Demogorgon
Encyclopedia
Demogorgon, although often ascribed to Greek mythology
, is actually attributed to a fourth-century scholar, imagined as the name of a pagan
god
or demon
, associated with the underworld
and envisaged as a powerful primordial
being, whose very name had been taboo
.
words δαίμων daimon
('spirit
' given the Christian connotations of 'demon' in the early Middle Ages)—or, less likely δῆμος demos
('people')— and Γοργών Gorgon
('grim') or γοργός gorgos ('quick'). Another, less accepted theory claims that it is derived from a variation of 'demiurge
', although the two scholarly editions of the earliest mention of the term (Jahnke 1898 and Sweeney 1997) see Demogorgon as a corruption of demiurge
.
's Thebaid
often attributed in manuscripts to Lactantius Placidus. The commentary, which was composed ca. 350-400 AD, is the most common medieval commentary on the poem and is transmitted in most early editions up to 1600. The commentary has been misattributed to the Christian author Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius, even though the commentator appears to have been Mithraic.
The name Demogorgon is introduced in a discussion of Thebaid 4.516, which mentions 'the supreme being of the threefold world' (triplicis mundi summum); in a mystical passage that seems to show Jewish influence, as it mentions Moses and Isaiah); the author says of Statius, Dicit deum Demogorgona summum ('He is speaking of the Demogorgon, the supreme god', or perhaps 'He is speaking of a god, the supreme Demogorgon'). Prior to Lactantius, there is no mention of the supposed "Demogorgon" anywhere by any writer, pagan or Christian.
In the Early Middle Ages, Demogorgon is mentioned in the tenth-century Adnotationes super Lucanum, a series of short notes to Lucan
's Pharsalia
that are included in the Commenta Bernensia
, the "Berne Scholia on Lucan". By the late Middle Ages, the reality of a primordial "Demogorgon" was so well fixed in the European imagination that "Demogorgon's son Pan" became a bizarre variant reading for "Hermes' son Pan" in one manuscript tradition of Boccaccio
's Genealogia Deorum gentilium
("Genealogies of the Gods":1.3-4 and 2.1), misreading a line in Ovid
's Metamorphoses
.
After Boccaccio Demogorgon is mentioned as a "primal" god in quite a few Renaissance texts, and impressively glossed "Demon-Gorgon," i.e., "Terror-Demon" or "God of the Earth." The French historian and mythographer Jean Seznec
, for instance, now spots in Demogorgon an allusion to the Demiurge
("Craftsman" or "Maker") of Plato
's Timaeus.
For a remarkable early text actually identifying Ovid's Demiurge (1/1, here) as "sovereign Demogorgon," see the paraphrase of Metamorphoses I in Abraham France, The third part of the Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch (London, 1592), sig. A2v."
Note, however, Milton does not refer to the inhabitants of Hell itself, but of an unformed region where Chaos rules with Night. In Milton's epic poem Satan passes through this region while traveling from Hell to Earth.
Demogorgon's name was earlier invoked by Faustus in Scene III of Christopher Marlowe
's Doctor Faustus (1590) when the eponymous Doctor summons Mephistopheles
with a Latin incantation.
The 16th century Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer
described him as the master of fate in hell's hierarchy.
According to Ariosto
's Orlando Furioso
, Demogorgon has a splendid temple palace in the Himalaya mountains where every five years the fates and genii are all summoned to appear before him and give an account of their actions. They travel through the air in various strange conveyances, and it is no easy matter to distinguish between their convention and a Witches' Sabbath. When elements of Ariosto's poem supplied Philippe Quinault
's libretto for Jean-Baptiste Lully
's opera Roland, performed at Versailles
, 8 January 1685, Demogorgon was king of the fairies and master of ceremonies.
Demorgogon is also mentioned in the Book II of the epic poema El Bernardo written in Mexico by Bernardo de Balbuena
in the 17th. century and published in Spain 1624. The passage tells how the fairy Alcina visits Demorgogon in his infernal palace.
He is mentioned in Edmund Spenser
's The Faerie Queene
:
And:
Demogorgon is the central character in Voltaire
's 1756 short story Plato's Dream
- a "lesser superbeing" who was responsible for creating the planet Earth.
