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.