"Charon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Isle lies Hood's Isle, or McCain's Beclouded Isle; and upon its south side is a vitreous cove with a wide strand of dark pounded black lava, called Black Beach, or Oberlus's Landing. It might fitly have been styled Charon's. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... unguarded that very cave that leads to the Underworld, where Pluto rules the spirits of the dead. He went down without fear. The fire in his living heart found him a way through the gloom of that place. He crossed the Styx, the black river that the Gods name as their most sacred oath. Charon, the harsh old ferryman who takes the shades across, forgot to ask of him the coin that every soul must pay. For Orpheus sang. There in the Underworld the song of Apollo would not have moved the poor ghosts so much. It would have amazed them, like ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... to, no doubt, to wait a pilot, being strangers to the waters," surmised Clowes, wheeling and looking up the river townwards. "Ay, there goes some signal from the 'Charon's' truck," he went on, as the British frigate anchored off the town displayed ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... by the eternal law; There was in him no hope of fame, no passion, But with calm, godlike eyes he only saw. He did not sigh o'er heroes dead and buried, Chief-mourner at the Golden Age's hearse, 10 Nor deem that souls whom Charon grim had ferried Alone were fitting themes of epic verse: He could believe the promise of to-morrow, And feel the wondrous meaning of to-day; He had a deeper faith in holy sorrow Than the world's seeming loss could take ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... in its mouth, and money in the hand, finds its analogue in the custom of the ancient Romans, who, some time before interment, placed a piece of money in the corpse's mouth, which was thought to be Charon's fare for wafting the departed soul over the Infernal River. Besides this, the corpse's mouth was furnished with a certain cake, composed of flour, honey, &c. This was designed to appease the fury of ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... Charon, the Ferryman of renown, was cruising slowly along the Styx one pleasant Friday morning not long ago, and as he paddled idly on he chuckled mildly to himself as he thought of the monopoly in ferriage which in the course of years he had managed ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... think you, do the physicians lie, when they aver things good for sicknesses, which afterwards send Charon a great number of souls drowned in a potion before they come to his ferry? And no less of the rest, which take upon them to affirm. Now, for the poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth. For, as I take it, to lie is to affirm that ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... her mouth she was to put two pieces of money. On entering the dreary path she would meet an old man driving a lame ass, laden with wood, and the old man would ask her for help, but she was to pass him by in silence. Then she would come to the bank of the black river, over which the boatman Charon ferries the souls of the dead; and from her mouth Charon must take one piece of money, she saying not a word. In crossing the river a dead hand would stretch itself up to her, and a dead face, like that of her father, would appear, and a voice ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... papa—well, papa sips his wine And says nothing. You know him of old, dear. He's only too happy to rest,— After making three millions in gold, dear. He's played out, it must be confessed,— And I—I'm to wed an old Baron Three weeks from to-day, in great style (He's as homely and gaunt as old Charon, And they say that his past has been vile); And I've promised to cut you hereafter,— Small chance, though, we ever shall meet,— So let's turn our old love into laughter, And face the thing through. ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... his frank answer. "It is easy to send men over the Styx after having been Charon's substitute for so many years. But the trade was not pleasant to learn, and, bless the gods, you may not have ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the complete moralist, old Jack!" he cheered. "I'll back you for a bushel of nuts to have it out with Charon as you ferry across. And here, for want of us, you turn to the hares! Sancie, you and I must get season tickets to Sarum, or he'll ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... you have heard, that so infamous a priest has been called to instruct so illustrious a church, I had rather any one else had heard it in Charon's boat than you in that of Charenton; for it is mightily to be feared that whoever thinks to get to heaven under the auspices of so foul a guide will be a whole world awry in his calculations. Woe to that church ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... first wedding I ever saw, but I must say it is rather different from my idea of that sort of thing. I thought that people always kissed at such affairs, and there was general jollification and cake, but this seemed more like a newfangled funeral, with the dear departed acting as his own Charon and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... [228]Charon in Lucian, as he wittily feigns, was conducted by Mercury to such a place, where he might see all the world at once; after he had sufficiently viewed, and looked about, Mercury would needs know of him ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... It is but a foretaste of Charon's boat!" said Mary, who was one of those people whose spirit of enterprise rises with the occasion, and she murmured to Mary ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Celia was ready to jump into his delivery wagon and ride with him clear to the end of the pier and on to the ferry-boat of the Charon line. ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... but when he uses the instrument in group or batteries he obtains gorgeous effects of varied colour. He gets delicious effects by means of obligato instrumental parts in the accompaniments to such songs as "Charon the Peaceful Shade Invites"; and those who have heard the "Te Deum" in D may remember that even Bach never got more wonderful results from the sweeter tones of ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... consented to a truce, but on the day after was completely defeated, and obliged to return to his kingdom with a routed army. Herodotus' account of the fall of Croesus and of Sardes, borrowed partly from a good written source, Xanthus or Charon of Lampsacus, partly from the tradition of the Harpagidse, seems to have for its object the soothing of the vanity both of the Persians and of the Lydians, since, if the result of the war could not be contested, the issue of the battle was at least left uncertain. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... gardes-tu tes yeux Et ton sein delicieux Ta joue et ta bouche belle En veux-tu baiser Platon La-bas apres que Charon T'aura mise ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... second century B.C. Plautus in the Captivi alluded to these paintings as familiar;[850] and we must not forget that the Etruscans habitually chose the most gruesome and cruel of the Greek fables for illustration, and especially delighted in that of Charon, one likely enough to strike the popular imagination. The play-writers themselves were responsible for inculcating the belief, as Boissier remarked in his work on the Roman religion of the early empire.[851] In the theatre, with women and children present, Cicero says in the first book of his ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... vivid power, never before felt, the passage of the 'pious AEneas' over the Styx, which I had so often read with delight in my boyhood. I half fancied our Yankee Bob fading into a vision of the classic Charon, and that the ghosts of unhappy spirits were peering at us from ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... vary let all be merry, And then if e'er a disaster befall, At Styx's ferry is Charon's ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... cautiously begin once more, leading on the infinite melodies of the June afternoon. As the freshened air invites them forth, so the smooth and stainless water summons us. "Put your hand upon the oar," says Charon in the old play to Bacchus, "and you shall hear the sweetest songs." The doors of the boathouse swing softly open, and the slender wherry, like a water-snake, steals silently in the wake of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... you please, your will is mine; Enjoy it without fear, And your grave will be this glass of wine, Your epitaph—a tear— Go, take your seat in Charon's boat; We'll tell the ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... were closed by the nearest relative, who called upon the deceased by name, exclaiming "Farewell!" The body was then washed, and anointed with oil and perfumes, by slaves or undertakers. A small coin was placed in the mouth of the body to pay the ferryman (Charon) in Hades, and the body was laid out on a couch in the vestibulum, with its feet toward the door. In early times all funerals were held at night; but in later times only the poor followed this custom, mainly because they ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... kinder felt I ought to see Europe," he said, "never having been further East than Chicago; so I came over at Christmas time and have been around in this machine ever since." He calls his automobile, an immense 90 h.p. Charon, his "machine!" He said all this so simply, as if it were quite natural to tell a stranger his life story, and he is perfectly direct—only you have to speak to him with the meaning you intend in the words. Metaphor is not the least ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Sun.]—Alcestis has come out to see the Sun and Sky for the last time and say good-bye to them. It is a rite or practice often mentioned in Greek poetry. Her beautiful wandering lines about Charon and his boat are the more natural because she is not dying from any disease but is being mysteriously drawn away ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... And oh, the retrospect view! It was wonderful, too, crossing by ferry, and looking back. Albertson's ferry we chose, and one car at a time rolled sedately on to a flatboat to be rowed to the opposite side of the river by a very young Charon in ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... closed, he took them out of his cap, hung his cap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over before the fire. I heard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming like the wind, the only song he knows— about Bibo, and old Charon, and Bibo being drunk when he died, or something or other. He has been as quiet since as an old rat ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... an axe. Attended by no butterflies, and chipping and dinting, by comparison as leisurely as if he were a labouring Pagan getting them ready against his decease at threescore and ten, to take with him as a present to Charon for his boat, the man (aged about thirty) plies his task. The machine would make a regulation oar while the man wipes his forehead. The man might be buried