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Updated: June 6, 2025
He said to himself that this was Styx and the fare an obolus. As he jumped on board, with hot face and hotter heart, Charon clicked his signal to the engines; the boat slowly snuffled itself half awake, and shoved out into the sleepy water. As they crossed, the light grew, and the gas-lamps of Tyre beaconed with fading gleam.
This may be observed from the course of the Roman history, above two thousand years before those inexhaustible silver mines of Potosi were known. The value of an obolus, and of every other coin between the time of Romulus and that of Augustus, gradually sunk about five parts in six, as appears by several passages out of the best authors.
At last the river came in sight, growing slate-colour in the earliest dawn. I could see the boat nuzzling up against the pier, and snoring in its sleep. I said to myself that this was Styx and the fare an obolus. As I jumped on board, with hot face and hotter heart, Charon clicked his signal to the engines, the boat slowly snuffled itself half awake, and we shoved out into the sleepy water.
In one hand was placed an obolus, to pay the ferryman that rowed him across the river of death; and in the other, a cake made of honey and flour, to appease the triple-headed dog, which guarded the entrance to the world of souls.
The pouch hanging from his shoulder held papyri testifying to his past achievements; tablets for memoranda; even pincers for extracting his beard; a comb; all the small objects of which a good Greek, addicted to the scrupulous care of his person, would not deprive himself, but search in it as he might he could find not a single obolus.
But Hermon no longer came to our house, and when I sent for him to bring him to reason, he positively declared that he would not accept another obolus from my father he would rather starve than permit any one to dictate to him in the choice of his subjects. Liberty was worth more than his uncle's gold. Yet my father sent him his annual allowance." "But he refused it," added Myrtilus.
"Not too fast, fair maid," replied the Magian, raising a warning hand. "There is no form which these intermediate beings can not assume. They have the control of all and everything which mortals may use, so the soul of Korinna revisiting these scenes may quite well have paid the ferryman with an obolus."
If these things are good, you ought to rejoice that he has obtained them; but if bad, be not grieved because you have not obtained them. You will be unjust then and insatiable, if you do not part with the price, in return for which those things are sold, and if you wish to obtain them for nothing. Well, what is the price of lettuces? An obolus perhaps.
In like manner, "as the Greeks gave the dead man the obolus for Charon's toll, and the old Prussians furnished him with spending money, to buy refreshment on his weary journey, so to this day German peasants bury a corpse with money in his mouth or hand," and this is also said to be one of the regular ceremonies of an Irish wake.
Horace's punch was sugarless and lemonless; the gentle Virgil never tasted the congenial cup of afternoon tea; and Socrates went from his cradle to his grave without ever knowing the flavour of peppermint bull's eyes. How the children managed to spend their Saturday as, or their weekly obolus, is a profound mystery.
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