The Phlegethon is the third river of Dante’s Inferno. It takes its source from the tears of the Old Man of Crete, according to Virgil’s explanation in Inf. 14, 103-142. It first appears in the seventh circle of Hell, where the violent are punished and immersed in its waters (124-132). In this sense, Dante describes the Phlegethon as “the river of blood that scalds / those who by violence do injury to others” (Inf. 12, 47-48). The river then goes around the forest of the suicides (the souls who have committed violence against themselves, Inf. 14, 11) and emerges again into the round of those who committed violence against God (Inf. 14, 78-84; 15, 1-3), where it releases a vapor that extinguishes the rain of fire that falls on the damned. It flows finally into the lower circle (Inf. 16, 91-105).
References to the Phlegethon in classical infernal hydrography date back to Homer (Odyssey, X, 513) and Plato’s Phaedo. It is always described as a river of fire, as in Statius’s Thebaid (“atra vadis Phlegethon incendia volvit,” IV, 523), in Claudien’s De Raptu Proserpinae (“umantia torquens / aequora vorticibus Phlegethon perlustrat anhelis,” I, 23, and again “Dominis intrantibus ingens / assurgit Phlegethon; flagrantibus hispida rivis / barba madet, totoque fluunt incendia vultu,” II, 314-316), in the Punica by Silius Italicus (“late exundantibus urit / ripas saevus aquis Phlegethon, et, turbine anhelo / flammarum resonans, saxosa incendia torquet,” XIII, 563-565, where someone is immersed “ardenti Phlegethonte natat”) and in the Aeneid (“ ...rapidus flammis ambit torrentibus omnes / Tartareus Phlegethon,” VI, 550-551).
Moreover, the etymology of the name “Phlegethon” refers to the term “fire,” as illustrated by Servius in the commentary to Aen. VI, 265 (“Per Phlegethonta… ignem significat, nam φλόξ graece, latine ignis est”) and by Huguccio Pisanus: “Flegeto-ontis, quidam fluvius infernalis totus ardens, a fos quod est ignis, vel flegi quod est inflammans, et totus” (Magne derivationes).
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.