in a mound made of the strips of thin, broad, wooden ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... crew formed of him, which was a very just one. Neither he nor I had much doubt that the ships in sight were British. We hoisted British colours, so did they; and in a short time we were all paying compliments to each other, they being his Majesty's ships Charon, Lowestoffe, and Pomona, under the command of the Honourable Captain Luttrell. He confirmed the account we had received of the attack of the Spaniards on the British territories, and informed us also that he had ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... the dead arise? Why call them back from Charon's wherry? Come, Yankee Mark, with twinkling eyes, Confuse these ghouls with something merry! Come, Kipling, with thy soldiers three, Thy barrack-ladies frail and fervent, Forsake thy themes of butchery And be the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... his royal predecessors were sleeping, and by the side of the eternal Sphynx, whose riddle he could not read in life. Perhaps death unsealed the mystery of those stony lips to him. The token was placed in the mummy case upon the Egyptian's lips, perhaps as Charon's toll. But, in that event, evidently our friend the Egyptian never crossed over the black river of Death, but is still wandering—a miserable shade—along its banks, seeking rest, and finding none. Token and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was allowed to open a dispensary, but, proving dishonest, he lost his license and became a ferryman—a very Charon for terrestrial passengers. He died in New Caledonia of cancer ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... foam-crested surges on the shore, and, in many places, created crimson lakes where, instead of boats, blood-stained bodies floated with yawning wounds. It seemed as if the Styx had flowed to Lobau to spare the ferryman Charon the arduous task of conveying so many corpses to the nether world, and for the purpose transformed itself into a single vast ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... silence, though no whit more pluckily than his opponent. In the end the dog won, but he was the most devastated small dog that I have ever seen, before or since, and had it not been for prompt surgical aid at his home nearby I dare say Charon might have ferried both shades over the Styx together. No, the woodchuck is not so easy to get. He is quite likely to whip his own weight in most anything that ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... funeral blaze. As soon as you can hear his knell This god on earth turns devil in hell; And lo! his ministers of state, Transformed to imps, his levee wait, Where, in the scenes of endless woe, They ply their former arts below; And as they sail in Charon's boat, Contrive to bribe the judge's vote; To Cerberus they give a sop, His triple-barking mouth to stop; Or in the ivory gate of dreams Project Excise and South-Sea schemes, Or hire their party pamphleteers To set Elysium by ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... lingering behind the flowering apple trees, and gleaming on the fountain of forgetfulness. In Scotland the channering worm doth chide even the souls that come from where, "beside the gate of Paradise, the birk grows fair enough." The Romaic idea of the place of the dead, the garden of Charon, whence "neither in spring or summer, nor when grapes are gleaned in autumn, can warrior or maiden escape," is likewise pre-Christian. In Provencal and Danish folk-song, the cries of children ill-treated by a cruel step-mother awaken ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... Phormio's hand restrained him. "Not so fast, lad! Thank Olympus, I'm not Lampaxo. You're too young a turbot for Charon's fish-net. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... around, ye Stygian set, With Dirce in one boat convey'd! Or Charon, seeing, may forget That he is old ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... do now?" she asked, with the smile of curiosity which she always had ready for his plans. Would he pursue the Professor beyond Charon's stream? ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... State. The lot of the dead who have not been vouchsafed the trifling boon of a handful of earth cast upon their bones was very different. They had not yet been admitted to the world below, and were forced to wander for a hundred years before they might enter Charon's boat. AEneas beheld them on the banks of the Styx, stretching out their hands "ripae ulterioris amore." The shade of Patroclus describes its hapless state to Achilles, as does that of Elpenor to Odysseus, when they meet in the lower world. It is not surprising that the ancients attached ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... that river, of which they foreboded the overflowing. These circumstances, added to the preceding ones, increased the probability of the fiction; and thus to arrive at Tartarus or Elysium, souls were obliged to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron, in the boat of Charon the ferryman, and to pass through the doors of horn and ivory, which were guarded by the mastiff Cerberus. At length a civil usage was joined to all these inventions, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... was formed by the junction of two rivers, between which intervened a narrow point of land, with a background of steep hills, covered with a growth of black-jack and yellow-pine to the summit. Here was a ferry with its Charon-like boat, of the primitive sort—flat barge, poled over by negroes, and capable of containing at one time many bales of cotton, a stagecoach or wagon with four