MDMD ferry

[Terrance]

Pythoness of the point. The  Point of Departure. 




Charon:  The ferryman who conveyed the dead to Hades over the river
Styx.  Satellite of Pluto.

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~terp/charonbook.html

The world-wide cultural significance of the concept of an afterlife
boatman, traced in the introduction, is noteworthy. In Greek literature
alone, the
encounter with Charon is an aspect of many mythic descents, including
those of Theseus,
Herakles, Dionysos, Alcestis, Orpheus, Persephone, and Psyche. The
limits and
potentialities of humanity are perhaps nowhere more sharply defined than
at the moment
of crossing, a myth central to our poetic imagination. When poets
throughout the centuries have dealt with eschatological concerns, with
fate, death, and
an afterlife existence, they have availed themselves countless times of
no less a
figure than Charon, the ferryman of Hades. 

O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul,
Who pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

		--Richard III, Act I, Scene 4



"A grim ferryman guards these floods and rivers, Charon, of
frightful slovenliness; on whose chin a load of gray hair
neglected lies; his eyes are flame: his vestments hang from his
shoulders by a knot, with filth overgrown. Himself thrusts on the
barge with a pole, and tends the sails, and wafts over the bodies
in his iron- colored boat, now in years: but the god is of fresh
and green old age. Hither the whole tribe in swarms come pouring
to the banks, matrons and men, the souls of magnanimous heroes
who had gone through life, boys and unmarried maids, and young
men who had been stretched on the funeral pile before the eyes of
their parents; as numerous as withered leaves fall in the woods
with the first cold of autumn, or as numerous as birds flock to
the land from deep ocean, when the chilling year drives them
beyond sea, and sends them to sunny climes. They stood praying to
cross the flood the first, and were stretching forth their hands
with fond desire to gain the further bank: but the sullen boatman
admits sometimes these, sometimes those; while others to a great
distance removed, he debars from the banks."

 -- Virgil, Aeneid, VI., Davidson's translation



-- "That may not be, said then the ferryman,
Least we unweeting hap to be fordonne;
For those same islands seeming now and than,
Are not firme land, nor any certein wonne,
But stragling plots which to and fro do ronne
In the wide waters; therefore are they hight
The Wandering Islands; therefore do them shonne;
For they have oft drawne many a wandring wight
Into most deadly daunger and distressed plight;
For whosoever once hath fastened
His foot thereon may never it secure
But wandreth evermore uncertain and unsure."

"Darke, dolefull, dreary, like a greedy grave,
That still for carrion carcasses doth crave;
On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owl,
Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave
Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl,
And all about it wandring ghosts did wayle and howl."

		--Melville, The Encantadas

The grim ferryman, a black-whiskered giant, half drunk withal, now
thrust the Canadians bv main force out of his door, launched a boat,
and bade me sit down in the stern-sheets. Where we crossed, the river
was white with foam, yet did not offer much resistance to a straight
passage, which brought us close to the outer edge of the American falls.
The rainbow vanished as we neared its misty base, and when I leaped
ashore,the sun had left all Niagara in shadow."

	--Hawthorne, Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man

DIONYSUS: 

        Why, that's the lake, by Zeus, 
        Whereof he spake, and yon's the ferry-boat. 


XANTHIAX:  
        Poseidon, yes, and that old fellow's Charon. 


DIONYSUS:

        Charon! O welcome, Charon! welcome, Charon! 


CHARON: 

        Who's for the Rest from every pain and ill? 
        Who's for the Lethe's plain? the Donkey-shearings? 
        Who's for Cerberia? Taenarum? or the Ravens? 
		
		--Aristophanes, Frogs