Demogorgon

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Genealogia deorum gentilium is a laudable 14th-century genealogy of ancient mythological deities complied by Giovanni Boccaccio. In it Boccaccio writes about Demogorgon, a primordial heathen god shrouded in mystery. Thereafter, Demogorgon began to be conjured in Renaissance writings to invoke terror and dread. In Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, he is "Downe in the bottome of the deepe Abysse … Farre from the view of the Gods and heauens blis." In Paradise Lost, John Milton speaks of "the dreaded name Of Demogorgon." And Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus calls on Demogorgon in a summons for Mephistopheles. After the Renaissance, Demogorgon began to make fewer appearances in the English language, but he has by no means been forgotten. These days his name is sometimes used in a more generic way of something that is bizarre or monstrous.