horses, besides passengers ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... The great bombs rose in vast curves overhead, with trails of light, and, seeming to hesitate in mid-air, exploded, or fell on town or ship or in the stream between. As we looked, awe-struck, hot shot set fire to the "Charon," a forty-four-gun ship, nigh to Gloucester, and soon a red rush of fire twining about mast and spar rose in air, lighting the sublime spectacle, amid the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, and multitudinous inexplicable noises, through which we heard now and then the wild howl of a ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... Consentes and Complices, making a council of gods, whom Jupiter consulted in important cases. Vertumnus was an Etruscan; so, according to Ottfried Mueller, was the Genius. So are the Lares, or household protectors, and Charun, or Charon, a power of the under-world. The minute system of worship was derived by Rome from Etruria. The whole system of omens, especially by lightning, came ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... the descriptions of motion in the Divina Commedia, I do not think there is another quite so fine as that in which Dante has glorified the old fable of Charon by giving a boat also to the bright sea which surrounds the mountain of Purgatory, bearing the redeemed souls to their place of trial; only an angel is now the pilot, and there is no stroke of laboring oar, for his wings ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... vigilance; but he thought, by the liberal use of pitch and cotton, materials easily obtainable in that neighborhood, it could be made sufficiently water-tight to answer their purpose. Accordingly, accompanied by their friendly Charon, with his pitch-pot and cotton, they reached the spot indicated and ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... fire became so heavy that the besieged withdrew their cannon from the embrasures, and scarcely returned a shot. The shells and red hot balls from the batteries of the allied army reached the ships in the harbour, and, in the evening, set fire to the Charon of forty-four guns, and to three large transports, which were entirely consumed. Reciprocal esteem, and a spirit of emulation between the French and Americans, being carefully cultivated by the Commander-in-chief, the siege was carried on with great rapidity. The second parallel was ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... for Charon's Westerne barge Running a tilt at the Subjunctive mood, Beckoned to Bednal Green, and gave him charge To fasten padlockes with ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... with Uncle Tom, descended, as we were told that the boat could not carry a larger fare. After looking down for a few seconds, we distinguished a light; and going down the ladder, we stepped into a boat, in which a man, whom we of course denominated Charon, was seated. Instead of oars, he used a long pole to urge on the boat. We noticed the dark appearance of the water as we made our way through the vaulted chambers. We now found ourselves floating on a lake, the water black as ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... impressive that there was a unanimous and simultaneous movement upon the part of all present to get up closer, so as the more readily to hear what he said, as a result of which poor old Boswell was pushed overboard, and fell with a loud splash into the Styx. Fortunately, however, one of Charon's pleasure-boats was close at hand, and in a short while the dripping, sputtering spirit was drawn into it, wrung out, and sent home to dry. The excitement attending this diversion ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... picturesque-looking old city of Jersey; and immediately beyond, the village of Hoboken, famous for turtle and pistol-matches: its neighbourhood to the Elysian fields renders it a singularly lucky site for the fire-eaters, since, if shot, they have no Charon to pay; the turtle-eaters here find, no doubt, equal facilities. Far to the north, the dark promontory of the Palisadoes beetles broadly forth, marking ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... passengers sitting there, so hushed and motionless, look like shadows. The scene is so strangely funereal and spectral, that it seems as if the Greeks must have witnessed it, before they imagined Charon conveying ghosts to the dim regions of Pluto. Your companions, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... lower world, Mantus, a winged genius, sits with crown on his head and torch in his hand. Other demons armed with sword or club with serpents in their hands receive the souls of the dead; the principal of these under the name Charun (the Charon of the Greeks), an old man of hideous form, bears a heavy mallet to strike his victims. The souls of the dead (the Manes) issue from the lower world three days in the year, wandering about the earth, terrifying ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... gloomy river's brim, Where Charon plies the ceaseless oar, Two mighty Shadows, dusk and dim, Stood lingering on the dismal shore. Hoarse came the rugged Boatman's call, While echoing caves enforced the cry— And as they severed life's last thrall, Each Spirit spoke one parting sigh. "Farewell to earth! I ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... time in Charon's wherry Two Painters met, on Styx's ferry. Good sir, said one, with bow profound, I joy to meet thee under ground, And though with zealous spite we strove To blast each other's fame above, Yet here, as neither bay nor laurel Can tempt us to prolong our quarrel, I hope the hand which I extend ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... impressions of his poem from M. Dore's memorable illustrations, will here probably demur. What! Dante not grotesque! That tunnel-shaped structure of the infernal pit; Minos passing sentence on the damned by coiling his tail; Charon beating the lagging shades with his oar; Antaios picking up the poets with his fingers and lowering them in the hollow of his hand into the Ninth Circle; Satan crunching in his monstrous jaws the arch-traitors, Judas, Brutus and Cassius; Ugolino appeasing his ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Gregory the Great to speak of drowned souls, and to Dante for another narrative in his Divine Comedy, cannot have been the origin of this belief. Neither the Brahmins, the Buddhists, nor the Egyptians, who may have given Rome her Charon and her Avernus, had anything like this idea. I won't speak now of the religions of northern Europe, for they were religions of warriors, bards, and hunters, and not of philosophers. While they yet preserve ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... lip, and said something under his breath, but he took the oars and pulled ashore. Mae turned her eyes downward and felt the color creep up, up into her cheeks. It seemed eternity. The boat was Charon's, and she was drifting to her fate. Norman Mann stood like a statue. The wind moved his hair over his forehead, and once Mae saw him toss the unruly locks back in a familiar way he had. She did not know why, but the tears half came to her eyes as he did ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... mind, he is driven to seek aid and comfort from his forbears in the world of spirits. So this antitype of Odysseus journeys to the shore of the waters of death, and there takes ship with a Chaldaean Charon, who carries him within hail of his ancestor Hasisadra. That venerable personage not only gives Izdubar instructions how to regain his health, but tells him, somewhat a propos des bottes (after the manner of venerable personages), ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... banquet of my arms, my arbour queen, Seated upon an uptorn forest root; And all around her shapes, wizard and brute, Laughing, and wailing, groveling, serpenting, Shewing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting! O such deformities! Old Charon's self, Should he give up awhile his penny pelf, And take a dream 'mong rushes Stygian, It could not be so phantasied. Fierce, wan, And tyrannizing was the lady's look, 510 As over them a gnarled staff she shook. Oft-times ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... noisy world retired, Nor vexed by love, nor by ambition fired; Gently I wait the call of Charon's boat, Still drinking like a fish, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... but this was told chiefly to introduce Rostopchin's witty remark on that occasion. The foreigners were deported to Nizhni by boat, and Rostopchin had said to them in French: "Rentrez en vousmemes; entrez dans la barque, et n'en faites pas une barque de Charon." * There was talk of all the government offices having been already removed from Moscow, and to this Shinshin's witticism was added—that for that alone Moscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. It was said that Mamonov's regiment would cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... left it. So powerful was the illusion, that I gave my horse the spur, persuaded that my father's house lay before me. The island, too, I took for the grove that surrounded our house. On reaching its border, I literally dismounted, and shouted out for Charon Tommy. There was a stream running through our plantation, which, for nine months out of the twelve, was only passable by means of a ferry, and the old negro who officiated as ferryman was indebted to me for the above classical cognomen. I believe I called twice, nay, three times, but no Charon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... GENIUS! They would as soon have suspected him of being the Khann of Tartary! Nay, candid readers, are there not some of you who refuse to the last to recognize the maa of genius, till he has paid his penny to Charon, and his passport to immortality has been duly examined by the customhouse officers of Styx! When one half the world drag forth that same next-door neighbour, place him on a pedestal, and have him cried, "Oyez! Oyez! Found a man of genius! Public property! open to inspection!" ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... into Fowey by the ferry here instead of by that from Polruan. If we had already come from Fowey to Bodinnick we should find that the ferryman would carry us back without further payment; the outward fee included a return—not like the ferry of Charon which had no return for passengers. The oars dip peacefully into the water, breaking its surface of glistening light; a delicious coolness, that phantom fragrance of water to which we can give no name, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley: Swift came in and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted the room as abruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite side of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay Charon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed back again—and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn, an old companion of his who had conducted him to the other world, to say that he had during his lifetime ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... yet, my senses wander, And my spirit seems to roll With the tide of swift Scamander Rushing to a viewless goal. In my ears, like distant washing Of the surf upon the shore, Drones a murmur, faintly splashing, 'Tis the splash of Charon's oar. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... with him at the place appointed to meet the skiff, and, with a pertinacity that at another time and in other circumstances we never should have adopted, we all but insisted on being admitted into the boat. An angry growling consent was extorted from the surly Charon, and we hastily entered the frail bark, which seemed hardly calculated to convey us in ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... that he made good his retreat. If he had not paid his fare in Charon's packet-boat, he might, at least, have crossed the channel in the Trevor or Hillsborough to Holyhead. Then, deuce was in it, if he did not make a fair run for it, and earth himself snugly somewhere. 'Twas lighter work then than now. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... denominated Chironian, and sacred to the Sun. Charon was of the same purport, and etymology; and was sacred to the same Deity. One temple of this name, and the most remarkable of any, stood opposite to Memphis on the western side of the Nile. It was near the spot where most people of consequence were buried. There is a tower in this province, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... and race, preoccupied with divers interests and cares. Necessity and the waiter drive them all to a sepulchral syssition, whereof the cook too frequently deserves that old Greek comic epithet—hadou mageiros—cook of the Inferno. And just as we are told that in Charon's boat we shall not be allowed to pick our society, so here we must accept what fellowship the fates provide. An English spinster retailing paradoxes culled to-day from Ruskin's handbooks; an American ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... by the brisker inhabitants of Ashbridge, who do not understand its spirit, to substitute for this aged and ineffectual Charon someone who is occasionally awake, but nothing ever results from these revolutionary moves, and the requests addressed to the town council on the subject are never heard of again. "Old George" was ferryman there before any members of the town council were born, and he seems to have ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... Edda, when Hermodhr went to seek the soul of Baldr, he was told by the keeper of the bridge, a maiden named Modhgudhr, that the bridge rang beneath no feet save his. Similarly Vergil tells us that Charon's boat (which is also a parallel to the Brig) was almost sunk by ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... I dined with M. Charon, who was a counsellor, and in charge of a suit between Madame d'Urfe and her daughter Madame du Chatelet, whom she disliked heartily. The old counsellor had been the favoured lover of the marchioness forty years before, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... lath; around him were bare, dirty-white walls, that seemed to grow out of the gray light of a wet morning as the natural deposit from such a solution. Two slender poles, meant to support curtains, but without a rag of drapery upon them, rose at his feet, like the masts of a Charon's boat. Was he indeed in the workhouse he had pre—ferred to Cairncarque? It could hardly be, for there was the plaster fallen in great patches from the walls as well as the ceiling, and surely no workhouse would be allowed to ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... warring there, No rain-storm beating on them, But Charon sweeping over them, And with ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... promoted to the command of provinces and armies. Their fraternal union doubled the force and reputation of the Comneni, and their ancient nobility was illustrated by the marriage of the two brothers, with a captive princess of Bulgaria, and the daughter of a patrician, who had obtained the name of Charon from the number of enemies whom he had sent to the infernal shades. The soldiers had served with reluctant loyalty a series of effeminate masters; the elevation of Michael the Sixth was a personal insult to the more deserving generals; and their discontent was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... to warrant such a belief. Could I believe that I should meet the loved ones who have gone before, I do not know but that I should look forward with pleasure to the "passing across." Not having this belief, I am quite content to stay where I am as long as I can; and finally, when old Charon appears to row me over the river Styx, I ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... her grave in a shroud. It has been suggested that Michelangelo meant to represent by this figure the Renascence of Italy, still struggling with darkness. The whole work brings the times before us. There is the Christian Heaven above, and the heathen Styx below. Charon ferries the souls across the dark stream; they are first judged by Minos, and Minos is a portrait of a cardinal who had ventured to judge the rest of the picture before it was finished. There is in the picture all the whirling confusion of ideas ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... sundry memoirs and histories which have been published of late days; in Mr. Massey's "History;" in the "Buckingham and Grenville Correspondence;" and gentlemen who have accused a certain writer of disloyalty are referred to those volumes to see whether the picture drawn of George is overcharged. Charon has paddled him off; he has mingled with the crowded republic of the dead. His effigy smiles from a canvas or two. Breechless he bestrides his steed in Trafalgar Square. I believe he still wears his robes at Madame Tussaud's ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... weight