Charon

The name Charon is most often explained as a proper noun from {{lang|grc|χάρων}} ({{transliteration|grc|charon}}), a poetic form of {{lang|grc|χαρωπός}} ({{transliteration|grc|charopós}}) 'of keen gaze', referring either to fierce, flashing, or feverish eyes, or to eyes of a bluish-grey color. The word may be a euphemism for death.Liddell and Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1843, 1985 printing), entries on χαροπός and χάρων, pp. 1980–1981; Brill's New Pauly (Leiden and Boston 2003), vol. 3, entry on "Charon", pp. 202–203. Flashing eyes may indicate the anger or irascibility of Charon as he is often characterized in literature, but the etymology is not certain. The ancient historian Diodorus Siculus thought that the ferryman and his name had been imported from Egypt.Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Reading" Greek Death (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 359 [https://books.google.com/books?id=WBmyTsFEHEUC&dq=%22flashing+eyes%22+inauthor:sourvinou-Inwood&pg=PA359 online] and p. 390 [https://books.google.com/books?id=WBmyTsFEHEUC&dq=%22Charon%27s+name+is+problematic%22&pg=PA390 online.] Charon is first attested in the now fragmentary Greek epic poem Minyas, which includes a description of a descent to the underworld and possibly dates back to the 6th century BC.Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Charon (1), Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1995, Published online: 7 March 2016

[https://oxfordre.com/classics/abstract/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-1527?sid=oup:orr&genre=book&title=‘Reading’%20Greek%20Death&aulast=Sourvinou-Inwood&date=1995] (accessed 28 September 2020)

File:Relief from the grave enclosure of Lysimachides. Ca. 320 B.C.jpg.]]

No ancient source provides a genealogy for Charon,{{cite book |last1=Hansen |first1=William F. |title=Handbook of classical mythology |date=2004 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |isbn=9781576072264 |pages=136–137}} except for one reference making him a son of {{ill|Akmon (father of Uranus)|de|Akmon (Vater des Uranos)}}, found in the entry "Akmonides" in the lexicon of Hesychius, which is dubious and the text may be corrupt.{{cite book |last1=Sourvinou-Inwood |first1=Christiane |title="Reading" Greek death: to the end of the classical period |date=2006 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780198150695 |page=308 |edition=Reprinted |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WBmyTsFEHEUC&dq=%22Charon+almost+entirely+lacks+genealogical%22&pg=RA1-PA308}}{{cite book |last1=Hard |first1=Robin |last2=Rose |first2=Herbert J. |title=The Routledge handbook of Greek mythology: based on H.J. Rose's Handbook of Greek mythology |date=2008 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=9780415186360 |page=113 |edition=1. publ. in paperback}} Neither Pauly-Wissowa nor Daremberg and Saglio offer a genealogy for Charon.

In Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, the Italian Renaissance writer Giovanni Boccaccio wrote that Charon, who he identified as the god of time, was a son of Erebus and Night.{{cite book |last1=Boccaccio |first1=Giovanni |last2=Solomon |first2=Jon |title=Genealogy of the Pagan Gods. Volume 1: Books I-V |date=2011 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass. London, England |isbn=9780674057104 |pages=166–167}} The idea appears to have originated from the similarity between the names "Charon" and "Chronos" (a connection already made by earlier writers such as Fulgentius), the fact that both are said to be very old, and that the god of old age is said to be the child of Erebus and Night according to Cicero's De natura deorum.{{cite book |last1=Boccaccio |first1=Giovanni |last2=Papio |first2=Michael |title=Boccaccio's expositions on Dante's Comedy |date=2009 |publisher=Univ. of Toronto Press |location=Toronto |isbn=9780802099754 |page=630}}

File:Thanatos Painter ARV 1228 11 Charon receiving Hermes and a deceased woman (06).jpg, ca. 430 BC]]

File:CarontediMichelagelo.jpg in his fresco The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel]]

Charon is depicted in the art of ancient Greece. Attic funerary vases of the 5th and 4th centuries BC are often decorated with scenes of the dead boarding Charon's boat. On the earlier such vases, he looks like a rough, unkempt Athenian seaman dressed in reddish-brown, holding his ferryman's pole in his right hand and using his left hand to receive the deceased. Hermes sometimes stands by in his role as psychopomp. On later vases, Charon is given a more "kindly and refined" demeanor.{{cite journal |first=L. V. |last=Grinsell |title=The Ferryman and His Fee: A Study in Ethnology, Archaeology, and Tradition |journal=Folklore |volume=68 |year=1957 |issue=1 |pages=257–269 [p. 261] |jstor=1258157 |doi=10.1080/0015587X.1957.9717576 }}

In the 1st century BC, the Roman poet Virgil describes Charon, manning his rust-colored skiff, in the course of Aeneas's descent to the underworld (Aeneid, Book 6), after the Cumaean Sibyl has directed the hero to the golden bough that will allow him to return to the world of the living:

There Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast;
A sordid god: down from his hairy chin
A length of beard descends, uncombed, unclean;
His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;
A girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.Virgil, Aeneid [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0690.phi003.perseus-eng1:6.295-6.336 6.298–301], as translated by John Dryden.

