In Dante’s Inferno, Charon is the ferryman who transports souls across the Acheron. Dante draws on the figure from Greek mythology, where Charon carries the dead across a boundary river into the underworld, usually in exchange for payment.
Charon appears in Canto III, after Dante and Virgil pass through the gate of Hell. He is portrayed as an aged, fiercely threatening boatman with fiery eyes. When he sees Dante, who is still alive, Charon initially objects to carrying him. Virgil explains that Dante’s journey is divinely ordained, and the supernatural passage proceeds.
The Acheron is the first major river Dante encounters in Hell, and crossing it marks the pilgrim’s entry into the realm of punishment. The other options represent different figures from the poem’s mythological and infernal landscape. Cerberus is the three-headed guardian of the gluttons, Minos judges and assigns souls to circles, and Phlegyas ferries Dante across the Styx later in the Inferno. Remembering the river helps distinguish Charon from Phlegyas.