Death's Personification

Thanatos:

​Thanatos has a contradictive appearance in literature and art: for some, he was a beautiful, gentle youth, the impartial attendant to the Underworld.

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For others, he was a dark and ugly entity, hateful and bitter. In this guise, he sees the human souls as something owed to him when a human life ends.

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Greek Mythology

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Thanatos:​

In performing his duties, he was unbiased.

He could not be bargained with.

Although he was soft and gentle in carrying out his duties, he was merciless when someone’s time was up. It was for this reason, he became hated by both gods and humans. Regardless, his role was an extremely crucial one as he served as an important figure in the transition from life to death, thereby keeping the cycle going.

​Hypnos and Thanatos – Sleep and His Half-Brother Death, by English painter John William Waterhouse, 1874.

• Zeus ordered Thanatos to prepare a place in Tartarus where the mortal king would be chained up for the rest of eternity.

• Just as Thanatos was about to shackle King Sisyphus to his chains in the underworld, the shrewd king asked if Thanatos could demonstrate how the chains would work.

• A trusting Thanatos obliged and shackled himself.

• Sisyphus, having tricked death, left the scene and lived for a few additional period of time.

• ​No mortal on earth died.

• A raging mad Ares journeyed down to the underworld and quickly released Thanatos from his shackles.​

• For tricking Thanatos (Death), Sisyphus was made him roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it came close to the top.

• Sisyphus was consigned to doing this over and over again for eternity.

​After centuries of natural catastrophes, famines and to top it off, the plague, it is not difficult to see why superstitious human beings would try to figure out why they were being, as they believed, so severely punished and by whom. It must be someone quite vengeful. And when the reason was not something human, it had to be inhuman, devilish, evil, finding pleasure in the misery of others.

​https://www.worldhistory.org/image/12023/historys-deadliest-pandemics/

​The Plague by Arnold Böcklin, 1827–1901 CE. (Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland)

​The Garden of Death, 1896 Painting Hugo Simberg

​The Death, 1883 Painting Gustave Dore

​Death and the MaidenDeath and the Maiden, 1900 Marianne Stokes (1855-1927)

​Plague, The Black DeathPlague, The Black Death (Oil on Canvas), by Theodor Kittelsen

​Love's Passing, Angel of Death, 1884Love's Passing, Angel of Death, 1884 (Oil on Canvas), by Evelyn De Morgan

​https://www.worldhistoryedu.com/thanatos-origin-story-family-tree-symbols-power-abilities/