He is also the protagonist of an opera Il Demogorgone, ovvero il
filosofo confuso ("Demogorgon, or the Confused Philosopher" by Vincenzo Righini
(1786) with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte
, which was originally written for Mozart.
In Moby-Dick
, Starbuck describes the white whale as Ahab
's demogorgon.
Demogorgon is also a character in Percy Bysshe Shelley
's Prometheus Unbound. In this lyrical drama, Demogorgon is the offspring of Jupiter
and Thetis
who eventually dethrones Jupiter. It is never mentioned whether Demogorgon is male or female and it is instead portrayed as a dark, shapeless spirit. The theory of Demogorgon's name originating from Greek demos and gorgos is possibly at work in this text as an allusion to a politically active and revolutionary populace. Shelley's allusions to the French Revolution further support this.
In the poem "Demogorgon" by Álvaro de Campos
, the writer is afraid of becoming mad by learning the true nature and unveiling the mystery of life.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, is actually attributed to a fourth-century scholar, imagined as the name of a pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
or demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
, associated with the underworld
Underworld
The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...
and envisaged as a powerful primordial
Primordial
Primordial may refer to:* Primordial sea . See abiogenesis* Primordial nuclide, nuclides, a few radioactive, that formed before the Earth existed and are stable enough to still occur on Earth...
being, whose very name had been taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
.
Etymology
The origins of the name Demogorgon are uncertain, partly because the name itself was perhaps of imaginary coinage. Various theories suggest that the name is derived from the GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
words δαίμων daimon
Daimon
Daimon is an Ancient Greek word referring to lesser supernatural beings, including minor gods and the spirits of dead heroes.It may also refer to:- People :* Daimon Shelton , professional American football player...
('spirit
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
' given the Christian connotations of 'demon' in the early Middle Ages)—or, less likely δῆμος demos
Demos
Demos may refer to:* Demos, a rhetorical term for the population of an ancient Greek state** Deme or Demoi, the term for an ancient subdivision of Attica, Greece...
('people')— and Γοργών Gorgon
Gorgon
In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...
('grim') or γοργός gorgos ('quick'). Another, less accepted theory claims that it is derived from a variation of 'demiurge
Demiurge
The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics...
', although the two scholarly editions of the earliest mention of the term (Jahnke 1898 and Sweeney 1997) see Demogorgon as a corruption of demiurge
Demiurge
The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics...
.
Derivation and history
Demogorgon is first mentioned in the commentary on StatiusStatius
Publius Papinius Statius was a Roman poet of the 1st century CE . Besides his poetry in Latin, which include an epic poem, the Thebaid, a collection of occasional poetry, the Silvae, and the unfinished epic, the Achilleid, he is best known for his appearance as a major character in the Purgatory...
's Thebaid
Thebaid (Latin poem)
The Thebaid is a Latin epic in twelve books written in dactylic hexameter by Publius Papinius Statius . The poem deals with the Theban cycle of mythology and treats the assault of the seven champions of Argos against the city of Thebes.-Composition:Based on Statius' own testimony, the Thebaid was...
often attributed in manuscripts to Lactantius Placidus. The commentary, which was composed ca. 350-400 AD, is the most common medieval commentary on the poem and is transmitted in most early editions up to 1600. The commentary has been misattributed to the Christian author Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius, even though the commentator appears to have been Mithraic.
The name Demogorgon is introduced in a discussion of Thebaid 4.516, which mentions 'the supreme being of the threefold world' (triplicis mundi summum); in a mystical passage that seems to show Jewish influence, as it mentions Moses and Isaiah); the author says of Statius, Dicit deum Demogorgona summum ('He is speaking of the Demogorgon, the supreme god', or perhaps 'He is speaking of a god, the supreme Demogorgon'). Prior to Lactantius, there is no mention of the supposed "Demogorgon" anywhere by any writer, pagan or Christian.
In the Early Middle Ages, Demogorgon is mentioned in the tenth-century Adnotationes super Lucanum, a series of short notes to Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...
