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Cocytus signifies the river of wailing; Pyriphlegethon, the river that burns with fire; Acheron, the river of woe; and the Styx, another river of the lower world, the river of hatred.
"But those who appear to have been guilty of curable yet great offences, such as those who through anger have committed any violence against father or mother, and have lived the remainder of their life in a state of penitence, or they who have become homicides in a similar manner, these must of necessity fall into Tartarus, but after they have fallen, and have been there for a year, the wave casts them forth, the homicides into Cocytus, but the parricides and matricides into Pyriphlegethon: but when, being borne along, they arrive at the Acherusian lake, there they cry out to and invoke, some those whom they slew, others those whom they injured, and invoking them they entreat and implore them to suffer them to go out into the lake, and to receive them, and if they persuade them they go out and are freed from their sufferings; but if not, they are borne back to Tartarus, and thence again to the rivers, and they do not cease from suffering this until they have persuaded those whom they have injured, for this sentence was imposed on them by the judges.
They then came to the black river Cocytus, where they found the ferryman, Charon, old and squalid, but strong and vigorous, who was receiving passengers of all kinds into his boat, magnanimous heroes, boys and unmarried girls, as numerous as the leaves that fall at autumn, or the flocks that fly southward at the approach of winter.
Rejoice! o'er the sluggard tide Of the Styx thy bark can glide, And thy steps evermore shall rove Through the glades of the happy grove; Where, far from the loath'd Cocytus, The loved and the lost invite us. Thou art slave to the earth no more! O soul, thou art freed! and we? Ah! when shall our toil be o'er? Ah! when shall we rest with thee?
But after they have fallen, and have been there for a year, the wave casts them forth, the homicides into Cocytus, but the parricides and matricides into Pyriphlegethon.
In that land of forgetfulness and shadows there is the unnavigable lake Avernus, Acheron, Styx, the groaning Cocytus, and Phlegethon, with its waves of fire.
How the Pandemonium Junction, With the Central will combine, Rattling both without compunction Down the Tartarus incline! Phlegethon no more need fright us, For we've bridged its fiery way; And the steamer on Cocytus Long ago has ceased to pay. Charon under sequestration Does the Stygian bark resign, Glad to find a situation As policeman to the line.
That which in your composition, is of the nature of fire, will return to the element of fire; that which is of the nature of earth, will rejoin itself to the earth; that which is air, will re-unite itself with air; that which is water, will resolve itself into water; there is no Hell, no Acheron, no Cocytus, no Phlegethon."
Their faces marks of bitter torture wear, While from their lips burst curses of despair; Their eyes are hollow, and full of woe, And their looks with heartfelt anguish Seek Cocytus' stream that runs wailing below, For the bridge o'er its waters they languish. And they say to each other in accents of fear, "Oh, when will the time of fulfilment appear?"
Its name, as the poets say, is Cocytus. "These things being thus constituted, when the dead arrive at the place to which their demon leads them severally, first of all they are judged, as well those who have lived well and piously as those who have not.
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