpg|''Orpheus before Pluto and Proserpina'']] (1604), painting.<ref>Entry on "Orpheus," ''The Classical Tradition'' p. 665.</ref>
* [[Gian Lorenzo Bernini|Bernini]], ''Pluto and Proserpina'' (1621–22), also known as ''[[The Rape of Proserpina]]'', sculpture with a Cerberus looking in three different directions.<ref>Entry on "Sculpture," ''The Classical Tradition'', p. 870.</ref>
* [[Rembrandt]], ''Abduction of Proserpina'' (''ca.'' 1631), painting influenced by Rubens (via the [[engraving]] of his student [[Pieter Soutman]]).<ref>Golahny, "Rembrandt's Abduction of Proserpina," p. 30ff.</ref> Rembrandt's leonine Pluto draws on Claudian's description of the god as like a ravening lion.<ref>Amy Golahny, ''Rembrandt's Reading: The Artist's Bookshelf of Ancient Poetry and History'' (Amsterdam University Press, 2003), pp. 102–103.</ref>

=== Modern literature ===
After the Renaissance, literary interest in the abduction myth waned until the revival of classical myth among the [[Romanticism|Romantics]]. The work of mythographers such as [[J.G. Frazer]] and [[Jane Ellen Harrison]] helped inspire the recasting of myths in modern terms by [[Victorian literature|Victorian]] and [[Modernism|Modernist]] writers. In ''[[Tess of the d'Urbervilles]]'' (1891), [[Thomas Hardy]] portrays Alec d'Urberville as "a grotesque parody of Pluto/Dis" exemplifying the late-[[Victorian morality|Victorian culture]] of [[patriarchy|male domination]], in which women were consigned to "an endless breaking ... on the wheel of biological reproduction."<ref>Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', pp. 85, 98, 114, citing Chelser, ''Women and Madness'', pp. 240, 266.</ref> A similar figure is found in ''[[The Lost Girl]]'' (1920) by [[D.H. Lawrence]], where the character Ciccio<ref>Perhaps a play on the Italian verb ''chioccia'' used by Dante to describe Pluto's manner of speaking in ''Inferno'', Canto VII, line 2.</ref> acts as Pluto to Alvina's Persephone, "the deathly-lost bride ... paradoxically obliterated and vitalised at the same time by contact with Pluto/Dis" in "a prelude to the grand design of rebirth." The darkness of Pluto is both a source of regeneration, and of "merciless annihilation."<ref>Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', pp. 247, 252, 254, ''et passim''.</ref> Lawrence takes up the theme elsewhere in his work; in ''The First Lady Chatterley'' (1926, an early version of ''[[Lady Chatterley's Lover]]''), Connie Chatterley sees herself as a Persephone and declares "she'd rather be married to Pluto than Plato," casting her earthy gamekeeper lover as the former and her philosophy-spouting husband as the latter.<ref>Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 254.</ref>

In [[Rick Riordan]]'s [[young adult literature|young adult]] fantasy series ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]'', the character [[Hazel Levesque]] is the daughter of Pluto, god of riches. She is one of seven characters with a parent from classical mythology.<ref>[[Rick Riordan]], ''The Son of Neptune'' (Disney-Hyperion Books, 2011), p. 111 (vol. 2 of ''The Heroes of Olympus'' series).</ref>