Daniel

DARKNESS 8 7

Daniel continued

• See NEBUCHADNEZZAR at Dreams, Hair, and Insanity

SHADRACH, MESHACH AND ABEDNECO at Temperature

WRITING ON THE WALL at Communication.

Darkness

It is striking that the idea of darkness has commonly been linked with that of the underworld, the land of the dead. CIMMERIAN, PLUTONIAN, and STYGIAN can all be used as synonyms for 'gloomy'. An obscurely lit interior is sometimes described with reference to CARAVAGGIO and REMBRANDT.

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (c.1571-1610) was an Italian painter whose paintings are distinctive in their dramatic use of light and shade (chiaroscuro), often showing figures against a very dark background with light shining from one side or from below onto their faces.

[The table] was lit by one tall lamp with a dark shade; the light flowed downwards, concentrated on the white cloth, and was then reflected up, lighting our faces strangely, Caravaggio fashion, against the surrounding darkness.

JOHN FOWLES The Magus, 1966

Cimmerian In Greek mythology, the Cimmerians were people who lived in a land on the edge of the world which was perpetually covered with mist and cloud and where the sun never shone. In Homer's Odyssey the land of the Cimmerians is the place nearest to Hades, the land of the dead. It contains Persephone's grove, to which Odysseus goes to make contact with the spirits of the dead.

A kind of landscape and weather which leads travellers from the South to describe our island as Homer's Cimmerian land, was not, on the face of it, friendly to women.

THOMAS HARDY The Return of the Native, 1880

ErebllS In Greek mythology, Erebus was the primeval god of darkness, born from Chaos right at the beginning of the world. The name was later identified with Hades, and is used with this meaning in the Iliad and the Odyssey. • See special entry n HADES on p. 172.

Ginnungagap In Scandinavian mythology, Ginnungagap (also spelt GinnungGap) was the Great Void, the space between Niflheim, the land of the dead, and Muspelheim, the region of intense heat. It had no beginning or end and no night and day.

She wrapped round her a long red woollen cravat and opened the door. The night in

8 8 DARKNESS

all its fulness met her flatly on the threshold, like the very brink of an absolute void, or the antemundane Cinnung-Cap believed in by her Teuton forefathers. For her eyes were fresh from the blaze, and here there was no street lamp or lantern to form a kindly transition between the inner glare and the outer dark.

THOMAS HARDY The Woodlanders, 1887

Hades In Greek mythology Hades, also known as Pluto, was the brother of Zeus and Poseidon and the lord of the underworld, the land of the dead. Those who died were said to have gone to the house of Hades. The name Hades later came to refer to the place itself, a place of perpetual darkness and gloom. • See special entry n HADES on p. 172.

Niflheim In Scandinavian mythology, Niflheim was the underworld, a place of eternal cold, darkness, and mist. While those who died in battle were believed to go to Valhalla and feast with Odin, those who died of old age or illness were believed to go to Niflheim.

But he continued motionless and silent in that gloomy Niflheim or fogland which involved him, and she proceeded on her way.

THOMAS HARDY The Woodlanders, 1887

Ninth Plague of Egypt The Book of Exodus in the Old Testament relates how Pharaoh refused to allow Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land. To punish Pharaoh, God sent ten plagues to Egypt, the ninth of which was 'a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days' (Exod. io: 22). The Israelites in Goshen were spared this darkness. • See special entry

D MOSES AND THE BOOK OF EXODUS 0/7 /?. 264.

By reason of the density of the interwoven foliage overhead, it was gloomy there at cloudless noontide, twilight in the evening, dark as midnight at dusk, and black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight.

THOMAS HARDY Far from the Madding Crowd, 1874

Pluto In Greek mythology, Pluto was an alternative name for Hades, lord of the underworld. It was considered unwise to mention Hades by his true name, so the name Pluto, meaning literally 'the rich one', was often used instead. The realm of Pluto is therefore the underworld, a land of perpetual darkness and gloom. •See special entry a HADES on p. 172.

Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore,

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore?

EDGAR ALLEN POE The Raven, 1845

The ravine now expandingly descends into a great, purple, hopper-shaped hollow, far sunk among many Plutonian, shaggy-wooded mountains.

HERMAN MELVILLE The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids, 1856

I don't want to die on the Sicilian plains—to be snatched away, like Proserpine in the same locality, to the Plutonian shades.

HENRY JAMES Portrait of a Lady, 1881

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-69) w a s a Dutch painter known for his subtle use of light and shadow, or chiaroscuro, and especially for the obscure lighting and brown-and-black palette of his later paintings.

The interior was shadowy with a peculiar shade. The strange luminous semi-