Odyssey 10.511 · Book 10, lines 511–515
The rivers of the dead
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Circe — νῆα μὲν αὐτοῦ κέλσαι ἐπʼ Ὠκεανῷ βαθυδίνῃ, αὐτὸς δʼ εἰς Ἀίδεω ἰέναι δόμον εὐρώεντα. ἔνθα μὲν εἰς Ἀχέροντα Πυριφλεγέθων τε ῥέουσιν Κώκυτός θʼ, ὃς δὴ Στυγὸς ὕδατός ἐστιν ἀπορρώξ, πέτρη τε ξύνεσίς τε δύω ποταμῶν ἐριδούπων·
Beach your ship there on deep-eddying Ocean, and go yourself to the moldering house of Hades. There into Acheron flow Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus — which is a branch of the water of Styx — and a rock, and the meeting of two loud-roaring rivers.
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The setting
Circe is telling Odysseus how to reach and consult the House of Hades. She first marks the route's end and names the place by its waters.
A note on this passage
Circe maps the far end of the route: beach the ship at the stream of Ocean and walk on foot into Hades' dank house. Then she names the place by its rivers — Acheron, fed by blazing Pyriphlegethon and wailing Cocytus, itself a branch broken off from the Styx, where two loud waters meet at a rock.
The underworld arrives not as doctrine but as geography: real rivers, a real landmark, an address for the dead. The names do the work the poem leaves undescribed. Pyriphlegethon is ‘fire-blazing,’ Cocytus is ‘wailing,’ Styx is the water even gods swear by in dread — the sound of the names carries the horror.
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