Pluto

Also known as: Dis / king of the shades · Family: Underworld · Role: god of the underworld · First appears: Fable 50

At Sicilian land, Pluto, king of the shades, fears that the earth may split open beneath Typhœus and let daylight into the Underworld, “and the King of the shades himself is in dread.” Cupid then strikes him in the breast with a barbed arrow.

At Henna, Pluto beholds and seizes Proserpina, carrying her away by force. Though Ceres objects that he may not be her son-in-law against her will, Jupiter, Pluto’s brother and son of Saturn, divides the year so that Proserpine spends six months with her mother and six with her husband in the Infernal Regions.

Later, Pluto and Persephone—his powerful spouse—grant Orpheus’s request and summon Eurydice from the shades, on condition that Orpheus not look back before leaving their dominions. Some writers also place Mentha in a relationship with Pluto.

Relationship record

Life events

• Pluto becomes afraid that Sicily may split open and release daylight into the underworld.(Fable50 · 📍 Sicilian land)
  • “Then does the earth tremble, and the King of the shades himself is in dread, lest it may open, and the ground be parted with a wide chasm, and, the day being let in, may affright the trembling ghosts.”
• Cupid shoots Pluto in the breast with a sharp, unerring arrow.(Fable50)
  • With: Cupid
  • “And he bent the flexible horn, by pressing his knee against it, and struck Pluto in the breast with the barbed arrow.”
• Pluto seizes Proserpina and carries her away by force.(Fable51 · 📍 Henna)
  • With: Proserpina
  • “There the spring is perpetual. In this grove, while Proserpina is amusing herself, and is plucking either violets or white lilies, and while, with childlike eagerness, she is filling her baskets and her bosom, and is striving to outdo {her companions} of the same age in gathering, almost at the same instant she is beheld, beloved, and seized by Pluto;[47] in such great haste is love.”
• Jupiter divides Proserpine’s yearly residence between Ceres and the Infernal Regions.(Fable52 · 📍 Infernal Regions)
  • With: Jupiter Ceres Proserpine
  • “Jupiter, to console Ceres for her loss, decides that her daughter shall remain six months each year with her mother upon earth, and the other six with her husband, in the Infernal Regions.”
• Pluto and Persephone grant Orpheus’s request and summon Eurydice from the shades.(Fable83)
  • With: Orpheus Persephone Eurydice
  • “nor could the royal consort, nor he who rules the infernal regions, endure to deny him his request; and they called for Eurydice.”