The Ferryman (El Barquero) (Visions by Virgil. Shakespeare, Dante, Doré and Böcklin)

The Ferryman -El Barquero- Gustavo Doré

Virgil, Æneid, VI., Davidson’s translation: – “A grim ferryman guards these floods
and rivers, Charon, of frightful slovenliness; on whose chin a load of gray hair neglected
lies; his eyes are flame: his vestments hang from his shoulders by a knot, with filth overgrown.
He thrusts on the barge with a pole, tends the sails, and wafts over
the bodies in his iron-colored boat, now in years: but the god is of fresh and green old
age. Hither the whole tribe in swarms come pouring to the banks, matrons and men, the
souls of magnanimous heroes who had gone through life, boys and unmarried maids,
and young men who had been stretched on the funeral pile before the eyes of their parents;
as numerous as withered leaves fall in the woods with the first cold of autumn, or
as numerous as birds flock to the land from the deep ocean when the chilling year drives
them beyond the sea, and sends them to sunny climes. They stood praying to cross the flood
the first, and were stretching forth their hands with fond desire to gain the further bank:
but the sullen boatman admits sometimes these, sometimes those; while others to a great
distance removed, he debars from the banks.”

Virgil Æneid, VI.:
“This is the region of Ghosts, of sleep and drowsy
Night; to waft over the bodies of the living in my Stygian boat is not permitted.”

 Shakespeare, Richard III., I. 4:
“I passed, methought, the melancholy flood
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.”

Dante Divine Comedy -Canto 3 Inferno- 

"And lo! towards us coming in a boat 45
An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
Crying: “Woe unto you, ye souls depraved
Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
I come to lead you to the other shore,
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.
And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead! 46
But when he saw that I did not withdraw,
He said: “By other ways, by other ports
Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;
A lighter vessel needs must carry thee.”.

Isle of the Dead (German: Die Toteninsel)*

Böcklin

*

La isla de los muertos 

Es una conocida serie de cuadros simbolistas del pintor suizo Arnold Böcklin.

Böcklin creó múltiples versiones del mismo cuadro, en el que se representa un remero y una figura blanca sobre una pequeña barca, cruzando una amplia extensión de agua en dirección a una isla rocosa. El objeto que acompaña a las figuras en la barca se identifica generalmente como un ataúd, y la figura blanca con Caronte, el barquero que en la mitología clásica conducía a las almas al Hades.