Thursday, October 31, 2019

Who rows the boat for Dante and Virgil?

In Dante's epic poem Inferno, Dante and Virgil are ferried across a river called Styx by Phlegyas. The river has a marsh-like environment that acts as a prison for the damned, particularly the spirits who are morose and wrathful. The river is part of Hell's Circle of Anger, which is part of the 9 Circles of Hell. The ferryman, Phlegyas, is the ancestor of the Phlegyans and is the son of Ares and Chryse.
There is another ferryman, Charon, in Dante's Inferno. However, Charon is the ferryman of Acheron—one of the five rivers within the mythological underworld, known as the "river of woes." Charon's eternal duty is to ferry damned souls across the river and into the realm of Limbo.

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