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Updated: May 14, 2025
This river, having fallen in here, and received awful power in the water, sinking beneath the earth, proceeds, folding itself round, in an opposite course to Pyriphlegethon, and meets it in the Acherusian lake from, a contrary direction.
The fourth river goes out on the opposite side, and falls first of all into a wild and savage region, which is all of a dark-blue colour, like lapis lazuli; and this is that river which is called the Stygian river, and falls into and forms the Lake Styx, and after falling into the lake and receiving strange powers in the waters, passes under the earth, winding round in the opposite direction, and comes near the Acherusian lake from the opposite side to Pyriphlegethon.
Indeed, where may be its parallel? the lake was the Acherusian, Mount Pindus was in sight, and the Elysian fields of mythology spread in the lovely plains over which they passed in approaching the town. On entering Joannina, they were appalled by a spectacle characteristic of the country.
Leaving these, we entered the Acherusian plain, and there found the demigods, men and women both, and the common dead, dwelling in their nations and tribes, some of them ancient and moldering "strengthless heads," as Homer has it, others fresh, with substance yet in them, Egyptians chiefly, these so long last their embalming drugs.
From hence it proceeds in a circle, turbulent and muddy, and, folding itself round it, reaches both other places and the extremity of the Acherusian lake, but does not mingle with its water; but, folding itself oftentimes beneath the earth, it discharges itself into the lower parts of Tartarus.
A local heaven and a local hell are found in every mythology. In Greece, as to heaven, there was a universal agreement that it was situated above the blue sky; but as to hell, much difference of opinion prevailed. There were many who thought that it was a deep abyss in the interior of the earth, to which certain passages, such as the Acherusian cave in Bithynia, led.
In after times the Nisaean Megarians named it Soönautes when they were about to settle in the land of the Mariandyni. For indeed the river saved them with their ships when they were caught in a violent tempest. By this way the heroes took the ship through the Acherusian headland and came to land over against it as the wind had just ceased.
Here we have a characteristic specimen of the audacity of Aristophanes: he does not even spare the patron of his own art, in whose honour this very play was exhibited. It was thought that the gods understood a joke as well, if not better, than men. Bacchus rows himself over the Acherusian lake, where the frogs merrily greet him with their melodious croakings.
This river having fallen in here, and received awful power in the water, sinking beneath the earth, proceeds, folding itself round, in an opposite course to Pyriphlegethon, and meets it in the Acherusian lake from a contrary direction. Neither does the water of this river mingle with any other, but it, too, having gone round in a circle, discharges itself into Tartarus opposite to Pyriphlegethon.
The scene is first at Thebes, of which both Bacchus and Hercules were natives; afterwards the stage is changed, without its ever being left by Bacchus, to the nether shore of the Acherusian lake, which must have been represented by the sunken space of the orchestra, and it was not till Bacchus landed at the other end of the logeum that the scenery represented the infernal world, with the palace of Pluto in the back-ground.
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