Lethe

• Lethe, also known as the River of Forgetfulness or Unmindfulness, flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the underworld where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness.
• The Classical Greek word lethe literally means “oblivion”, “forgetfulness”, or “concealment”.
• Ovid wrote that the river flowed through the cave of Hypnos, god of sleep, where its murmuring would induce drowsiness.
• The Shades of the Dead were required to drink the waters of the Lethe in order to forget their earthly life, only when the dead have had their memories erased by the Lethe they may be reincarnated.
• The river Lethe was said to be located next to Hades’ palace in the underworld under a cypress tree. Orpheus would give some shades (the Greek term for ghosts or spirits) a password to tell Hades’ servants which would allow them to drink instead from the Mnemosyne (the pool of memory), which was located under a poplar tree

Quote

“The souls that throng the flood
Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow’d:
In Lethe’s lake they long oblivion taste,
Of future life secure, forgetful of the past.” (Aeneid by Virgil)

In Religion §

• Plato’s Republic tells of the dead arriving at a barren waste called the “plain of Lethe”, through which the river Ameles (“careless”) runs.
• “Of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity,” Plato wrote, “and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things.”