To speak of death, Greek uses masculine name: Thanatos. In figural representations Thanatos appears, together with his brother, Hypnos, Sleep as man in the prime of life, wearing helmet and armor.' Raising the corpse of hero fallen on the field of battle, bearing it off to distant place so that it may receive funeral honors, the two divine brothers can be distinguished from ordinary warriors only by the wings on their shoulders. There is nothing terrifying and even less that is monstrous about this Thanatos whose role is not to kill but to welcome the dead, to transport him who has lost his life. In visual art and epic representations, virile Thanatos can even assume the form of the warrior who has been able to discover the perfect fulfillment of his life in what the Greeks call a beautiful death. Thanks to his exploits, in and through his heroic death, the warrior fallen on the front line of battle remains forever present in men's lives and memories: the epic unceasingly celebrates his name and sings his imperishable glory; sixth-century steles present him to public view upon his tomb, forever erect in the flower of his youth, shining with virile beauty. The masculine figure of Thanatos thus does not seem to incarnate the terrible destructive force that descends upon human beings to destroy them, but rather that state other than life, that new condition to which funeral rites offer men access and from which none can escape, since, born of mortal race, all must one day take leave of the light of the Sun to be delivered to the world of darkness and Night. In its frightening aspect, as power of terror expressing the unspeakable and the unthinkable, expressing the radical alterity, it is feminine figure that embodies the horror of death: the monstrous face of Gorgo, whose unbearable gaze transforms men into stone. And it is another feminine figure, Kerblack, grim, evil, horrible, atrocious-who represents death as malefic force that sweeps down upon humans to destroy them, and who, thirsting for their blood, devours them to swallow them into that night in which, according to destiny, they will perish. Certainly, Thanatos is not peaceful and ever gentle to mortals, as is his brother, Sleep. According to Hesiod, Thanatos has a heart of iron, an implacable soul of bronze, but, as the poet quickly adds, keeps forever the man he has taken [Theogony 763, 765-66]. One does not escape Thanatos; one does not return from him. Even cunning Sisyphus, who twice succeeds in tricking Thanatos, finally has to pass through the dire experience. Thanatos is in-