's Pharsalia
Pharsalia
The Pharsalia is a Roman epic poem by the poet Lucan, telling of the civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great...
that are included in the Commenta Bernensia
Commenta Bernensia
The Commenta Bernensia, also known as the Bern scholia, are commentaries or marginal notes in a 10th-century manuscript preserved in the Burgerbibliothek of Bern, Switzerland....
, the "Berne Scholia on Lucan". By the late Middle Ages, the reality of a primordial "Demogorgon" was so well fixed in the European imagination that "Demogorgon's son Pan" became a bizarre variant reading for "Hermes' son Pan" in one manuscript tradition of Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
's Genealogia Deorum gentilium
Genealogia Deorum Gentilium
Genealogia deorum gentilium, known in English as On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles, is a mythography or encyclopedic compilation of the tangled family relationships of the classical pantheons of Ancient Greece and Rome, written in Latin prose from 1360 onwards by the Italian author and...
("Genealogies of the Gods":1.3-4 and 2.1), misreading a line in Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)
Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...
.
After Boccaccio Demogorgon is mentioned as a "primal" god in quite a few Renaissance texts, and impressively glossed "Demon-Gorgon," i.e., "Terror-Demon" or "God of the Earth." The French historian and mythographer Jean Seznec
Jean Seznec
Jean Seznec was a historian and mythographer whose most influential book, for English-speaking readers, has been La Survivance des dieux antiques, 1940, translated as The Survival of the Pagan Gods: Mythological Tradition in Renaissance Humanism and Art,, 1953...
, for instance, now spots in Demogorgon an allusion to the Demiurge
Demiurge
The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics...
("Craftsman" or "Maker") of Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's Timaeus.
Timaeus (dialogue)
Timaeus is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue given by the title character, written circa 360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world and human beings. It is followed by the dialogue Critias.Speakers of the dialogue are Socrates,...
For a remarkable early text actually identifying Ovid's Demiurge (1/1, here) as "sovereign Demogorgon," see the paraphrase of Metamorphoses I in Abraham France, The third part of the Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch (London, 1592), sig. A2v."
In literature
Demogorgon was taken up by Christian writers as a demon of Hell:"Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon."
— John MiltonJohn MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, Paradise LostParadise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
II. 966.
Note, however, Milton does not refer to the inhabitants of Hell itself, but of an unformed region where Chaos rules with Night. In Milton's epic poem Satan passes through this region while traveling from Hell to Earth.
Demogorgon's name was earlier invoked by Faustus in Scene III of Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...
's Doctor Faustus (1590) when the eponymous Doctor summons Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...
with a Latin incantation.
The 16th century Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer
Johann Weyer
Johann Weyer , was a Dutch physician, occultist and demonologist, disciple and follower of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. He was among the first to publish against the persecution of witches...
described him as the master of fate in hell's hierarchy.
According to Ariosto
Ludovico Ariosto
Ludovico Ariosto was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic Orlando Furioso . The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, describes the adventures of Charlemagne, Orlando, and the Franks as they battle against the Saracens with diversions...
's Orlando Furioso
Orlando Furioso
Orlando Furioso is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was not published in its complete form until 1532...
, Demogorgon has a splendid temple palace in the Himalaya mountains where every five years the fates and genii are all summoned to appear before him and give an account of their actions. They travel through the air in various strange conveyances, and it is no easy matter to distinguish between their convention and a Witches' Sabbath. When elements of Ariosto's poem supplied Philippe Quinault
Philippe Quinault
Philippe Quinault , French dramatist and librettist, was born in Paris.- Biography :Quinault was educated by the liberality of François Tristan l'Hermite, the author of Marianne. Quinault's first play was produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, when he was only eighteen...
's libretto for Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...
's opera Roland, performed at Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....
, 8 January 1685, Demogorgon was king of the fairies and master of ceremonies.
Demorgogon is also mentioned in the Book II of the epic poema El Bernardo written in Mexico by Bernardo de Balbuena
Bernardo de Balbuena
Bernardo de Balbuena was a Spanish poet. He was the first of a long series of Latin American poets who extolled the special beauties of the New World.- Life :...
in the 17th. century and published in Spain 1624. The passage tells how the fairy Alcina visits Demorgogon in his infernal palace.
