CHARON
I see that their activities are varied and their life full of turmoil; yes, and their cities resemble hives, in which everyone has a sting of his own and stings his neighbour, while some few, like wasps, harry and plunder the meaner sort. But what is that crowd of shapes that flies about them unseen?
HERMES
Hope, Fear, Ignorance, Pleasure, Covetousness, Anger, Hatred and their like. Of these, Ignorance mingles with them down below and shares their common life, and so do Hatred, Anger, Jealousy, Stupidity, Doubt, and Covetousness; but Fear and Hope hover up above, and Fear, swooping down from time to time, terrifies them and makes them cringe, while Hope, hanging overhead, flies up and is off when they are most confident of grasping her, leaving them in the lurch with their mouths open, exactly as you have seen Tantalus served by the water down below.
If you look close, you will also see the Fatés up above, drawing off each man’s thread from the spindle to which, as it happens, one and all are attached by slender threads. Do you see cobwebs, if I may call them so, coming down to each man from the spindles?
CHARON
I see that each man has a very slender thread, and it is entangled in most cases, this one with that and that with another.
