Editing Pluto (mythology) (section)

=== Offspring ===
Unlike his freely procreating brothers Zeus and Poseidon, Pluto is [[wikt:monogamous|monogamous]], and is rarely said to have children.<ref>[[Natale Conti]] observes (''Mythologiae'' 2.9, edition of 1651, p. 174) that before the abduction, Pluto was the only childless bachelor among the gods ''(solus omnium deorum coelibem et filiis carentem vitam traduceret)''. The [[nymph]] [[Minthe|Minthē]] was the concubine (''pallakis'', [[Strabo]] 8.3.14) of the ruler of the underworld under the name of Hades, but no ancient source records Pluto in this role; Conti, however, describes Minthē ''(Menthe)'' as the ''pellex'' of Pluto.</ref> In [[Orphism (religion)|Orphic texts]],<ref>Orphic fragments 197 and 360 (edition of Kern) and ''[[Orphic Hymns|Orphic Hymn]]'' 70, as cited by [[Helene P. Foley]], ''Hymn to Demeter'' (Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 110, note 97.</ref> the chthonic nymph [[Melinoe]] is the daughter of Persephone by Zeus disguised as Pluto,<ref>''Orphic Hymn'' 71.</ref> and the [[Erinyes|Eumenides]] ("The Kindly Ones") are the offspring of Persephone and ''Zeus Chthonios'', often identified as Pluto.<ref>Robertson, ''Religion and Reconciliation in Greek Cities'', p. 102. Robertson holds that in the Orphic tradition, the Eumenides are distinguished from the Furies (Greek [[Erinyes]]). Vergil [[conflation|conflates]] the Eumenides and the [[Furies]], and elsewhere says that Night ''([[Nox (mythology)|Nox]])'' is their mother. [[Proclus]], in his [[commentary (philology)|commentary]] on the ''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'' of [[Plato]], provides passages from the Orphic ''Rhapsodies'' that give two different genealogies of the Eumenides, one making them the offspring of Persephone and Pluto (or Hades) and the other reporting a prophecy that they were to be born to Persephone and [[Apollo]] (Robertson, ''Religion and Reconciliation'', p. 101).</ref> The [[Augustan literature (ancient Rome)|Augustan poet]] [[Vergil]] says that Pluto is the father of the [[Furies]],<ref>When she had spoken these words, fearsome, she sought the earth: and summoned Allecto, the grief-bringer, from the house of the Fatal Furies, from the infernal shadows: in whose mind are sad wars, angers and deceits, and guilty crimes. A monster, hated by her own father Pluto, hateful to her Tartarean sisters: she assumes so many forms, her features are so savage, she sports so many black vipers. Juno roused her with these words, saying: 'Grant me a favour of my own, virgin daughter of Night, this service, so that my honour and glory are not weakened, and give way, and the people of Aeneas cannot woo Latinus with intermarriage, or fill the bounds of Italy(Aeneid 7.323 – Verg. A. 7.334 ). http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,0690,003:7:337</ref> but the mother is the goddess Nox ([[Nyx]]),<ref>Men speak of twin plagues, named the Dread Ones, whom Night bore untimely, in one birth with Tartarean Megaera, wreathing them equally in snaky coils, and adding wings swift as the wind.)." ( Aeneid 12. 845 – 12. 848 ff )</ref> not his wife Persephone.The lack of a clear distinction between Pluto and "chthonic Zeus" confuses the question of whether in some traditions, now obscure, Persephone bore children to her husband. In the late 4th century AD, Claudian's epic on the abduction motivates Pluto with a desire for children. The poem is unfinished, however, and anything Claudian may have known of these traditions is lost.<ref>Foley, ''Hymn to Demeter'', p. 110.</ref>

[[Justin Martyr]] (2nd century AD) alludes to children of Pluto, but neither names nor enumerates them.<ref>[[Justin Martyr]], ''Apology'' [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iii.v.html 2.5]; see discussion of the context by David Dawson, ''Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria'' (University of California Press, 1992), pp. 193–194.</ref> [[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]] (5th century AD) mentions a "son of Pluto."<ref>[[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]], lexicon entry on Ἰσοδαίτης (''Isodaitês''), 778 in the 1867 edition of Schmidt.</ref> In his 14th-century mythography, [[Boccaccio]] records a tradition in which Pluto was the father of the divine personification Veneratio ("Reverence"), noting that she had no mother because [[Proserpina]] (the Latin name of Persephone) was sterile.<ref>David Scott Wilson-Okamura, ''Virgil in the Renaissance'' (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 169, citing Boccaccio, ''[[Genealogia deorum gentilium]]'' 8.6; see also the Italian translation of 1644, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uQyMh91Ap2MC&q=Veneratione p. 130.] Boccaccio cites Servius as his source, adding that [[Theodontius]] names the daughter of Pluto as Reverentia and says she was married to [[Honos]] ("Honor"). [[Macaria (daughter of Hades)|Macaria]], or "blessedness," was a daughter of Hades, according to the [[Suda]].</ref>

In ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' (1590s), [[Edmund Spenser]] invents a daughter for Pluto whom he calls Lucifera.<ref>"Of griesly Pluto she the daughter was": [[Edmund Spenser]], ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'', I.iv.11.1, as noted by G.W. Kitchin, ''Book I of The Faery Queene'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879, 9th ed.), p. 180. In the 15th-century allegory ''[[The Assembly of Gods]]'' (lines 601–602), the figure of [[Vice]] personified is the bastard son of Pluto.</ref> The character's name was taken from the 16th-century mythography of Natale Conti, who used it as the Latin translation of Greek ''phosphor'', "light-bearer," a regular epithet of [[Hecate]].<ref>A.C. Hamilton, ''The Spenser Encyclopedia'' (University of Toronto Press, 1990, 1997), p. 351, noting that Hecate is called a "phosphor", bringer of light, by [[Euripides]], ''Helen'' 569. The title ''Phosphoros'' is a common one for Hecate; Sarah Iles Johnston, ''Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece'' (University of California Press, 1999), p. 206.</ref> Spenser incorporated aspects of the mysteries into ''The Faerie Queene''.<ref>Douglas Brooks-Davies, entry on "Mysteries" in ''The Spenser Encyclopedia'', pp. 486–487.</ref>