Aquí Demogorgon está sentado
en su banco fatal, cuyo decreto
de las supremas causas es guardado
por inviolable y celestial preceto.
Las parcas y su estambre delicado
a cuyo huso el mundo está sujeto,
la fea muerte y el vivir lúcido
y el negro lago del oscuro olvido
(Libro II, estrofa 19)
He is mentioned in Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
's The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...
:
A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name
Great Gorgon, Prince of darknesse and dead night,
At which CocytusCocytusCocytus or Kokytos, meaning "the river of wailing" , is a river in the underworld in Greek mythology. Cocytus flows into the river Acheron, across which dwells the underworld, the mythological abode of the dead. There are five rivers encircling Hades...
quakes, and StyxStyx (mythology)The Styx is a river in Greek mythology that formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld . It circles the Underworld nine times...
is put to flight. (Canto I, stanza 37)
And:
Downe in the bottome of the deepe Abysse
Where Demogorgon in dull darknesse pent,
Farre from the view of Gods and heauens blis,
The hideous ChaosChaos- Mythology, philosophy, and religion :* Chaos , the concept in classical creation myths** a chasm or abyss, especially in biblical usage, see Abyss** prima materia, the primordial state from which the cosmos originated...
keepes, their dreadfull dwelling is. (Book IV, Canto ii, stanza 47)
Demogorgon is the central character in Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's 1756 short story Plato's Dream
Plato's Dream
Plato's Dream is a short story written in the 18th century by the French philosopher and satirist Voltaire. Along with Voltaire's 1752 short story Micromégas, Plato's Dream is considered by many to be one of the earliest works in the genre of science fiction.Plato's Dream is a pointed...
- a "lesser superbeing" who was responsible for creating the planet Earth.
He is also the protagonist of an opera Il Demogorgone, ovvero il
filosofo confuso ("Demogorgon, or the Confused Philosopher" by Vincenzo Righini
Vincenzo Righini
Vincenzo Maria Righini was an Italian composer, singer and kapellmeister.- Biography :Righini was born at Bologna and studied singing and composition with Padre Martini in his home town. Initially he performed as a singer in Florence and Rome , however, according to Fétis he made his debut as a...
(1786) with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte
Lorenzo Da Ponte
Lorenzo Da Ponte was a Venetian opera librettist and poet. He wrote the librettos for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's greatest operas, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte....
, which was originally written for Mozart.
In Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
, Starbuck describes the white whale as Ahab
Ahab
Ahab or Ach'av or Achab in Douay-Rheims was king of Israel and the son and successor of Omri according to the Hebrew Bible. His wife was Jezebel....
's demogorgon.
Demogorgon is also a character in Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
's Prometheus Unbound. In this lyrical drama, Demogorgon is the offspring of Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
and Thetis
Thetis
Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths...
who eventually dethrones Jupiter. It is never mentioned whether Demogorgon is male or female and it is instead portrayed as a dark, shapeless spirit. The theory of Demogorgon's name originating from Greek demos and gorgos is possibly at work in this text as an allusion to a politically active and revolutionary populace. Shelley's allusions to the French Revolution further support this.
In the poem "Demogorgon" by Álvaro de Campos
Álvaro de Campos
Álvaro de Campos was one of the poet Fernando Pessoa's various heteronyms, widely known by his powerful and wraithful writing style. Campos' works may be split in three phases: the decadentist phase, the futuristic phase and the decadent phase...
, the writer is afraid of becoming mad by learning the true nature and unveiling the mystery of life.
See also
- Christian demons in popular cultureChristian demons in popular cultureThe demons of the Christian tradition have appeared many times in popular culture.- Adramelech :*In the video game Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, Adrammelech is a dragon-like Lucavi with a goatlike appearance...
- ApollyonApollyon (disambiguation)Apollyon is the Greek name for Abaddon, the spiritual being named as the destroyer in Christian apocalyptic theology....
- The Judeo-Christian Hell personified, via a etymologically Greek mythic name, as a being which dispenses the apocalyptic doom of Abaddon.