Editing Styx (section)

===River===
The goddess Styx, like her father Oceanus, and his sons the [[River gods (Greek mythology)|river gods]], was also a river, in her case, a river of the Underworld. According to Hesiod, Styx was given one-tenth of her father's water, which flowed far underground, and came up to the surface to pour out from a high rock: 
{{blockquote|the famous cold water ... trickles down from a high and beetling rock. Far under the wide-pathed earth a branch of Oceanus flows through the dark night out of the holy stream, and a tenth part of his water is allotted to her.<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:767-806 785&ndash;789].</ref>}}

In the ''Iliad'' the river Styx forms a boundary of Hades, the abode of the dead, in the Underworld.<ref>Gantz, pp. 124&ndash;125; Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA109 p. 109].</ref> [[Athena]] mentions the "sheer-falling waters of Styx" needing to be crossed when Heracles returned from Hades after capturing [[Cerberus]],<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Iliad]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:8.335-8.380 8.366&ndash;369].</ref> and [[Patroclus]]'s shade begs Achilles to bury his corpse quickly so that he might "pass within the gates of Hades" and join the other dead "beyond the River".<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Iliad]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:23.54-23.92 23.71&ndash;74].</ref> So too in [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'', where the Styx winds nine times around the borders of Hades, and the boatman [[Charon]] is in charge of ferrying the dead across it.<ref>Tripp, s.v. Styx; [[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL063.555.xml 6.317&ndash;326], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL063.559.xml 6.384&ndash;390], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL063.563.xml 6.434&ndash;439].</ref> More usually, however, [[Acheron]] is the river (or lake) which separates the world of the living from the world of the dead.<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA109 p. 109], [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA113 p. 113]; Gantz, pp. 124&ndash;125. The first mention of Acheron as the river the dead must cross is found in [[Alcaeus of Mytilene|Alcaeus]], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/alcaeus-fragments/1982/pb_LCL142.251.xml fr. 38A Campbell] [= P. Oxy. 1233 fr. 1 ii 8–20 + 2166(b)1 = fr. 38A Lobel-Page = fr. 78 Diehl]; compare with [[Sappho]] [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/sappho-fragments/1982/pb_LCL142.119.xml fr. 95 Campbell] [= fr. 95 Lobel-Page = fr. 97 Diehl] where this is implied. See also for example [[Aeschylus]], ''[[Seven Against Thebes]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-seven_thebes/2009/pb_LCL145.243.xml 854&ndash;860]; [[Sophocles]], ''[[Antigone (Sophocles play)|Antigone]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/sophocles-antigone/1994/pb_LCL021.79.xml 806&ndash;816]; [[Euripides]], ''[[Alcestis (play)|Alcestis]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/euripides-alcestis/1994/pb_LCL012.197.xml 435&ndash;444]; [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:10.28.1 10.28.1]; [[Plato]], ''[[Phaedo]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg004.perseus-eng1:113d 113d] etc.</ref>

In the ''Odyssey'', [[Circe]] says that the Underworld river [[Cocytus]] is a branch of the Styx.<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA109 p. 109]; Gantz, p. 29; Tripp, s.v. Styx; [[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg002.perseus-eng1:10.503-10.545 10.513&ndash;515].</ref> In [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]]'s  ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'', [[Phlegyas]] ferries Virgil and Dante across the foul waters of the river Styx which is portrayed as a marsh comprising the [[Hell]]'s Fifth Circle, where the angry and sullen are punished.<ref>Dante, ''Inferno'' [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy_(Longfellow_1867)/Volume_1/Canto_7 7.106&ndash;130], [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy_(Longfellow_1867)/Volume_1/Canto_8 8.15&ndash;24].</ref>

By [[metonymy]], the adjective ''stygian'' ([[Help:IPA/English|/ˈstɪdʒiən/]]) came to refer to anything unpleasantly dark, gloomy, or forbidding.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Definition of STYGIAN |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stygian |website=merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Stygian {{!}} English meaning |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/stygian |website=dictionary.cambridge.org}}</ref>