Charon (21-24)

Hermes

Ah, my poor friend, you know not what you say. Ignorance and deceit have done for them what Odysseus did for his

crew when he was afraid of the Sirens; they have waxed men’s ears up so effectually, that no drill would ever open them. How then should they hear you? You might shout till your lungs gave way. Ignorance is as potent here as the waters of Lethe are with you. There are a few, to be sure, who from a regard for Truth have refused the wax process; men whose eyes are open to discern good and evil.

Charon

Well then, we might call out to them?

Hermes

There again: where would be the use of telling them what they know already? See, they stand aloof from the rest of mankind, and scoff at all that goes on; nothing is as they would have it. Nay, they are evidently bent on giving life the slip, and joining you. Their condemnations of folly make them unpopular here.

Charon

Well done, my brave boys! There are not many of them, though, Hermes.

Hermes

These must serve. And now let us go down.

Hermes

And now I think of it, I must show you Achilles’s tomb. There it is on the Trojan shore, at Sigeum. “And across the water is Rhoeteum, where Ajax lies buried.

Charon

Rather small tombs, considering. Now show me the great cities, those that we hear talked about in Hades; Nineveh, Babylon, Mycenae, Cleonae, and Troy itself. I shipped numbers across from there, I remember. For ten years running I had no time to haul my boat up and clean it.

Hermes

Why, as to Nineveh, it is gone, friend, long ago, and has left no trace behind it; there is no saying whereabouts it may have been. But there is Babylon, with its fine battlements and its enormous wall. Before long it will be as hard to find as Nineveh. As to Mycenae and Cleonae, I am ashamed to show them to you, let alone Troy. You will throttle Homer, for certain, when you get back, for puffing them so. They were prosperous cities, too, in their day; but they have gone the way of all flesh. Cities, my friend, die, just like men;

stranger still, so do rivers! Inachus is gone from Argos—not a puddle left.

Charon

Oh, Homer, Homer! You and your ‘holy Troy,’ and your ‘city of broad streets,’ and your ‘strong-walled Cleonae’!

Charon

By the way, what is that battle going on over there? What are they murdering one another about?

Hermes

It is between the Argives and the Lacedaemonians. The general who lies there half-dead, writing an inscription on the trophy with his own blood, is Othryades.

Charon

And what were they fighting for?

Hermes

For the field of battle, neither more nor less.

Charon

The fools! Not to know that though each one of them should win to himself a whole Peloponnesus, he will get but a bare foot of ground from Aeacus! As to yonder plain, one nation will till it after another, and many a time will that trophy be turned up by the plough.

Hermes

Even so. And now let us get down, and put these mountains to rights again. After which, I must be off on my errand, and you back to your ferry. You will see me there before long, with the day’s contingent of shades.

Charon

I am much obliged to you, Hermes; the service shall be perpetuated in my records. Thanks to you, my outing has been a success. Dear, dear, what a world it is!—And never a word of Charon!