Editing Charon (section)

==Appearance and demeanor==
[[File:Thanatos Painter ARV 1228 11 Charon receiving Hermes and a deceased woman (06).jpg|thumb|Charon with punt pole standing in his boat, receiving Hermes psychopompos who leads a deceased woman.  [[Thanatos Painter]], ca. 430 BC]]
[[File:CarontediMichelagelo.jpg|thumb|upright|Charon as depicted by [[Michelangelo]] in his fresco ''[[The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)|The Last Judgment]]'' in the [[Sistine Chapel]]]]

Charon is depicted in the [[Art in ancient Greece|art of ancient Greece]]. [[Classical Athens|Attic]] funerary [[Pottery of ancient Greece|vases]] of the 5th and 4th centuries BC are often decorated with scenes of the dead boarding Charon's boat. On the earlier such vases, he looks like a rough, unkempt Athenian seaman dressed in reddish-brown, holding his ferryman's pole in his right hand and using his left hand to receive the deceased. [[Hermes]] sometimes stands by in his role as [[psychopomp]]. On later vases, Charon is given a more "kindly and refined" demeanor.<ref>{{cite journal |first=L. V. |last=Grinsell |title=The Ferryman and His Fee: A Study in Ethnology, Archaeology, and Tradition |journal=[[Folklore (journal)|Folklore]] |volume=68 |year=1957 |issue=1 |pages=257–269 [p. 261] |jstor=1258157 |doi=10.1080/0015587X.1957.9717576 }}</ref>

In the 1st century BC, the [[Latin poetry|Roman poet]] [[Virgil]] describes Charon, manning his rust-colored skiff, in the course of [[Aeneas]]'s [[descent to the underworld]] (''[[Aeneid]]'', Book 6), after the [[Cumaean Sibyl]] has directed the hero to [[The Golden Bough (mythology)|the golden bough]] that will allow him to return to the world of the living:
<blockquote>There Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast;<br>A sordid god: down from his hairy chin<br>A length of beard descends, uncombed, unclean;<br>His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;<br>A girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0690.phi003.perseus-eng1:6.295-6.336 6.298–301], as translated by [[John Dryden]].</ref></blockquote>

Other Latin authors also describe Charon, among them [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] in his tragedy ''Hercules Furens'', where Charon is described in verses 762–777 as an old man clad in foul garb, with haggard cheeks and an unkempt beard, a fierce ferryman who guides his craft with a long pole. When the boatman tells Heracles to halt, the Greek hero uses his strength to gain passage, overpowering Charon with the boatman's own pole.<ref>See [[Ron Terpening|Ronnie H. Terpening]], ''Charon and the Crossing: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Transformations of a Myth'' (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985 and London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1985), pp. 97–98.</ref>

In the second century, [[Lucian of Samosata|Lucian]] employed Charon as a figure in his ''Dialogues of the Dead'', most notably in Parts 4 and 10 ("Hermes and Charon" and "Charon and Hermes").<ref>For an analysis of these dialogues, see Terpening, pp. 107–116.</ref>

[[Image:Gustave Doré - Dante Alighieri - Inferno - Plate 10 (Canto III - Charon herds the sinners onto his boat).jpg|thumb|left|In the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', Charon forces reluctant sinners onto his boat by beating them with his oar. ([[Gustave Doré]], 1857).]]

In the 14th century, [[Dante Alighieri]] described Charon in his ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', drawing from Virgil's depiction in ''Aeneid'' 6. Charon is the first named mythological character Dante meets in the underworld, in Canto III of the ''[[Divine Comedy|Inferno]]''. Dante depicts him as having eyes of fire. Elsewhere, Charon appears as a mean-spirited and gaunt old man or as a winged demon wielding a double hammer, although Michelangelo's interpretation, influenced by Dante's depiction in the ''Inferno'', shows him with an oar over his shoulder, ready to beat those who delay ("batte col remo qualunque s'adagia", ''Inferno'' 3, verse 111).<ref>For an analysis of Dante's depiction of Charon and other appearances in literature from antiquity through the 17th century in Italy, see [[Ron Terpening|Terpening]], ''Charon and the Crossing''.</ref> In modern times, he is commonly depicted as a living skeleton in a [[cowl]], much like the [[Grim Reaper]]. The French artist [[Gustave Dore]] depicted Charon in two of his illustrations for Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. The Flemish painter [[Joachim Patinir]] depicted Charon in his ''Crossing the River Styx''. And the Spanish painter [[Jose Benlliure y Gil]] portrayed Charon in his ''La Barca de Caronte''.

Though named after Charon, the Etruscan death-demon [[Charun]] has a different origin and functions, being an assistant to Death as well as psychopomp and guardian, delivering the newly dead to the underworld by horseback or chariot. He is winged, with pointed ears and a hideous and threatening appearance, and has a vulture's beak. He is armed with a very large hammer, with which to "mercilessly pummel" the dead.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Abel |first=Ernest |title=Death Gods: an Encyclopedia of the Rulers, Evil Spirits, and Geographies of the Dead |publisher=ABC-CLIO, LLC |year=2009 |isbn=9780313357138 |pages=41, 61, 125, 139 |language=English}}</ref><ref>DeGrummond, Nancy & Simon, Erika, ''The Religion of the Etruscans'', University of Texas Press, 2006, p. 57.</ref>