"Here lamentation, groans, and wailings deep Reverberated through the starless air, So that it made me at the beginning weep. Uncouth tongues, horrible shriekings of despair, Shrill and faint voices, cries of pain and rage,"
"And look! coming toward us in a boat, An old man, his hair hoary with age, rose Yelling, 'Woe to you, you wicked souls! Have no hope of ever seeing heaven! I come to take you to the other shore, To endless darkness, to fire, and to ice.' "
Someone once said whenever you can't think of something to say, quote Dante... and nothing says it better than Inferno, Canto III. Bleak landscapes festered with the wretched apathetic souls and spirits that had never been alive. I always picture Charon in a soundscape of constant wailing, him clutching a pike instead of an oar, to beat away the wicked leviathans that roil beneath the surface of the Archeron... I think it just reminds me of the banks of the Mississippi.
"When I was slaine, my soule descended straight To passe the flowing streame of Archeron; But churlish Charon, only boatman there, Said that, my rites of buriall not performde, I might not sit amongst his passengers. Ere Sol had slept three nights in Thetis lap, And slakte his smoaking charriot in her floud, By Don Horatio, our knight-marshals sonne, My funerals and obsequies were done. Then was the fariman of hell content To passe me ouer to the slimie strond That leades to fell Auernus ougly waues."
---- excerpt from the Spanish Tragedie, by Thomas Kyd 1587
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