Deep Ties

   Image by  u_0xqcqp9f6q  from  Pixabay Charon is known as the Ferryman of Hades (the Underworld) whose duty was to carry the souls of the dead after they had completed their funeral rites across the Acheron and Styx, the rivers that were a boundary between the living and the dead worlds. Legend goes that those souls who could not pay the fee, or had not received their funeral rites, would have to wander along the shores of the Styx for a hundred years before they could cross the river. Charon was the son of Erebus and Nyx (Night). He was often depicted as a rough Athenian seaman dressed in a foul reddish-brown garb, haggard cheeks and an unkempt beard. Dante referred to him in his Divine Comedy as having “eyes of fire”. He held his ferryman’s pole or oar in his right hand and used his left hand to receive the souls that he needed to ferry. Charon is not evil, just gloomy, which was not surprising given the atmosphere in the Underworld. His cloak was adorned ...

  Bellerophon Vanquishing the Chimera - Wikipedia Commons - Wikimedia.org Bellerophon was the divine Corinthian hero best known as the one who tamed the winged horse, Pegasus, and slew the dreadful Chimera. He was second only to the mighty Hercules. Born to the sea god, Poseidon, and Euronome, Bellerophon was also considered a demigod. While practising knife throwing with his friends, he killed his brother, Deliades, by mistake. To atone for fratricide, he made a plea to King Proetus, whose wife, Queen Anteia tried to seduce him. When he rejected her advances, she turned the tables on him, and accused him of having tried to seduce her instead. Proetus was aware that he could not harm Bellerophon as he was a guest. Hence, he exiled him to his father-in-law, King Iobates’ kingdom, along with a sealed letter in a tablet in which he asked him to kill Bellerophon for his misdemeanour. King Iobates took care of Bellerophon for many days before he opened the letter. Since he too did...

                                 Thetis dipping the baby Achilles into the river Styx - World History Encyclopaedia Greek mythology can never be complete without the mention of Achilles, the hero of the Trojan war, who was the son of the Nereid (sea nymph) Thetis and the mortal King Peleus, the head of the Myrmidons, which made him a demigod. The legend goes that when Achilles was an infant, his mother, Thetis, dipped him in the river Styx to make him immortal. However, she held him by the ankle, and hence, that part remained untouched, and proved to be his vulnerable area. This is where the term ‘Achilles’ Heel’ comes from, which means a point of weakness despite overall strength, which could lead to downfall. Thetis foretold her son’s fate which could go in two ways… he could either attain glory and die young or live a long mundane life doing nothing remarkable. Achilles chose the former. Achilles...