It is true that in the Iliad the ghost of Patroclus, appearing to Achilles in a dream, tells him he cannot cross the river until Achilles gives him burial. But in the Odyssey, Elpenor begs Odysseus to bury his body, which has been left behind on Circe's island, and he is in Hades and makes no mention of a river. The laws and the terrain of Hades are obviously not strictly defined; they remain somewhat vague even in Virgil —it was Dante who gave Hell strict logic and a fixed geography.

Unknown, Homer, Robert Fagles_ Knox,…, loc. 289