In Homer’s Aeneid, Aeneas visits the underworld to seek advice from his
father. He meets him in the fields of Elysium and looks out over the River
Lethe in Hades.
Virgil, Aeneid Book 6. (trans.
Day-Lewis):
"Now did Aeneas descry deep in a valley retiring, a wood, a secluded copse whose branches soughed in the wind, and the Lethe River drifting past the tranquil places. Hereabouts were flitting a multitude [of phantoms] without number . . . Aeneas moved by the sudden sight, asked in his ignorance what it might mean, what was that river over there and all that crowd of people swarming along its banks. Then [the ghost of] his father, Anchises said:--`They are the souls who are destined for Reincarnation; and now at Lethe's stream they are drinking the waters that quench man's troubles, the deep draught of oblivion… They come in crowds to the river Lethe, so that you see, with memory washed out they may revisit the earth above.'"
"Now did Aeneas descry deep in a valley retiring, a wood, a secluded copse whose branches soughed in the wind, and the Lethe River drifting past the tranquil places. Hereabouts were flitting a multitude [of phantoms] without number . . . Aeneas moved by the sudden sight, asked in his ignorance what it might mean, what was that river over there and all that crowd of people swarming along its banks. Then [the ghost of] his father, Anchises said:--`They are the souls who are destined for Reincarnation; and now at Lethe's stream they are drinking the waters that quench man's troubles, the deep draught of oblivion… They come in crowds to the river Lethe, so that you see, with memory washed out they may revisit the earth above.'"
Most people don’t realize that
there are five rivers in the underworld:
· Lethe-the river of forgetfulness
·
Styx
- the river of hate and oaths
·
Akheron
- the river of sorrow or woe
·
Kokytos
- the river of lamentation
·
Phlegethon - the river of fire
According
to the Aeneid, each spirit worthy of
reincarnation must first be dipped in the river Lethe in order to forget their
previous life. In Greek, lethe means "oblivion", "forgetfulness",
or "concealment.”
Lethe
is also personified as a woman, the goddess of forgetfulness and oblivion. She
is depicted in the picture above.
Ah, drink again
This river that is the taker-away of pain,
And the giver-back of beauty!
In
these cool waves
What can be lost?—
Only the sorry cost
Of the lovely thing, ah, never the thing itself!
What can be lost?—
Only the sorry cost
Of the lovely thing, ah, never the thing itself!
The
level flood that laves
The hot brow
And the stiff shoulder
Is at our temples now.
The hot brow
And the stiff shoulder
Is at our temples now.
Gone
is the fever,
But not into the river;
Melted the frozen pride,
But the tranquil tide
Runs never the warmer for this,
Never the colder.
But not into the river;
Melted the frozen pride,
But the tranquil tide
Runs never the warmer for this,
Never the colder.
Immerse
the dream.
Drench the kiss.
Dip the song in the stream.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Lethe"
Drench the kiss.
Dip the song in the stream.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Lethe"
To drink oblivion. To erase all memory. To bathe in forgetfulness.
How else do you move on?
