The glyph at the centre, the branches of Pluto's symbolism around it: gods (gold), archetypes (blue), traditions (green) and narratives (red). Tap a branch and its explanation opens on the right.
Hades / PlutoGreek
Son of Cronus and Rhea; he draws the underworld by lot. He has a cap that makes its wearer invisible, his name is not spoken: he is called 'Pluto' (the wealthy) and 'Clymenus' (the renowned). He abducts Persephone; lord of the dead but not death itself (that is Thanatos). Hades in the Greek family tree →
Dis Pater and OrcusRoman
Dis Pater, 'wealthy father', the Latin translation of Pluto; the Gauls derived themselves from him (Caesar). Orcus the underworld god of oaths and punishment; his name reaches as far as the English 'ogre'. The planet's name Pluto was chosen from this tradition.
Ereshkigal and NergalMesopotamian
Ereshkigal queen of the underworld, elder sister of Inanna; she rules behind seven gates. Nergal descends, overpowers her and becomes king as her husband. The underworld belongs first to the woman, then the pair rule. Ereshkigal in the Mesopotamian family tree →
Osiris and AnubisEgyptian
Osiris king of the dead and resurrection itself; Seth dismembers him, Isis gathers him. Anubis embalms and weighs the heart. In Egypt the underworld (Duat) is a place not of punishment but of renewal; Ra passes through it every night. Osiris in the Egyptian family tree →
YamaHindu
The first human to die and therefore king of the dead; his two dogs meet the souls, he rides a buffalo with his noose. Judge of dharma; in Buddhist Asia he passes to China and Japan as the judge of hell (Enma).
HelNorse
Daughter of Loki; half living, half dead. She rules Helheim, the land of those who die of sickness and old age, and does not give Baldr back. The battle-dead go not to her but to Odin and Freyja. Hel in the Norse family tree →
IzanamiJapanese
The mother who died bearing the fire kami; Izanagi goes to bring her back from Yomi and flees when he sees her rotting body. Izanami becomes ruler of Yomi: 'I will kill a thousand each day', Izanagi: 'I will have fifteen hundred born'. Izanami in the Japanese family tree →
Underworld and invisibilityThe cap of the Cyclopes
The cap of Hades (kyneē) makes its wearer invisible; Perseus borrows it on his way to Medusa. The underworld is what is not seen, not spoken, not named: the repressed, the buried, the hidden.
WealthPlutus, mine, seed
Pluto means 'wealthy': the mines are underground, the seed waits under the soil. Demeter's son Plutus (wealth) and Pluto share a root. The lord of the underworld is also the keeper of the treasure. Plutus in the family tree →
Abduction and returnPersephone, the seasons
Persephone descends to the underworld, stays part of the year, returns: the cycle of seed, winter, mourning and spring. Inanna's descent is the same pattern. The mysteries of Eleusis enacted this descent and return. Persephone in the family tree →
Death and judgementScales, three judges
In Egypt the heart is weighed against the feather; in Greece Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus judge; in India Yama, in Norway Hel receives. The underworld is not only the end but the reckoning.
The abduction of PersephoneHomeric Hymn to Demeter
As Kore picks a narcissus in the meadow of Nysa the earth splits and Hades carries her off in his golden chariot. Demeter searches nine days with torches and leaves the earth barren; Zeus sends Hermes. As Hades lets the girl go he feeds her a pomegranate seed: a third of the year she will stay below.
Orpheus in the underworldVirgil, Ovid
Orpheus softens Charon, Cerberus and Hades with his lyre; he takes Eurydice back on one condition, that he not look behind him. Before reaching the light he turns and looks, and Eurydice dies a second time. What is taken from the underworld is lost when one looks back. Orpheus in the family tree →
The dot on the plateTombaugh, 1930
Percival Lowell searched for 'Planet X' and died without finding it. In 1930 twenty-four-year-old Clyde Tombaugh laid the plates he photographed night after night side by side in a blink comparator; on 18 February he saw a dot in Gemini that had moved. In Oxford eleven-year-old Venetia Burney proposed the name: Pluto. In 2006 the International Astronomical Union classed it a dwarf planet.
P and L♇, Lowell's initials
Pluto's glyph ♇ is a monogram of Percival Lowell's initials; not mythological. Some astrologers use an alternative glyph (⯓) in the circle-crescent-cross scheme; both are 20th-century inventions.
Plutonium1941
The element after neptunium (94) was named plutonium in 1941; the material of the first atomic bomb. The name of the underworld god was given to destructive power. A naming tradition, not a classical metal correspondence.
In modern astrologyFor information; not used in this school
20th-century astrology gave Pluto the meanings of transformation, power, obsession, death and rebirth, and the sign Scorpio. In the classical tradition Scorpio is the night house of Mars; this school does not use the modern rulership and keeps Pluto as an indicator outside dignity.