The watery passage Charon keeps
Sole warden of these murky deeps.
CONINGTON, AEneid, BOOK VI.
No living being was permitted to enter Charon's boat, or to cross the Stygian river without the passport of the golden bough. This could be obtained only by special favor of some powerful god, and few had been so favored. Even the dead, if their bodies had not received burial rites, were refused admission to the boat, until they had wandered on the shore for a hundred years. So the Sibyl told AEneas when he inquired why some were ferried over, while others were driven back, lamenting that they were not allowed to pass to their destined abode.
"The ghosts rejected are the unhappy crew
Deprived of sepulchres and funeral due;
The boatman, Charon; those, the buried host,
He ferries over to the further coast;
Nor dares his transport vessel cross the waves
With such whose bones are not composed in graves.
A hundred years they wander on the shore;
At length, their penance done, are wafted o'er."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.
One of these unhappy spirits AEneas recognised as that of his pilot Palinurus, who told the hero that he had not been drowned, or plunged into the sea by a god, for he did not know of the treachery of Somnus. He had fallen overboard, he said, and kept afloat for three days, clinging to the helm, which he had dragged away with him. On the fourth day he had swam ashore on the Italian coast, and would have been out of danger, had not the cruel natives there fallen upon him with their swords. His body he said was now tossing about in the waters of the harbor of Ve'li-a, and he begged AEneas to seek it out and give it burial, or, if this was impossible, to devise some means of helping him across the Stygian river. This latter proposal the Sibyl forbade as impious, saying that the decrees of the gods could not be thus altered. But she consoled Palinurus by predicting that the people of Velia should be punished by plagues from heaven until they erected a tomb to his memory, and that the place should forever bear his name. The modern name of the place is Capo di Palinuro—Cape of Palinurus.
[Illustration with caption: AENEAS CROSSING THE STYX. (Drawn by
Varian.)]
AEneas and his guide now approached the river. Charon at once seeing that they were mortal beings, roughly ordered them to advance no further.
"Mortal, whate'er, who this forbidden path
In arms presum'st to tread! I charge thee, stand,
And tell thy name, and business in the land!
Know, this the realm of night—the Stygian shore;
My boat conveys no living bodies o'er."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.
The Sibyl answered that her companion was the Trojan AEneas, illustrious for piety and valor, who desired to go down to the shades to see and converse with his father Anchises. Then from underneath her robe she produced the golden bough.
No more was needful; for the gloomy god
Stood mute with awe, to see the golden rod;
Admired the destined offering to his queen—
A venerable gift, so rarely seen.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.
The two mortals were now received into the boat and soon ferried safely to the other side. There they saw the three-headed watchdog Cer'be-rus, who made the dreary region resound with his frightful barking. The Sibyl flung him a cake composed of honey and drugged grain, which he greedily swallowed. Then the monster fell into a deep sleep. The passage being thus free, they proceeded on their way. Soon they came to the place where the judge Mi'nos sat, examining into the lives and crimes of departed mortals.