Cocytus

Encyclopedia : C : CO : COC : Cocytus

The Greek Underworld
Residents:

Persephone
Hades
Minos
Aeacus

Rhadamanthys
Charon
Cerberus
Geography:

Acheron
Cocytus
Tartarus
Lethe
Elysion

Styx
Phlegethon
Asphodel Meadows
Erebus
Famous inmates:

Ixion
Sisyphus

Tantalus
The Titans
Related:

Greek mythology

Greek religion

In Greek mythology, Cocytus, meaning river of wailing (Greek κωκυτός, "lamentation") was the river in the underworld on the banks of which the dead who could not pay Charon wandered, according to most accounts, for one hundred years. It flowed into the river Acheron, across which lay Hades, the mythological abode of the dead.

The Greek Underworld
Residents:
Persephone Hades Minos Aeacus	Rhadamanthys Charon Cerberus
Geography:
Acheron Cocytus Tartarus Lethe Elysion	Styx Phlegethon Asphodel Meadows Erebus
Famous inmates:
Ixion Sisyphus	Tantalus The Titans
Related:
Greek mythology	Greek religion

In The Divine Comedy (Inferno), Cocytus is the ninth and lowest circle of Hell and is frozen by the flapping wings of Lucifer, or Satan. In the Inferno Cocytus is referred to as a frozen lake rather than a river, although it originates from the same source as the other infernal rivers. Dante described it as being the home of traitors and those who committed acts of complex fraud. It is divided into four descending "rounds," or sections:

Caina, after the Biblical Cain; traitors to blood relatives.
Antenora, after Antenor from the Iliad; traitors to country.
Ptolomea, after Ptolemy, governor of Jericho, who murdered his guests (1 Maccabees); traitors to guests.
Judecca, after Judas Iscariot; traitors to masters and benefactors.

Lucifer is at the center of the circle, his lower body trapped in ice, and is depicted with three mouths. One mouth gnaws on Brutus and another on Cassius, the leading conspirators against Julius Caesar, and both are chewed feet foremost with their heads protruding. The chewed head of Judas is in the centre mouth.

The name Cocytus was also given to the setting (on a mythical island off the coast of the American state of North Carolina) of the novel A Snowman in July by Gary Bolick, and to a planet in the science fiction novel The Dig, by Alan Dean Foster, based on the LucasArts adventure video game.

Cocytus is also the name of a sword wielded by Cervantes de Leon in Soul Calibur II. Fittingly, it is described as having been excavated from permafrost, and is perpetually frozen.

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