nearly overturns it! We should observe the gross materialism of idea which underlies this pretty picture. Not one of the Roman poets is free from this taint. To take a well-known instance from Virgil; when Aeneas gets into Charon's boat ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... by the Sibyl, after a great sacrifice, AEneas passed into a gloomy cave, where he came to the river Styx, round which flitted all the shades who had never received funeral rites, and whom the ferryman, Charon, would not carry over. The Sibyl, however, made him take AEneas across, his boat groaning under the weight of a human body. On the other side stood Cerberus, but the Sibyl threw him a cake of honey and of some opiate, and he lay asleep, while AEneas passed on ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... to have the wedding take place the next Wednesday. She said she once knew a lady who was separated from her lover, and yielded to her parents' choice, who lived in perpetual torment, surrounded by a profusion of wealth. In a few years she pined away, and died broken-hearted, entered Charon's boat with her first love, and sailed over the River of Death together, to join their friends on the Elysian Fields of Paradise, and left her parents and the man of their choice digging in the mud and dust for gold. But that lady was not Nelly Gordon. ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... a crowd of neutrals the poets come to the river Acheron, where assemble those who die in mortal sin, to be ferried over by the demon Charon. He refuses passage to Dante: "By other ways, by other ferries, shalt thou pass over, a lighter boat must carry thee." (Inf., III, 91.) An earthquake occurs, accompanied with wind and lightning, and Dante falls into a state ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... CHARON, in the Greek mythology the ferryman of the ghosts of the dead over the Styx into Hades, a grim old figure with a mean dress and a dirty beard, peremptory in exacting from the ghosts he ferried over the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... interested me; but I could not help being impressed with a slight feeling of awe. Classic memories, too, stirred within me. The fancies of the Roman poet were here realised. I was upon the Styx, and in my rower I recognised the redoubtable Charon. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... lake, we nearly missed our passage for that time, the ferry-boat being already full; there was incessant lamentation, and all the passengers had wounds upon them; mangled legs, mangled heads, mangled everything; no doubt there was a war going on. Nevertheless, when good Charon saw the lion's skin, taking me for Heracles, he made room, was delighted to give me a passage, and showed us our direction ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... The inhabitants are Peruvians, Portuguese, Negroes, and Ticuna Indians. The musquitoes hold high carnival at this place. In two hours we were at San Antonio, a military post on the Peruvian frontier, commanded by a French engineer, Manuel Charon, who also studied in the United States. One large building, and a flag-staff on a high bluff of red clay, were all that was visible of San Antonio; but the "Morona" brought down a gang of Indians (impressed, no doubt) to build a fort for twenty guns. The site is in ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... gunboats which held one division of the expedition were merely old sugar-barges, roofed over with boards, and looking like coffins. They were pleasantly named the "Charon" and the "Cerberus," but Stedman thought that the "Sudden Death" and the "Wilful Murder" would have been titles more appropriate. The chief duty of the troops consisted in lying at anchor at the intersections of wooded streams, waiting for ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... matters much better in the Middle Ages. For the Greeks and Romans contented themselves with mocking at rich people, and constructing merry dialogues between Charon and Diogenes or Menippus, in which the ferryman and the cynic rejoiced together as they saw kings and rich men coming down to the shore of Acheron, in lamenting and lamentable crowds, casting their crowns into the dark waters, and searching, sometimes in vain, for ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... which after certain mysterious offerings transferred the poor soul to the society of the gods above. It is remarkable that, in order to people their lower world, the Etruscans early borrowed from the Greeks their gloomiest notions, such as the doctrine of Acheron and Charon, which play an important part in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Thus when, smitten with Charon's knife and sunk In death's dark swoon, a hapless mother feels Life's tide return, she hears again, like first Life-summons, the anxious voice of her fond child, A voice that comforts her and tenderly Tells of a thousand tales of love ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... the reward shall not be as great as the reward of those who make charitable contribution while yet they have power to keep their money. Charity, in last will and testament, seems sometimes to be only an attempt to bribe Charon, the ferryman, to land the boat in celestial rather than infernal regions. Mean as sin when they disembark from the banks of this world, they hope to be greeted as benefactors when they come up the beach on the other side. Skinflints when they die, they hope to have ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... other, such a faith has existed in every age and among almost every people. Charon and his boat might be the means of conveyance. Or