Other Latin authors also describe Charon, among them Seneca in his tragedy Hercules Furens, where Charon is described in verses 762–777 as an old man clad in foul garb, with haggard cheeks and an unkempt beard, a fierce ferryman who guides his craft with a long pole. When the boatman tells Heracles to halt, the Greek hero uses his strength to gain passage, overpowering Charon with the boatman's own pole.See Ronnie H. Terpening, Charon and the Crossing: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Transformations of a Myth (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985 and London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1985), pp. 97–98.

In the second century, Lucian employed Charon as a figure in his Dialogues of the Dead, most notably in Parts 4 and 10 ("Hermes and Charon" and "Charon and Hermes").For an analysis of these dialogues, see Terpening, pp. 107–116.

Image:Gustave Doré - Dante Alighieri - Inferno - Plate 10 (Canto III - Charon herds the sinners onto his boat).jpg, Charon forces reluctant sinners onto his boat by beating them with his oar. (Gustave Doré, 1857).]]

In the 14th century, Dante Alighieri described Charon in his Divine Comedy, drawing from Virgil's depiction in Aeneid 6. Charon is the first named mythological character Dante meets in the underworld, in Canto III of the Inferno. Dante depicts him as having eyes of fire. Elsewhere, Charon appears as a mean-spirited and gaunt old man or as a winged demon wielding a double hammer, although Michelangelo's interpretation, influenced by Dante's depiction in the Inferno, shows him with an oar over his shoulder, ready to beat those who delay ("batte col remo qualunque s'adagia", Inferno 3, verse 111).For an analysis of Dante's depiction of Charon and other appearances in literature from antiquity through the 17th century in Italy, see Terpening, Charon and the Crossing. In modern times, he is commonly depicted as a living skeleton in a cowl, much like the Grim Reaper. The French artist Gustave Dore depicted Charon in two of his illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. The Flemish painter Joachim Patinir depicted Charon in his Crossing the River Styx. And the Spanish painter Jose Benlliure y Gil portrayed Charon in his La Barca de Caronte.

Though named after Charon, the Etruscan death-demon Charun has a different origin and functions, being an assistant to Death as well as psychopomp and guardian, delivering the newly dead to the underworld by horseback or chariot. He is winged, with pointed ears and a hideous and threatening appearance, and has a vulture's beak. He is armed with a very large hammer, with which to "mercilessly pummel" the dead.{{Cite book |last=Abel |first=Ernest |title=Death Gods: an Encyclopedia of the Rulers, Evil Spirits, and Geographies of the Dead |publisher=ABC-CLIO, LLC |year=2009 |isbn=9780313357138 |pages=41, 61, 125, 139 |language=English}}DeGrummond, Nancy & Simon, Erika, The Religion of the Etruscans, University of Texas Press, 2006, p. 57.

{{Greek myth (Hades)}}

Most accounts, including Pausanias (10.28) and later Dante's Inferno (3.78), associate Charon with the swamps of the river Acheron. Ancient Greek literary sources such as Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Plato, and Callimachus also place Charon on the Acheron. Roman poets, including Propertius, Ovid, and Statius, name the river as the Styx, perhaps following the geography of Virgil's underworld in the Aeneid, where Charon is associated with both rivers.See [http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Kharon.html Kharon at theoi.com] for collected source passages with work and line annotations, as well as images from vase paintings.

Charon, the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto, is named after him.{{cite web | title=Two of Pluto's Moons Get Names From Greek Mythology's Underworld| author=Dennis Overbye|newspaper=The New York Times | date=2 July 2013 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/science/space/two-of-plutos-moons-get-names-from-greek-mythologys-underworld.html | archive-url=https://archive.today/20221111154144/https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/science/space/two-of-plutos-moons-get-names-from-greek-mythologys-underworld.html| archive-date=2022-11-11 | url-status=live}}

The hadrosaurid Charonosaurus is named in Charon's honor because it was found along the banks of the Amur River in the Far East.Godefroit, Pascal; Shuqin Zan; Liyong Jin (2000). "Charonosaurus jiayinensis n. g., n. sp., a lambeosaurine dinosaur from the Late Maastrichtian of northeastern China". Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Série IIA. 330: 875–882. Bibcode:2000CRASE.330..875G. doi:10.1016/S1251-8050(00)00214-7.

• Charun – in many respects, an Etruscan equivalent to Charon
• Coins for the dead
• Isle of the Dead – a painting by Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin
• Manannán mac Lir – Ferryman from Irish mythology
• Manunggul Jar – Early depiction similar figure on burial jar from Tabon Caves on Palawan
• Phlegyas – a Greek king seen ferrying Dante and Virgil across the Styx in Inferno (Dante)
• Urshanabi – Ferryman from Mesopotamian mythology

Notes

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Bibliography

• Bzinkowski, Michal (2017). Masks of Charos in Modern Greek Demotic Songs: Sources, Representations, and Context. Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press. {{ISBN|978-83-233-4330-1}}.
• Smith, William (1873). [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aentry%3Dcharon-bio-1 "Charon"]. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London.

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{{Wiktionary|Charon}}

• [https://iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk/category/vpc-taxonomy-000297 The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Charon)]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Charon (Mythology)}}

Category:Greek underworld

Category:Greek death gods

Category:Residents of the Greek underworld

Category:Psychopomps

Category:Characters in Book VI of the Aeneid

Category:Metamorphoses characters

Category:Chthonic beings

Category:Characters in the Divine Comedy