Moreover, the metrical epitaphs continue to speak of the Elysian Fields and of Tartarus, of Styx and of Acheron; they complain of the cruelty of Pluto who bears away mortals before their time, or of the Parcae or Fates who cut the thread of their days; they mention the avenging Furies, the sufferings of Tantalus, Sisyphus and Ixion. But these are no more than ready-made formulas of poetical language, literary reminiscences or traditional metaphors. Yet sometimes this infernal mythology is curiously developed. Thus a long inscription on a Roman tomb describes a young man descending from the ether in order to announce to those near and dear to him that he has become a celestial hero and has not to go to Pluto’s kingdom. “I shall not wend mournfully to the floods of Tartarus; I shall not cross the waters of Acheron as a shade, nor shall I propel the dusky boat with my oar; I shall not fear Charon with his face of terror, nor shall old Minos pass sentence on me; I shall not wander in the abode of gloom nor be held prisoner on the bank of the fatal waters.”[203] This epitaph dates from the century of Augustus, but did its author, any more than the writers of that time, believe in the reality of the beings with which he peoples Hades? He decorates his language with a literary ornament which Christian poetry was later to inherit. This poetry did not hesitate to employ these pagan commonplaces, which had passed from hand to hand until they were so worn out that their first meaning had been effaced. The Renaissance and the age of modern classicism were again to use and to abuse them. The sculpture of tombs continued in the same way often to reproduce the ancient models. Sarcophagi sometimes show us the dead man led by Hermes, guide of souls, and coming into the presence of Pluto and Proserpina.[204] We also see on funeral monuments Charon in his boat, the typical sufferings of Tantalus, whose eager lips cannot reach the flowing water, Ixion turning on his wheel, Sisyphus labouring under the weight of his rock and, above all, the Danaïdes eternally pouring water into a perforated vase.[205] But it is probable that these traditional figures were repeated without any very strong faith being held as to the real existence of the personages which they represented; indeed it was proposed only to show them as symbols which had to be interpreted allegorically.