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Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

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Chapter 6 -- And Back to the Cross<br />

Dante's Styx isn't a boundary, but a quagmire <strong>of</strong> torment, a circle <strong>of</strong> Hell itself. The rivers are<br />

pools <strong>of</strong> perpetual punishment.<br />

Styx and Phlegethon from Treatise on Anti-<br />

Christ, Judgment, Heaven and Hell(c. 1450-<br />

1470).<br />

DRAFT 1122//66//22001122<br />

"The Torments <strong>of</strong> Hell," Codex <strong>of</strong> Christoro de<br />

Predis (c. 1486)<br />

Should we thus disqualify the Inferno's Styx as but a sorrowful swamp, not a subterranean river?<br />

No, we shouldn't. Reinterpretation is not redefinition. Subterranean rivers they originally were,<br />

and subterranean rivers they will always be.<br />

Uppddaatteess aatt hhttttpp::////www. .uunnm. .eedduu//~rrhheeggggeenn//UnnddeerrggrroouunnddRi ivveerrss. .hhttml l<br />

57

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