The Ferry (1-5)

Klotho Well, Klotho, my skiff here has been ready and in prime sailing-trim this long time. I have baled it out and set up the mast and bent the sail and furnished every oar with a thong. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing to prevent our weighing anchor and setting sail. But Hermes is late; he ought to have been here long ago. The ferry-boat is empty of passengers, as you see, though it might have made the passage three times to-day already. It is almost evening now, and we have not yet taken in a single obol. I know what will happen next. Pluto will suspect me of having been lazy in the matter, and all the while somebody else is to blame. But our noble and distinguished conductor of the dead has taken a draught of the earthly Lethe like any one else, and forgotten to come back to us. He is either wrestling with the lads, or playing the cither, or making speeches to air his nonsense; or very probably the gentleman is even stealing on the sly, for that, too, is one of his accomplishments. So he gives himself superior airs, and yet he is half one of us.

Klotho What, Charon? How do you know that some pressage of business has not overtaken him? Perhaps Zeus has had to use him more than usual in matters above. He is his master, too.

Charon Not so far as to have more than his share of control over a common servant. Certainly we have never detained him when he ought to go. But I know why it is. Down here there is nothing but asphodel and funeral libations and sacrificial cakes and offerings to the shades. All the rest is gloom and mist and darkness. But in heaven everything is radiant, and there is ambrosia in abundance, and no stint of nectar. So I imagine it is pleasanter to linger among these things. He flies from here as though he were running away from a prison. But when it is time to come down his pace is so leisurely and slow that he hardly gets here at all.

Klotho Don't be angry any longer, Charon, for here he is himself, quite near, you see, bringing us a great many people and driving the crowd along with his staff more as if they were a herd of goats. But what is this? I see one in irons among them, and another laughing, and one has a leathern pouch slung about him and carries a club in his hand. He looks fiercely about and urges on the others. See, Hermes himself, too, is dripping with perspiration and panting, and

his feet are covered with dust. He can hardly breathe. What is the matter, Hermes? What is your hurry? It looks to us as if you were in trouble.

Hermes It is all this wretch here, Klotho. He ran away, and I chased him till I came near deserting the ship for to-day.

Klotho Who is he, and what did he want to run away for?

Hermes That is easy to see-because he preferred to live. He is some king or despot, to judge from his lamentations and the things he mourns for. He says he has been deprived of great happiness of some sort.

Klotho Then the poor fool tried to run away because he thought he could come to life again after the thread woven for him had already come to an end?

Hermes Tried to run away, do you say? Yes, and if my very good friend here, the one with the club, had not helped me to capture him and put him in irons, he would have got clean away from us. For, from the moment Atropos handed him over to me, the whole way along he has been resisting and struggling, and he would plant his feet on the ground so that he was not exactly easy to conduct. And sometimes he would fall to supplication and prayer, begging me to let him go for a little and promising great bribes. But

I, of course, did not loose him, for I saw he was longing for the impossible. But when we had come to the very entrance and I was giving the customary inventory of the dead to Aiakos, and he was reckoning them by the memorandum sent to him by your sister, that confounded villain managed somehow to give us the slip and get off. Accordingly, there was one soul short by the count, and Aiakos, raising his eyebrows, said, "Don't use your thieving skill in all departments, Hermes. Be satisfied with your tricks in heaven. Dealings with the dead are exact, and can in no way evade scrutiny. The memorandum, you see, has 'one thousand and four' written on it, but you come bringing me one too few, unless you are prepared to say that Atropos has falsified her accounts for you." I blushed at this speech, and instantly remembered what had happened on the road, and when I cast my eye about and saw this fellow nowhere I perceived that he had run away, and gave chase as hard as I could up the road to daylight. This good soul here followed me of his own motion. We ran like racers, and only caught him at Tain- He was as near as that to getting away.

Klotho And we, Charon, were just accusing Hermes of neglecting his duties!

Charon Well, what are we waiting for now? Haven't we lost enough time already?

Klotho You are right; let them embark. I will take my note-book in my hand and sit by the gangway, as usual; and as each one of them comes aboard I will find out who he is and whence he comes, and what sort of ath he died by. Do you, Charon, receive them and stack them together in lots; and you, Hermes, put these new-born children aboard first. For how could they answer any of my questions?

Hermes See, ferryman, there are three hundred of these for you, counting those that were exposed.

Charon Dear me, that is a large bag. You have brought us unripe dead.

Hermes Shall we put the unwept aboard next to these, Klotho?

Klotho Do you mean the aged? Yes, do so. Why should I trouble myself now to inquire into such ancient history? All you who are over sixty come forward at once. What is this? They do not hear me, because their ears are stopped with age. Probably you will have to lift these, too, and ship them.

Hermes Here is another lot, lacking two of four hundred. These are all soft and ripe, and gathered in their prime.

Charon No, by Jove! they are all raisins already.