His queen was Persephone. The underworld lies beneath the secret places of the earth, says the Iliad. In the Odyssey, the way to it leads over the edge of the world across the ocean. Other poets described its entrance through caverns and beside deep lakes. Homer described Hades as a vague and shadowy place, inhabited by ghosts.
Nothing is real there, and existence is like a miserable dream.
Later descriptions defined it more clearly as the place to where the wicked were punished and the good rewarded. On guard at its gates is Cerberus , who permits all to enter, but none to return. Upon their arrival, everyone is brought before Rhadamanthus, Minos and Aeacus, the three judges who pass sentence and send the guilty to everlasting torments and reward the good by sending them to the Elysian Fields . Related videos . More books .