Mythology and Literature
Greek mythology included the Styx, Phlegethon, Acheron, Cocytus, and Lethe as rivers within the Underworld. Dante Alighieri, in his Inferno, included the Acheron, Phlegethon, and Styx as rivers within his subterranean Hell. The river Alph, running "Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea" is central to the poem Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The characters in Jules Verne's A Journey to the Centre of the Earth encounter a subterranean river:
"Hans was not mistaken," he said. "What you hear is the rushing of a torrent."
"A torrent?" I exclaimed.
"There can be no doubt; a subterranean river is flowing around us."
Several other novels also feature subterranean rivers.. The subterranean rivers of London feature in e.g. the novel "Drowning Man" by Michael Robotham as well as in the novel Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy L. Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh in which a character remarks:
"You can bury them deep under, sir; you can bind them in tunnels, ... but in the end where a river has been, a river will always be."
Read more about this topic: Subterranean River
Famous quotes containing the words mythology and/or literature:
“This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purgative of winter fumes and indigestions. It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling-clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side.”
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