Editing Styx (section)

==Mythology==
===Oath of the gods===
Styx was the oath of the gods. [[Homer]] calls Styx the "dread river of oath".<ref>''[[Iliad]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:2.734-2.779 2.755].</ref> In both the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]'', it is said that swearing by the water of Styx, is "the greatest and most dread oath for the blessed gods". Homer has [[Hera]] (in the ''Iliad'') say this when she swears by Styx to Zeus, that she is not to blame for Poseidon's intervention on the side of the Greeks in the [[Trojan War]], and he has [[Calypso (mythology)|Calypso]] (in the ''Odyssey'') use the same words when she swears by Styx to [[Odysseus]] that she will cease to plot against him. Also [[Hypnos]] (in the ''Iliad'') makes Hera swear to him "by the inviolable water of Styx".<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Iliad]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:15.34-15.77 15.36&ndash;42] (Hera to Zeus), [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:14.270-14.311 14.271&ndash;278] (Hera to Hypnos), ''[[Odyssey]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg002.perseus-eng1:5.145-5.191 5.184&ndash;187] (Calypso to Odysseus). Gantz, p. 29, calls such oaths in Homer "not overly common", noting that for Zeus, at least, a nod of his head was sufficient, with Zeus once calling such a nod the most sure witness, see ''[[Iliad]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.493-1.530 1.524&ndash;527].</ref>

Examples of oaths sworn by Styx also occur in the ''[[Homeric Hymns]]''.<ref>Gantz, p. 29.</ref> Demeter asks the "implacable" water of Styx to be her witness, as she swears to [[Metaneira]],<ref>''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn]]'' 2 ''to Demeter'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/homeric_hymns_2_demeter/2003/pb_LCL496.53.xml 259].</ref> [[Leto]] swears to the personified [[Delos]] by the water of Styx, calling it the "most powerful and dreadful oath that the blessed gods can swear",<ref>''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn]]'' 3 ''to Apollo'', [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/homeric_hymns_3_apollo/2003/pb_LCL496.77.xml 83&ndash;86].</ref> while [[Apollo]] asks [[Hermes]] to swear to him on the "dread" water of Styx.<ref>''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn]]'' 4 ''to Hermes'', [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/homeric_hymns_4_hermes/2003/pb_LCL496.155.xml 518&ndash;520].</ref>

[[Hesiod]], in the ''[[Theogony]]'', gives an account of how this role for Styx came about. He says that, during the [[Titanomachy]], the great war of Zeus and his fellow Olympians against Cronus and his fellow Titans, Zeus summoned "all the deathless gods to great Olympus" and promised, to whosoever would join him against the Titans, that he would preserve whatever rights and offices each had, or if they had none under Cronus, they would be given both under his rule. Styx, upon the advice of her father Oceanus, was the first to side with Zeus, bringing her children by Pallas along with her. And so in return Zeus appointed Styx to be "the great oath of the gods, and her children to live with him always."<ref>Gantz, pp. 29, 45; [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:371-403 389&ndash;402]. Compare with [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.2.5 1.2.5]. West 1966, p. 272, points out that this story of Styx being the first to come to Zeus' aid, by bringing her children, including Nike (Victory) and Kratos (Strength), to Zeus' side, is an aetiological myth explaining both why the gods swear by Styx, and why Victory and Strength reside for evermore with Zeus. West suggests that this myth can be imagined as having come about thought the following though process. "Why do the gods swear by Styx? Because Zeus so ordained. Why did he do so? In reward for some service performed for him by Styx. In what connexion? Most likely in connexion with the Titanomachy, for that was when Zeus most needed help. Then did she fight for him? Hardly in person: but she might have sent her children to fight for him. Then who can they have been, that he needed there help? Why, Victory and Strength; those were the gods he needed."</ref>

According to Hesiod, Styx lived at the entrance to Hades, in a cave "propped up to heaven all round with silver pillars".<ref>Tripp, s.v. Styx; Smith, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DS%3Aentry+group%3D28%3Aentry%3Dstyx-bio-1 s.v. Styx]; [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:767-806 775&ndash;779].</ref> Hesiod also tells us that Zeus would send [[Iris (mythology)|Iris]], the messenger of the gods, to fetch the "famous cold water" of Styx for the gods to swear by,<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:767-806 780&ndash;786]. Gantz, p. 29 calls this description of the oath as "rather strange", noting that elsewhere simply invoking Styx suffices.</ref> and describes the punishments which would follow the breaking of such an oath:<ref>Although Hesiod does provide consequences for the breaking of such an oath, Gantz, p. 29, says that "one might have thought it unbreakable".</ref>
{{blockquote|For whoever of the deathless gods that hold the peaks of snowy Olympus pours a libation of her water and is forsworn, must lie breathless until a full year is completed, and never come near to taste ambrosia and nectar, but lie spiritless and voiceless on a strewn bed: and a heavy trance overshadows him. But when he has spent a long year in his sickness, another penance more hard follows after the first. For nine years he is cut off from the eternal gods and never joins their councils or their feasts, nine full years. But in the tenth year he comes again to join the assemblies of the deathless gods who live in the house of Olympus.<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:767-806 793&ndash;804].</ref>}}

The Roman poet [[Ovid]] has [[Jove]] (the Roman equivalent of Zeus) swear by the waters of Styx when he promises [[Semele]]:
{{poemquote|Whatever thy wish, it shall not be denied,
and that thy heart shall suffer no distrust,
I pledge me by that Deity, the Waves
of the deep Stygian Lake,—oath of the Gods.<ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses (poem)|Metamorphoses]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0959.phi006.perseus-eng1:3.251-3.313 3.308&ndash;312].</ref>}}
and was then obliged to follow through even though he realized to his horror that Semele's request would lead to her death.<ref>Compare with [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''[[Fabulae]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#179 179]; [[Nonnus]], ''[[Dionysiaca]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/nonnos-dionysiaca/1940/pb_LCL344.285.xml 8.178&ndash;406], which relate the same story of Semele's death, though with no mention of Zeus having sworn to grant anything Semele wished for.</ref> Similarly [[Sol (Roman mythology)|Sol]] (the Roman equivalent of the Greek [[Helios]]) promised his son [[Phaethon]] whatever he desired, which also resulted in the boy's death after he asked to drive his father's chariot for a day.<ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0959.phi006.perseus-eng1:2.1-2.102 2.42&ndash;46].</ref>

===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>

===Other===
In the ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn]]'' 2 ''to Demeter'' Persephone names Styx as one of her "frolicking" [[Oceanid]]-companions when she was abducted by [[Hades]].<ref>Gantz, p. 29; ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn]]'' 2 ''to Demeter'', [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/homeric_hymns_2_demeter/2003/pb_LCL496.65.xml 418&ndash;423].</ref>

According to the ''[[Achilleid]]'', written by the Roman poet [[Statius]] in the 1st century AD, when [[Achilles]] was born his mother [[Thetis]] tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx; however, he was left vulnerable at the part of the body by which she held him: his left heel.<ref>Burgess, [https://books.google.com/books?id=76n_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA9 p. 9]; [[Statius]], ''[[Achilleid]]'' [https://archive.org/details/statiuswithengli02statuoft/page/518/mode/2up?view=theater 1.133&ndash;134], [https://archive.org/details/statiuswithengli02statuoft/page/528/mode/2up?view=theater 269&ndash;270], [https://archive.org/details/statiuswithengli02statuoft/page/544/mode/2up?view=theater 480&ndash;481]; compare with [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''[[Fabulae]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#107 107] which says that Achilles' heel "was said to be vulnerable" but with no mention of him being dipped in the river Styx.</ref> And so [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]] was able to kill Achilles  during the [[Trojan War]] by shooting an arrow into his heel.

In the second-century ''[[The Golden Ass|Metamorphoses]]'' of [[Apuleius]], one of the impossible trials which [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] imposed on [[Psyche (mythology)|Psyche]] was to fetch water from the Styx.<ref>Tripp, s.v. Psyche; [[James George Frazer|Frazer]] on Pausanias [https://archive.org/details/pausaniassdescr01pausgoog/page/n274/mode/2up?view=theater 8.17.6]; [[Apuleius]], ''[[The Golden Ass|Metamorphoses]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/apuleius-metamorphoses/1989/pb_LCL044.277.xml 6.13].</ref> Apuleius has the water guarded by fierce dragons (''dracones''), and from the water itself came fearsome cries of deadly warning. The sheer impossibility of her task caused Psyche to become senseless, as if turned into stone.<ref>[[Apuleius]], ''[[The Golden Ass|Metamorphoses]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/apuleius-metamorphoses/1989/pb_LCL044.277.xml 6.14].</ref> Jupiter's eagle admonishes Psyche saying:
{{blockquote|Do you ... really expect to be able to steal, or even touch, a single drop from that holiest—and cruelest—of springs? Even the gods and Jupiter himself are frightened of these Stygian waters. You must know that, at least by hearsay, and that, as you swear by the powers of the gods, so the gods always swear by the majesty of the Styx.<ref>[[Apuleius]], ''[[The Golden Ass|Metamorphoses]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/apuleius-metamorphoses/1989/pb_LCL044.279.xml 6.15].</ref>}}