The Crossing of the Acheron and Charon

Dante and Virgil reach the bank of the river Acheron, where a crowd of souls waits to be ferried across. The demon Charon, an old man with wheels of flame around his eyes, cries out in fury at the sight of a living soul, telling Dante he must go by another way. Virgil silences him with the words: 'It is so willed there where is power to do that which is willed.' The souls of the damned, naked and weary, curse God and their progenitors as they board the boat. Charon beats with his oar whoever lags behind. As they depart, the earth trembles, a vermilion light flashes, and Dante falls into a swoon. This crossing marks the definitive passage from the world of the living into the realm of the dead, and Charon's role as the ferryman of the damned is established.