Euripides, Alcestis (ed. David Kovacs), line 435 (search)
Chorus
O daughter of Pelias, farewell, and may you have joy even as you dwell in the sunless house of Hades! Let Hades, black-haired god, and the old man who sits at oar and tiller, ferryman of souls, be sure that it is by far the best of women that he has ferried in his skiff across the lake of Acheron.
Euripides, Bacchae (ed. T. A. Buckley), line 1330 (search)
mos
Gods should not resemble mortals in their anger.
Dionysus
My father Zeus approved this long ago.
Agave
Alas! A miserable exile has been decreed for us, old man.
Dionysus
Why then do you delay what must necessarily be?
Kadmos
Child, what a terrible disaster we have all come to—unhappy you, your sisters, and unhappy me. I shall reach a foreign land as an aged immigrant. Still it is foretold that I shall bring into Hellas a motley barbarian army. Leading their spears, I, having the fierce nature of a serpent, will bring my wife Harmonia, daughter of Ares, to the altars and tombs of Hellas. I will neither rest from my troubles in my misery, nor will I sail over the downward flowing Acheron and be at peace.
Agave
O father, I will go into exile deprived of you.
Kadmos
Why do you embrace me with your hands, child, like a swan for its exhausted gray-haired parent?
Agave
For where can I turn, banished from my father-land?
Kadmos
I do not know, child; your father is a poor all
Euripides, Heracles (ed. E. P. Coleridge), line 763 (search)
Chorus
Dances, dances and banquets now prevail throughout the holy town of Thebes. For change from tears, change from sorrow give birth to song. The new king is gone; our former monarch rules, having made his way even from the harbor of Acheron. Hope beyond all expectation is fulfilled.
Euripides, Heracles (ed. E. P. Coleridge), line 822 (search)
father Zeus ever suffer me or Hera to harm him. But now that he has accomplished the labors of Eurystheus, Hera wishes to brand him with the guilt of shedding kindred blood by slaying his own children, and I wish it also. Come then, unwed maid, child of black Night, harden your heart relentlessly, send forth frenzy upon this man, confound his mind even to the slaying of his children, drive him, goad him wildly on his mad career, shake out the sails of death, that when he has conveyed over Acheron's ferry that fair group of children by his own murderous hand, he may learn to know how fiercely against him the wrath of Hera burns and may also experience mine; otherwise, if he should escape punishment, the gods will become as nothing, while man's power will grow.
Madness
Of noble parents was I born, the daughter of Night, sprung from the blood of Ouranos; and these prerogatives I hold, not to use them in anger against friends, nor do I have any joy in visiting the homes of men; and I
Creon enters. He is followed by attendants carrying the body of Menoeceus.
Creon
Ah me! what shall I do? Am I to mourn with tears myself or my city, which has a cloud around it [as if it went through Acheron]? My son has died for his country, bringing glory to his name, but grievous woe to me. His body I have just now taken from the dragon's rocky lair and sadly carried the self-slain victim here in my arms; and the house is filled with weeping; but now I have come for my sister Jocasta, age seeking age, that she may bathe my child's corpse and lay it out. For those who are not dead must reverence the god below by paying honor to the dead.
Chorus Leader
Your sister, Creon, has gone out, and her daughter Antigone went with her.
Creon
Where did she go? What happened? Tell me.
Chorus Leader
She heard that her sons were about to engage in single combat for the royal house.
Creon
What do you mean? In my tenderness to my dead son, I was not able to learn this.
Chorus Leader
It is
ybulus had counselled him to slay those of his townsmen who were outstanding in influence or ability; with that he began to deal with his citizens in an evil manner. Whatever act of slaughter or banishment Cypselus had left undone, that Periander brought to accomplishment. In a single day he stripped all the women of Corinth naked, because of his own wife Melissa.Killed by her husband, perhaps accidentally; cp. Hdt. 3.50.
Periander had sent messengers to the Oracle of the Dead on the river Acheron in Thesprotia to enquire concerning a deposit that a friend had left, but Melissa, in an apparition, said that she would tell him nothing, nor reveal where the deposit lay, for she was cold and naked. The garments, she said, with which Periander had buried with her had never been burnt, and were of no use to her. Then, as evidence for her husband that she spoke the truth, she added that Periander had put his loaves into a cold oven.
When this message was brought back to Periander (for he ha
s, Odysseus of many devices,let there be in thy mind no concern for a pilot to guide thy ship,1 but set up thy mast, and spread the white sail, and sit thee down; and the breath of the North Wind will bear her onward. But when in thy ship thou hast now crossed the stream of Oceanus, where is a level shore and the groves of Persephone—tall poplars, and willows that shed their fruit—there do thou beach thy ship by the deep eddying Oceanus, but go thyself to the dank house of Hades. There into Acheron flow Periphlegethon and Cocytus, which is a branch of the water of the Styx;and there is a rock, and the meeting place of the two roaring rivers. Thither, prince, do thou draw nigh, as I bid thee, and dig a pit of a cubit's length this way and that, and around it pour a libation to all the dead, first with milk and honey, thereafter with sweet wine,and in the third place with water, and sprinkle thereon white barley meal. And do thou earnestly entreat the powerless heads of the dead, vowing
ausible account I have heard is this. Theseus invaded Thesprotia to carry off the wife of the Thesprotian king, and in this way lost the greater part of his army, and both he and Peirithous （he too was taking part in the expedition, being eager for the marriage） were taken captive. The Thesprotian king kept them prisoners at Cichyrus.
Among the sights of Thesprotia are a sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona and an oak sacred to the god. Near Cichyrus is a lake called Acherusia, and a river called Acheron. There is also Cocytus, a most unlovely stream. I believe it was because Homer had seen these places that he made bold to describe in his poems the regions of Hades, and gave to the rivers there the names of those in Thesprotia. While Theseus was thus kept in bonds, the sons of Tyndareus marched against Aphidna, captured it and restored Menestheus to the kingdom.
Now Menestheus took no account of the children of Theseus, who had secretly withdrawn to Elephenor in Euboea, but he was aware
t it into Greece from Thesprotia. And it is my opinion that when Heracles sacrificed to Zeus at Olympia he himself burned the thigh bones of the victims upon wood of the white poplar. Heracles found the white poplar growing on the banks of the Acheron, the river in Thesprotia, and for this reason HomerHom. Il. 13.389, and Hom. Il. 16.482. calls it “Acheroid.”
So from the first down to the present all rivers have not been equally suited for the growth of plants and trees. Tamarisks grow best and in the greatest numbers by the Maeander; the Boeotian Asopus can produce the tallest reeds; the persea tree flourishes only in the water of the Nile. So it is no wonder that the white poplar grew first by the Acheron and the wild olive by the Alpheius, and that the dark poplar is a nursling of the Celtic land of the Celtic Eridanus.
Now that I have finished my account of the greatest altar, let me proceed to describe all the altars in Olympia. My narrative will follow in dealing with th
f the picture, the one on the left, shows Odysseus, who has descended into what is called Hades to inquire of the soul of Teiresias about his safe return home. The objects depicted are as follow. There is water like a river, clearly intended for Acheron, with reeds growing in it; the forms of the fishes appear so dim that you will take them to be shadows rather than fish. On the river is a boat, with the ferryman at the oars.
Polygnotus followed, I think, the poem called the Minyad. For in this chest such as they are wont to make for Demeter. All I heard about Tellis was that Archilochus the poet was his grandson, while as for Cleoboea, they say that she was the first to bring the orgies of Demeter to Thasos from Paros.
On the bank of Acheron there is a notable group under the boat of Charon, consisting of a man who had been undutiful to his father and is now being throttled by him. For the men of old held their parents in the greatest respect, as we may infer, among other instances,
