Charon
Name of the demon who guards Inferno and psychopomp of Acheron (Inf. 3, 70-136).
Mysterious figure of the most ancient Hellenic world, he is a minor chthonic deity of Greek mythology. Son of Erebus and Night, minister of Hades, he guides the souls of the (buried) dead across the sad swamp of Acheron. The ancients (Greeks, Etruscans, Romans) deposited an obolus in the tomb of their deceased to allow their passage across the infernal river, following an old ancestral custom.
A long figurative and literary tradition confers a severe aspect to Charon; the Etruscans portray him as fierce and demonic. These representations can be seen in the famous lost painting of the Avernus of Polygnote (fifth century) in Delphi, in the funerary lekythoi, in tomb frescoes and on Etruscan urns from the Hellenistic period (end of the fourth–second century BC); they appear in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides, in the poetry of the Alexandrian Leonidas of Taranto (third century BC), notably in the Palatine Anthology (VII, 67), and, especially, in Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid. According to some experts (R. Bloch and F. de Ruyt), the Etruscans would have only borrowed the name of the Greek psychopomp to designate their demon of death. This hybrid and bestial being, equipped with a club on his shoulder, strikes the final blow to individuals at the end of their lives with a kind of cruel jubilation; in murals, he presides over horrible human sacrifices. The deformations of the Etruscan demon, except his cruel temperament, are also found in Virgil’s Charon. But he is a divine figure and, precisely, one of the most significant features of his physiognomy (“stant lumina fiamma” Aen. VI, 300) translates to, almost literally, the usual epithet of the god, the adjective χαροπός (“with dazzling eyes”), which in its syncopated form would have given the name of Charon: Χάρων. The Greek scholar Diodorus of Sicily (c. 90-20 BC), for his part, traces the name and legend of Charon to ancient Egypt. In the classical tradition, certain representations of the boatman, presented as an old man with white hair, diligent and greedy, are imbued with a satirical and desacralizing realism. This is the case of Aristophanes’ Frogs, Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, or Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (VI 18).
We can thus see how the myth of Charon encounters problems of etymology and genesis. If we go beyond these questions, however, we can consider the thesis of the Latinist Ettore Paratore, who, in the twentieth century, underlines the multiform presence of figures such as Charon, Cerberus, the Furies, or even the infernal judges, in all the liturgies of the afterlife from the Etruscan tradition to the Osirian cult. Nevertheless, we find several correspondences, often literal, between the Charon represented in the Comedy and the one who appears in the Aeneid (Aen. VI, 295-332 and 384-416). The similarity lies not only in the description of the boatman, but also in the narrative scheme and dialogical structure of the Dantean episode. If Dante’s Charon maintains the white beard and fiery eyes of Virgil’s Charon, he does not preserve his sordid appearance. In the same way, if the reference to the “livid swamp” (Inf. 3, 98) refers to the Aeneid, that of the “river of pain” (Inf. 3, 78) of Acheron also refers to the “tristes ripae” (sad shores) of Statius’ Thebaid. Dante, globally, tries to establish a filiation between his work and that of Virgil, praising both the greatness of the Virgilian model and his own literary rewriting. For example, one detects an intertextuality between the hemistich “stant lumina fiamma” and Inf. 3, 99: “whose eyes burned wheels of flame”, or the verse 109: “Charon the demon, with eyes of glowing coals”.
The episode of the Comedy which depicts Charon recounts the continuous boarding of the souls on the boat of the psychopomp who ensures its control. Dante feels compassion for each of the souls to whom Charon beckons. The poetic atmosphere created by the author to depict the anguished waiting of souls in line – of silence, shame, and scruples – and the repressed curiosity of the protagonist – who tries not to annoy Virgil – undergoes a rupture during the sudden, violent, and terrifying irruption of Charon. The poet then paints a picture, initially a summary, of the scene which becomes more and more expressive and detailed: the eyes of the psychopomp are of ember, like a demon; he shouts and stigmatizes the souls: “woe unto to you, you wicked souls, give up all hope of ever seeing Heaven” (Inf. 3, 84-85); his interventions and gestures are authoritarian, aggressive, and threatening, even towards Dante.
Consult the entry of the Enciclopedia Dantesca in Italian.
Entry taken from the Enciclopedia Dantesca published by the Istituto Treccani — Texts revised by the Centre d’études médiévales of the Université de Montréal.
Editing: Gabrielle Hamelin, Martyna Kander.
English translation: Brittany Buscio.
