Editing Pluto (mythology) (section)

=== 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>