> From: Andrew Barton <AndrewBarton_at_compuserve.com>
>
>
> We know that the Gloranthan underworld includes a river
> called the Styx, with references going back to Plunder and
> the RQ2 Big Rubble pack (if you enter the Puzzle Canal
> during Sacred Time, you may find yourself emerging
> onto the Styx).
>
> I thought I'd read a description of the other rivers of Hell,
> but I can't find it. Does anyone know the reference?
Don't know about Gloranthan hell, but you can't do better than Dante, the supreme Heroquester.
There were three rivers of Hell - Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon. Acheron was the river over which Charon escorted the dead. Styx divided the City of Dis from the upper layers of hell, and also fed a swamp into which the "sullen" lay. Phlegethon was a boiling river of blood in which murderers were immersed. All three drained into Coctytus, a icy lake into which betrayers werre frozen. Lethe was not in Hell, but was in Purgatory, where sinners immersed themselves to be cleansed before purging.
(There was also a ring of boiling shit in Hell into which flatterers were immersed, but I guess doesn't count as a river. Larry Niven and Steve Pournelle, in a modern-day adaptation of the Inferno, put advertising execs and marketing types in there)
Gian will pardon me vif I use Longfellow's translation of Canto 14, rather than the original, where Virgil explains to Dante the origin of the rivers:
"A grand old man stands in the mount erect, Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta, And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.
His head is fashioned of refined gold,
And of pure silver are the arms and breast;
Then he is brass as far down as the fork.
From that point downward all is chosen iron, Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay, And more he stands on that than on the other.
Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears, Which gathered together perforate that cavern
From rock to rock they fall into this valley; Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form; Then downward go along this narrow sluice
Unto that point where is no more descending. They form Cocytus; what that pool may be Thou shalt behold, so here 'tis not narrated."
And I to him:"If so the present runnel
Doth take its rise in this way from our world,
Why only on this verge appears it to us ?"
And he to me:"Thou knowest the place is round And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far, Still to the left descending to the bottom,
Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned. Therefore if something new appear to us, It should not bring amazement to thy face."
And I again:"Master, where shall be found Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou'rt silent, And sayest the other of this rain is made ?"
"In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,"
Replied he;"but the boiling of the red
Water might well solve one of them thou makest.
Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat, There where the souls repair to lave themselves, When sin repented of has been removed."
Tom
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