Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 32 -- To Cross the Styx
Or for those of us more into engineering, Quonset Huts on the River Styx, The Bomb Shelter
Design Book (1993) is the product of a wry national competition by Architects/Designers/Planners
for Social Responsibility for a "radiation-proof emergency operation center" for government
officials. An entry is shown below, the conical depression harkening to Dante's circles of Chapter
6.
Crossing the Styx
A metaphoric figure of speech is a phrase literally designating one thing used for implicit
comparison. "To cross the River Styx" as a metaphor for "to die" has been in English usage for
hundreds of years. In a less-frequent sense, the phrase has also been employed to describe a
sojourn to the underworld from which the protagonists returns.
The literature of crossing the Styx begins in the Aeneid where Aeneas, in search of his father,
tries to cross the netherworld river. It was the Divine Comedy (1314) that propelled the metaphor
into modern vocabulary, a somewhat inexplicable literary legacy because -- as we've noted In
Chapters 1 and 6 -- Dante's river was the Acheron. We lack particulars regarding the actual
crossing, unfortunately, as Dante had fainted, not to awaken until he was on the other side.
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