the believer, dying in battle for the creed of the Faithful, might expect to wake up in a celestial harem peopled with Houris. Or the belief might embody the matchless horrors painted by Dante; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... Time see Its flowering crest impearled and orient. A sonnet is a coin: its face reveals The soul,—its converse, to what Power 'tis due:— Whether for tribute to the august appeals Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death. DANTE ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... floated far more steadily wrong side up, perhaps because we had lashed all our loads in place and they acted as ballast. Will took the pole and acted the part of Charon, our proper pilot contenting himself with perching on the rear end lamenting the ill-fortune noisily until Kazimoto struck him and threatened to throw him back into ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the Devil, "I understand all this; You turned to half a courtier[536] ere you died, And seem to think it would not be amiss To grow a whole one on the other side Of Charon's ferry; you forget that his Reign is concluded; whatsoe'er betide, He won't be sovereign more: you've lost your labour, For at the best he will but ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... into saints, An' mony divers ways o' deein' That doctors hae a chance o' seein'. The Babylonian scartit bricks To tell his doots o' Death's dark tricks, The Roman kentna hoo 'twas farin' Across the ferry rowed by Charon, An' readin' doonwards through the ages The tale's the same in a' their pages, Eternal grum'lin' at the load We hae to bear alang Life's road, Yet, when we're fairly at the bit, Awfu', maist awfu sweer to flit, Praisin' ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... woodcocks, he with iron skewer pierces the tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to their ribs, so was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell joined in their lives, joined in their deaths; so closely joined, that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare.' The humour of the piece is delightful, and it matters not a whit for the enjoyment of it, that the wrong heroes ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... was his answer. "Charon keeps the ferry across the Styx to the Elysian Fields, past the sunless marsh of Acheron. Yes—I've met him more than once. I met him only last month, and he was very proud of his new electric launch ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... their meaning? They speak of Charon's lingering boat, which will convey you to your last home, to the one great resting-place for all wanderers—the kingdom ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... listened. Presently there grated on the sand the keel of a boat, and someone stepped ashore. From the woods there emerged the shadowy forms of three men. Nothing was said, but they got silently into the boat, which might have been Charon's craft for all he could see of it. The rattle of the rowlocks and the plash of oars followed, while a voice cautioned the rowers to make less noise. It was evident that some belated fugitives were eluding the authorities of both countries. Renmark thought, with a smile, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... for your letter, and the instalment of Forester which accompanied it, and which I read with amusement and pleasure. I fear Somerset's letter must wait; for my dear boy, I have been very nearly on a longer voyage than usual; I am fresh from giving Charon a quid instead of an obolus: but he, having accepted the payment, scorned me, and I had to make the best of my way backward through the mallow-wood, with nothing to show for this displacement but the fatigue of the journey. As soon as I feel fit, you shall have the letter, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the rainbow (as in the Gothic legends) and the Milky Way; and, since the journey was long, they put boots into the coffin, (for it was made on foot,) and coins to pay the ferrying across a wide sea, even as the Greeks expected to be carried over the Styx by Charon. This abode of the dead, at the end of this long pathway, was an island, a warm, fertile land, ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... occurred in the publishing of my poor book, which perplexities I could only cut asunder, not unloose; so the MS., like an unhappy ghost, still lingers on the wrong side of Styx: the Charon of Albemarle Street durst not risk it in his sutilis cymba, so it leaped ashore again. Better days are coming, and new trials will ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... upon every person who died, however exalted his position. Characters were given by judges, after inquiry into the life and conduct of the deceased. The judges sat on the opposite side of a lake; and while they crossed the lake, he who sat at the helm was called Charon, which gave rise to the fable among the Greeks, that Charon conducted the souls of deceased ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... any knave in company, and there is a dash of the Tom Jones manner in the noisy activity of that excellent housewife Mrs. Joan. Some of the lighter papers, such as the one upon the "Art of Puffing," are amusing enough; and of the visions, that which is based upon Lucian, and represents Charon as stripping his freight of all their superfluous incumbrances in order to lighten his boat, has a double interest, since it contains references not only to Cibber, but also (though this appears to have been hitherto overlooked) to Fielding himself. The "tall Man," who at ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson |
