The
Acheron, the Mother of Sorrows, carrying in its stream the woes
of all mankind, merges with the darker waters of the Cocytus,
land of the doomed wanderer. Here even the waves and ripples cry
out, and none but Charon dare the fearsome tide.
Phlegethon flows here. Cooling water, water to assuage one's
thirst, to cool one's brow?
No!
Fire! Liquid fire! With consistency of molten lava the glowing
red stream burns all within its path.
And here also Lethe. The one good gift in all of Hades. A
draught from the stream cleanses the mind of all remembrances.
The evil acts, regretted, are no more. The rare acts of
kindness, bright gems in memory, fade. What was, what might have
been, washed away by this one blessed draught. Even, 'tis said,
gentle Lethean dews bring blessed forgetfulness, release from
love lost, sin committed.
The mighty rivers flow, and in the depth of Hades merge into a
thunderous stream. Dense dark fog rises from that surface, more
black than gray, then fades to rise again. Here, midst meadows
of asphodels, the monstrous stream surges and pounds in a huge
moat, guardian to the great castle.
A moat deep and broad, home of fabled creatures, forbidding and
dark. From its surface exudes pestilential odors, and a drop of
malignant liquid from its depths, extracted from time to time,
spreads all repugnant ills upon the world. The misery of
cholera, the evil plague, unnamed and unknown diseases are its
behest to mankind.
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