The Lethe River

 (The River Lethe flowed through the plain of Lethe in Hades. Also known as the Ameles Potamos (River of Unmindfulness), the river flowed around the cave of Hypnos where its murmuring induces drowsiness. The shades of the dead were required to drink from its water in order to forget their earthly life. Poets often used Lethe as a metaphor for the underworld in general.)

Simonides, Fragment 67 (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric III) (Greek lyric C6th to C5th B.C.) :

"One thing alone distresses him in Akheron (Acheron): not that he left the sun behind and found there the halls of Lethe."

Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1. 642 ff (trans. Rieu) (Greek epic C3rd B.C.) :

"He [Aithalides (Aethalides) who was gifted with unfailing memory] has long since been lost in the inexorable waters of the Akheron (Acheron), yet even so, Lethe (Forgetfulness) has not overwhelmed his soul." [I.e. Unlike the other dead he retains his memory in the underworld.]

Ovid, Metamorphoses 11. 602 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :

"Near the Cimmerii (Cimerians) a cavern lies deep in the hollow of a mountainside, the home and sanctuary of lazy Somnus (Sleep) [Hypnos], where Phoebus' [the Sun's] beams can never reach at morn or noon or eve, but cloudy vapours rise in doubtful twilight . . . there silence dwells: only the lazy stream of Lethe [Forgetfulness] 'neath the rock with whisper low o'er pebbly shallows trickling lulls to sleep. Before the cavern's mouth lush poppies grow and countless herbs, from whose bland essences a drowsy infusion dewy Nox (Night) [Nyx] distils and sprinkles sleep across the darkening world."

Virgil, Aeneid 6. 705 ff (trans. Day-Lewis) (Roman epic C1st B.C.) :

"Now did Aeneas descry deep in a valley retiring, a wood, a secluded copse whose branches soughed in the wind, and the Lethe River drifting past the tranquil places. Hereabouts were flitting a multitude [of phantoms] without number . . . Aeneas moved by the sudden sight, asked in his ignorance what it might mean, what was that river over there and all that crowd of people swarming along its banks. Then [the ghost of] his father, Anchises said:--‘They are the souls who are destined for Reincarnation; and now at Lethe's stream they are drinking the waters that quench man's troubles, the deep draught of oblivion . . . They come in crowds to the river Lethe, so that you see, with memory washed out they may revisit the earth above.’"

Virgil, Georgics 1. 78 (trans. Fairclough) (Roman bucolic C1st B.C.) :

"Poppies, steeped in Lethe's slumber."

Virgil, Georgics 4. 545 :

"You must offer funeral dues of Lethe's poppies.”

Propertius, Elegies 4. 7 ff (trans. Goold) (Roman elegy C1st B.C.) :

"Lethe's water had withered her [the dead maiden's] lips . . . At dawn the law compels us [i.e. the ghosts who wander the earth at night] to return to Lethe's waters : we board, the ferryman [Kharon (Charon)] counts the cargo boarded."

Seneca, Hercules Furens 679 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy C1st A.D.) :

"Within the abyss [of the Underworld], Lethe, measureless in sweep, glides smoothly on with placid stream, and takes away our cares; and, that there may be no power to retrace the path, with windings manifold it takes its sluggish way, even as the vagrant Maeander with its inconstant waters plays along, now retreats upon itself, now presses on, in doubt whether to seek the seashore or its source."

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 39. 3 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :

"Here [at the chthonian oracle of Trophonios in Boiotia] he [the supplicant] must drink water called the water of Lethe (Forgetfulness), that he may forget all that he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Mnemosyne (Memory), which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent.