The other and more pagan conception of Charos excludes all traits of kindness and mercy; and men do not stint the expression of their hatred of him. He is 'black,' 'bitter,' 'hateful' ([Greek: mauros[1], pikros, stygeros]). He is the merciless potentate of the nether world, independent of the God of heaven, equally powerful in his own domain, but more terrible, more inexorable: for his work is death and his abode is Hades. Thence he issues forth at will, as a hunter to the chase. 'Against the wounds that Charos deals herbs avail not, physicians give no cure, nor saints protection[2].' His quarry is the soul of man; 'where he finds three, he takes two of them, and where he finds two, takes one, and where he finds but one alone, him too he takes[3].' Sometimes he is enlarging his palace, and he takes the young and strong to be its pillars; sometimes he is repairing the tent in which he dwells, and uses the stout arms of heroes for tent-pegs and the tresses of bright-haired maidens for the ropes; sometimes he is laying out a garden, and he gathers children from the earth to be the flowers of it and young men to be its tall slim cypresses; more rarely he is a vintager, and tramples men in his vat that their blood may be his red wine, or again he carries a sickle and reaps a human harvest.
But most commonly he is the warrior preëminent in all manner of prowess—archer, wrestler, horseman. Once a bride boasted that she had no fear of Charos, for that her brothers were men of valour and her husband a hero; then came Charos and shot an arrow at her, and her beauty faded; a second and a third arrow, and he stretched her on her death-bed[4]. Often in the pride of strength have young warriors laughed Charos to scorn; then has he come to seize the strongest of them, and though the warrior strain and struggle as in a wrestling-match, yet Charos wearies not but wins the contest by fair means or foul: for he is no honourable foe, but dishonest above thieves, more deceitful than women[5]: he seizes his adversary by the hair and drags him down to Hades. Even more striking is the picture of Charos as horseman riding forth on his black steed to the.]
