The River

"...the marvel of the rill by which we stand,

for it stifles all the flames above its course

as if flows out across the burning sand."

So spoke my Guide across the flickering light,

and I begged him to bestow on me the food 

for which he had given me the appetite.

"In the middle of the sea, and gone to waste,

there lies a country known as Crete," he said,

"under whose king the ancient world was chaste.

Once Rhea chose it as the secret crypt

and cradle of her son' and better to hide him,

her Corybantes raised a din when he wept.

An ancient giant stands in the mountain's core.

...His head is made of gold; of silverwork

his breast and both his arms, of polished brass

the rest of his great torso to the fork

He is chosen iron from there down,

except that his right foot is terra cotta;

it is this foot he rests more weight upon.

Every part except the gold is split

...becoming Acheron, Phlegethon, and Styx.

Then by this narrow sluice they hurtle down

to the end of all descent, and disappear

into Cocytus. You shall see what sink that is

with your own eyes. I pass it in silence here."

(Dante 114).

In Dante's version of Hell, there are three rivers: Acheron bridges the gap between the Vestibule and Circle One, Styx is the muddy swamp that makes up Circle Five, and Phlegethon is a river of boiling blood in which first circle of sinners in Circle Seven are punished. The rivers of Hell are one giant symbol representing the Golden Age of Innocence, a time when people truly lived in peace and prosperity and lies did not exist. The Old Man of Crete is the statue or the "ancient giant," and the ages of mankind are depicted by the different metals of which he is made of. Silver and bronze represent the slight more impure ages that followed the golden one.The weight of the Iron, or the Age of Violence, rests on one clay terra cotta foot that is said to represent the Roman Catholic Church. Dante yet again is making references to the political state of Europe by inferring that Iron represents the Holy Roman Empire leaning on the weaker Roman Catholic Church. When man cried tears of woe, they create fissures (the rivers) in the man in all parts except the Gold, because the Golden Age was perfect and woe free.

Dante and Virgil begin talking about the rivers when they were walking through the third round of Circle Seven that punishes the violent against God, nature, and art. While they were marveling at the waterfall of blood Dante asked how the rivers were created. Rhea, the wife of Saturn hid her child in Crete to keep her husband from killing him, and instructed the people to not allow him to weep so that Saturn would not hear him. Infants are symbols of innocence, which ties into the Golden Age of Innocence. Since the child did not cry, the statue might have started out all gold, and progressively gained patches of silver, bronze, and iron later on when other in Crete became woeful and violent; their tears likely produced the beginnings of the rivers of Hell. The mood of this passage shifts from that of the rest of the book, as it is rare that Dante is this interested in the features of Hell. He is usually concentrating on the souls he finds there, or the punishment they recieve; he vaguely describes the features. The story gives Dante's version of Hell more depth by giving readers hints as to how it was created. 

The last stanza indicates that all the rivers flow into something called Cocytus, frozen lake at the bottom of Hell. Words such as "to the end off all descent," and "what sink that it is," give the reader a negative feeling about the place. Virgil insists that Dante must see it himself. The syntax of the last line, "I pass it in silence here," is very simple especially after the elaborate story. Virgil has seen some bad things in Hell, but for him to be almost at a loss of words foreshadows such a dark place that nothing else that Dante has seen in Hell could top it. The little Dante did write about Cocytus was probably to foreshadow feelings of fear and pity for the poor souls that have to endure what horrendous punishment it must have in store.

works cited for golden age:
http://matriarchy.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=26