These passages describe a living person, or in one case Christ, going down among the dead. The pagan journeys share a geography of gates, rivers and a ferryman, and each has a purpose: Ulysses to consult Teiresias, Aeneas to see his father, Orpheus to recover his wife, Psyche on an errand for Venus. Dante keeps the same furniture for Hell, with an inscription over the gate and a guide. Eusebius’s account is different in kind: Christ goes down alone and breaks the bars to bring others back.
Chosen by hand, not counted: a passage is here when it is plainly about the topic, and the list is not every mention. Each is shown in the order the books were written, and each links to the section it is in.
Ulysses digs a trench, pours offerings and blood, and the ghosts of the dead come to drink.
… Here Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, while I drew my sword and dug the trench a cubit each way. I made a drink-offering to all the dead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and thirdly with water, and I sprinkled white barley meal over the whole, praying earnestly to the poor feckless ghosts, and promising them that when I got back to Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren heifer for them, the best I … Book 11 →Guided by the Sibyl, Aeneas passes the jaws of hell and makes his way towards Acheron.
… Obscure they went thro’ dreary shades, that led Along the waste dominions of the dead. Thus wander travelers in woods by night, By the moon’s doubtful and malignant light, When Jove in dusky clouds involves the skies, And the faint crescent shoots by fits before their eyes. … Book 6 →Orpheus goes down by the Taenarian gate and sings to the rulers of the dead for Eurydice.
… After the Rhodopeïan bard had sufficiently bewailed her in the upper realms of air, that he might try the shades below as well, he dared to descend to Styx by the Tænarian gate, and amid the phantom inhabitants and ghosts that had enjoyed the tomb, he went to Persephone, and him that held these unpleasing realms, the Ruler of the shades; … Book 10 →Venus sends Psyche to Proserpina; a tower tells her the way past Charon and the three-headed dog.
… Take this box and to Hell to Proserpina, and desire her to send me a little of her beauty, as much as will serve me the space of one day, and say that such as I had is consumed away since my sonne fell sicke, but returne againe quickly, for I must dresse my selfe therewithall, and goe to the Theatre of the Gods: then poore Psyches perceived the end of all fortune, thinking verely that she should never returne, and … Book 4 →In the Edessa account, Thaddeus preaches that Christ descended into Hades, broke its bars and raised the dead.
… And Thaddeus said, Now indeed will I keep silence, since I have been sent to proclaim the word publicly. But tomorrow assemble for me all thy citizens, and I will preach in their presence and sow among them the word of God, concerning the coming of Jesus, how he was born; and concerning his mission, for what purpose he was sent by the Father; … Book 1 →Dante reads the inscription over the gate of Hell and enters with Virgil among the lost.
… Through me the way is to the city dolent; Through me the way is to eternal dole; Through me the way among the people lost. Justice incited my sublime Creator; Created me divine Omnipotence, The highest Wisdom and the primal Love. Before me there were no created things, Only eterne, and I eternal last. All hope abandon, ye who enter in!” These words in sombre colour I beheld Written upon the summit of a gate; … Inferno 3 →