Aeneid Book 6, lines 295 - 330

Charon, the ferryman

by Virgil

The first terrors that Aeneas finds at the gates to the underworld are personified grief, care, disease and the other enemies of human happiness. Then comes a huge tree, to the underside of whose leaves false dreams cling; then a place where terrifying phantoms of the monsters of ancient myth writhe, hiss and threaten. Skirting these, Aeneas and the Sybil make for the Styx, the infernal river which the dead must cross to reach the underworld proper.

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Hinc via Tartarei quae fert Acherontis ad undas.
turbidus hic caeno vastaque voragine gurges
aestuat atque omnem Cocyto eructat harenam.
portitor has horrendus aquas et flumina servat
terribili squalore Charon, cui plurima mento
canities inculta iacet, stant lumina flamma,
sordidus ex umeris nodo dependet amictus.
ipse ratem conto subigit velisque ministrat
et ferruginea subvectat corpora cumba,
iam senior, sed cruda deo viridisque senectus.
huc omnis turba ad ripas effusa ruebat,
matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita
magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptaeque puellae,
impositique rogis iuvenes ante ora parentum:
quam multa in silvis autumni frigore primo
lapsa cadunt folia, aut ad terram gurgite ab alto
quam multae glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus annus
trans pontum fugat et terris immittit apricis.
stabant orantes primi transmittere cursum,
tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore.
navita sed tristis nunc hos nunc accipit illos,
ast alios longe summotos arcet harena.
Aeneas miratus enim motusque tumultu
‘dic,’ ait, ‘o virgo, quid vult concursus ad amnem?
quidve petunt animae? vel quo discrimine ripas
hae linquunt, illae remis vada livida verrunt?’
olli sic breviter fata est longaeva sacerdos:
‘Anchisa generate, deum certissima proles,
Cocyti stagna alta vides Stygiamque paludem,
di cuius iurare timent et fallere numen.
haec omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est;
portitor ille Charon; hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti.
nec ripas datur horrendas et rauca fluenta
transportare prius quam sedibus ossa quierunt.
centum errant annos volitantque haec litora circum;
tum demum admissi stagna exoptata revisunt.’

From here is the way to the waters of Tartarean Acheron.
Here, turbid with mud, in a vast chasm a whirlpool
boils and belches all its sand into Cocytus.
A horrible ferryman keeps these waters and streams
in fearful squalor, Charon, on whose chin stand enormous,
unkempt grey whiskers, his eyes stand out in flame and
a filthy garment dangles by a knot from his shoulders.
He punts the boat with his pole, handles the sails
and carries bodies across in his murky boat; he is
old now, but for a god old age is raw and green.
A whole crowd poured and rushed towards the place,
mothers, husbands, bodies of high-minded heroes,
their life spent, boys and unmarried girls, and youngsters
placed on the pyre before their parents’ eyes: as many
as the leaves that fall in the woods at the first chill
of autumn, or as many as the birds that flock to the ground
from the high crosswinds when the cold year drives them
over the seas and send them to sunny lands.
Those in front stood begging to make the crossing,
and stretched their hands in longing for the far shore.
But the surly sailor takes now these, now those,
while excluding others far back from the beach.
Aeneas, startled and moved at the uproar, said
“tell me, what does this crowding to the river mean?
What do the souls want? On what basis must some leave
the banks, while others row the leaden waters?”
The aged seer curtly replied: “Anchises’ son,
undoubted seed of the gods, what you see are
the deep marshes of Cocytus and the lake of Styx,
by which the Gods fear to swear, then break the sacred
bond. All this crowd you see is destitute, unburied;
the boatman is Charon; these, who sail, are buried.
Nor may they cross the dread banks and roaring flood
before their bones have rested in their graves. A hundred
years they flit and wander round these shores; then finally
they are accepted and see the marshes they long for.”

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. The death of Pallas
  2. Juno is reconciled
  3. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  4. Dido’s story
  5. Dido’s release
  6. The Harpy’s prophecy
  7. Laocoon and the snakes
  8. Aristaeus’s bees
  9. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  10. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  11. Rumour
  12. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  13. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  14. The journey to Hades begins
  15. The farmer’s happy lot
  16. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  17. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  18. Juno’s anger
  19. Sea-nymphs
  20. Catastrophe for Rome?
  21. The Syrian hostess
  22. The death of Priam
  23. The Trojans reach Carthage
  24. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  25. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  26. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  27. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  28. In King Latinus’s hall
  29. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  30. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  31. Aeneas is wounded
  32. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  33. Turnus the wolf
  34. The portals of sleep
  35. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  36. Turnus is lured away from battle
  37. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  38. King Mezentius meets his match
  39. Vulcan’s forge
  40. The death of Priam
  41. Turnus at bay
  42. The Aeneid begins
  43. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  44. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  45. Aeneas’s oath
  46. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  47. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  48. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  49. Aeneas and Dido meet
  50. The infant Camilla
  51. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  52. Love is the same for all
  53. The battle for Priam’s palace
  54. Dido falls in love
  55. The Trojan horse opens
  56. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  57. Jupiter’s prophecy
  58. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  59. Signs of bad weather
  60. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  61. The death of Dido.
  62. Storm at sea!
  63. The farmer’s starry calendar
  64. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  65. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  66. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  67. New allies for Aeneas
  68. The natural history of bees
  69. Juno throws open the gates of war
  70. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  71. Rites for the allies’ dead
  72. Aeneas joins the fray
  73. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  74. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  75. Mourning for Pallas
  76. Cassandra is taken
  77. What is this wooden horse?
  78. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  79. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  80. Into battle
  81. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  82. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  83. Virgil begins the Georgics
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