Editing Lethe (section)

== References in literature ==

{{main|River Lethe in popular culture}}

[[File:The-waters-of-lethe-by-the-plains-of-elysium-1880.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|[[John Roddam Spencer Stanhope]]'s ''The Waters of the Lethe by the Plains of Elysium.''<ref>Roddam Spencer Stanhope, John. "The Waters of the Lethe by the Plains of Elysium." ''WikiArt,'' 1880, [https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-roddam-spencer-stanhope/the-waters-of-lethe-by-the-plains-of-elysium-1880 URL].</ref>]]

* In 29 BCE, [[Virgil]] wrote about Lethe in his didactic hexameter poem, the ''[[Georgics]]''. Lethe is also referenced in Virgil's epic Latin poem, ''[[Aeneid]]'', when the title protagonist travels to Lethe to meet the ghost of his father in Book VI of the poem.

{{blockquote|<poem>
The souls that throng the flood
Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow'd:
In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste,
Of future life secure, forgetful of the past.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.6.vi.html |title=The Internet Classics Archive - The Aeneid by Virgil |website=classics.mit.edu}}</ref></poem>}}

* Ovid includes a description of Lethe as a stream that puts people to sleep in his work ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' (8 AD)
* In the ''[[Purgatorio]]'', the second ''cantica'' of [[Dante Alighieri]]'s ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', the Lethe is located in the [[Purgatorio#The Earthly Paradise|Earthly Paradise]] atop the Mountain of Purgatory. The piece, written in the early 14th century, tells of Dante's immersion in the Lethe so that his memories are wiped of sin (''Purg''. XXXI). The Lethe is also mentioned in the ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'', the first part of the ''Comedy'', as flowing down to Hell from Purgatory to be frozen in the ice around Satan, "the last lost vestiges of the sins of the saved"<ref>[[John Ciardi]], ''Purgatorio'', notes on Canto XXVII, pg. 535</ref> (''Inf.'' XXXIV.130). He then proceeds to sip from the waters of the river [[Eunoe]] so that the soul may enter heaven full of the strength of his or her life's good deeds.
* [[William Shakespeare]] references Lethe's identity as the "river of forgetfulness" in a speech of the Ghost in Act 1 Scene 5 of ''[[Hamlet]]'': "and duller should thoust be than the fat weed / That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf," written sometime between 1599 and 1601.
* In [[John Milton|John Milton's]] ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', written in 1667, his first speech in Satan describes how "The associates and copartners of our loss, Lie thus astonished on ''the oblivious pool''", referencing Lethe.<ref>[[John Milton]], ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', Kastan Ed., Book 1, lines 265-270.</ref>
*The English poet [[John Keats]] references the river in poems "[[Ode to a Nightingale]]" and "[[Ode on Melancholy]]" written in 1819.
* In [[Faust, Part Two]], the titular character, Faust, is bathed "in the dew of Lethe" so that he would forget what happened in [[Faust, Part One]]. A remorseful Faust would not work well with the rest of Part 2. The forgetting powers of Lethe allowed him to forget the ending of the Gretchen drama and move on to the story of part 2.
* The French poet [[Charles Baudelaire]] referred to the river in his poem "Spleen", published posthumously in 1869. The final line is "Où coule au lieu de sang l'eau verte du Léthé" which one translator renders as "... in whose veins flows the green water of Lethe ..." (the reference offers a few more English translations).<ref>Baudelaire, Charles. "Spleen." ''Charles Baudelaire's'' ''Fleurs De Mal / Flowers of Evil,'' Fleurs de Mal. 1869. https://fleursdumal.org/poem/160 Accessed June 6th, 2021.</ref> Baudelaire also wrote a poem called "Lethe".