Acheron
Acheron | |
---|---|
Location | |
Country | Greece |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | |
• location | Ioannina regional unit, Epirus |
Mouth | |
• location | Ionian Sea |
• coordinates | 39°14′10″N 20°28′34″E / 39.23611°N 20.47611°E |
Length | 52 km (32 mi) |
Basin size | 705 km2 (272 sq mi) |
The Acheron (
The Acheron also features prominently in
Mythology
Ancient Greek mythology saw the Acheron, sometimes known as the "river of woe", as one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld.[2] The name is of uncertain etymology.[3]
Most classical accounts, including
The Homeric poems describe the Acheron as a river of Hades, into which Cocytus and Phlegethon both flowed.[4][5]
The Roman poet
The Suda describes the river as "a place of healing, not a place of punishment, cleansing and purging the sins of humans".[9]
According to later traditions, Acheron had been a son of
The river called Acheron with the nearby ruins of the
He claimed that Acheron flowed in the opposite direction from Oceanus beneath the earth under desert places. The word is also occasionally used as a synecdoche for Hades itself. Virgil mentions Acheron with the other infernal rivers in his description of the underworld in Book VI of the Aeneid. In Book VII, line 312[13] he gives to Juno the famous saying, flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo: 'If I cannot bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell.' The same words were used by Sigmund Freud as the dedicatory motto for his seminal book The Interpretation of Dreams, figuring Acheron as psychological underworld beneath the conscious mind.
The Acheron was sometimes referred to as a lake or swamp in Greek literature, as in Aristophanes' The Frogs and Euripides' Alcestis.
In
In culture
- In Mephistophiles: Sint mihi dei Acherontis propitii, or "May the gods of Hell (Acheron) be propitious unto me."
- In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, Acheron is referenced as a euphemism for the gates of hell by Hecate in Act III, scene v: "Get you gone, and at the pit of Acheron meet me i' th' morning.[14]
Namesake
Acheron Lake in Antarctica is named after the mythical river.
Several ships have been named HMS Acheron.[citation needed]
There is a stream named the Dry Acheron in Canterbury, New Zealand.[15]
The Eocene turtle genus Acherontemys of the Roslyn Formation in North America was named in reference to the Acheron mythos.[16]
Gallery
-
Acheron river
-
Acheron river (another view)
-
Truss bridge over the Acheron river
-
Acherontemys heckmanifossil carapace
References
- ^ "Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment" (in Greek). Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change. p. 54. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020.
- ^
For example:
March, Jennifer (5 June 2008). The Penguin Book of Classical Myths (reprint ed.). Penguin UK (published 2008). ISBN 9780141920597. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
His [Hades'] subterranean realm was a chill and sunless place, watered by five rivers: the Styx (Hateful River), the Acheron (River of Woe), the Kokytos (River of Lamentation), the Phlegethon (River of Flame), and the Lethe (River of Forgetfulness).
- ^ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 182.
- The Odysseyx. 513
- ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece i. 17, § 5
- ^ Virgil, Aeneid vi. 297
- ^ Virgil, Aeneid 6. 323
- ^ Morris Eaves; Robert N. Essick; Joseph Viscomi (eds.). "Illustrations to Dante's "Divine Comedy", object 5 (Butlin 812.5) "The Vestibule of Hell and the Souls Mustering to Cross the Acheron"". William Blake Archive. Retrieved January 25, 2015.
- ^ Suda On Line
- ^ Natalis Comes. Mythologiae, 3.1
- ^ Ovid, Metamorphoses 5. 539
- ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 33
- ^ Line 312 in the conventional lineation, see J.W. Mackail (Editor and Translator), The AEneid (Clarendon press, Oxford: 1930), p. 271.
- ^ Shakespeare, William. "Macbeth". Open Source Shakespeare.
- ^ "Dry Acheron Track".
- .
External links
- L'Achéron, Viol Consort Archived 2016-07-29 at the Wayback Machine