BOOK VI

So saying and weeping, he gives rope to his fleet, and in due time is wafted smoothly to Cumæ’s shores of Eubœan fame. They turn their prows seaward: then the anchor with griping fang began to moor vessel after vessel, and crooked keels fringe all the coast. With fiery zeal the 5 crews leap out on the Hesperian shore: some look for the seed of fire where it lies deep down in the veins of flint: some strip the woods, the wild beast’s shaggy covert, and point with joy to the streams they find. But good Æneas repairs to the heights on which Apollo sits exalted, and 10 the privacy of the dread Sibyl,[203] stretching far away into a vast cavern—the Sibyl, into whose breast the prophet that speaks at Delos breathes his own mighty mind and soul, and opens the future to her eye. And now they are entering the groves of the Trivian goddess and the golden 15 palace.

Dædalus, so runs the legend, flying from Minos’ sceptre, dared to trust himself in air on swift wings of his own workmanship, sailed to the cold north along an unwonted way, and at last stood buoyant on the top of this Eubœan hill. 20 Grateful to the land that first received him, he dedicated to thee, Phœbus, his feathery oarage, and raised a mighty temple. On the doors was seen Androgeos’ death: there too were the sons of Cecrops,[204] constrained—O cruel woe! to pay in penalty the yearly tale of seven of their sons’ 25 lives: the urn is standing, and the lots drawn out. On the other side, breasting the wave, the Gnossian land frowns responsive. There is Pasiphaë’s tragic passion for the bull, and the mingled birth, the Minotaur, half man, half brute, a monument of monstrous love. There is the edifice,[205] 30 that marvel of toiling skill, and its inextricable maze—inextricable, had not Dædalus in pity for the enthralling passion of the royal princess, himself unravelled the craft and mystery of those chambers, guiding the lover’s dark steps with a clue of thread. You too, poor Icarus,[206] had borne no mean part in that splendid portraiture, 5 would grief have given art its way. Twice the artist essayed to represent the tragedy in gold: twice the father’s hands dropped down palsied. So they would have gone on scanning all in succession, had not Achates returned from his errand, and with him the priestess of Phœbus and 10 Diana, Deïphobe, Glaucus’ daughter, who thus bespeaks the king: “Not this the time for shows like these; your present work is to sacrifice seven bullocks untouched by the yoke, seven sheep duly chosen.”

This said to Æneas, whose followers swiftly perform the 15 prescribed rites, she summons the Teucrians into the lofty temple, herself its priestess. One huge side of the Eubœan cliff has been hollowed into a cave, approached by a hundred broad avenues, a hundred mouths—from these a hundred voices are poured, the responses of the Sibyl. 20 Just as they were on the threshold, “It is the moment to pray for the oracle,” cries the maiden; “the god, the god is here.” Thus as she spoke at the gate, her visage, her hue changed suddenly—her hair started from its braid—her bosom heaves and pants, her wild soul swells with 25 frenzy—she grows larger to the view, and her tones are not of earth, as the breath of the divine presence comes on her nearer and nearer. “What! a laggard at vows and prayers? Æneas of Troy a laggard? for that is the only spell to part asunder the great closed lips of the terror-smitten 30 shrine.” She said, and was mute. A cold shudder runs through the Teucrians’ iron frames, and their king pours out his very soul in prayer: “Phœbus, ever Troy’s pitying friend in her cruel agonies—thou who didst level Paris’ Dardan[207] bow and string his Dardan arm 35 against the vast frame of Æacides[208]—by thy guidance I have penetrated all these unknown seas that swathe mighty continents. The Massylian tribes, thrust away by Nature out of view, and the quicksands that environ their coasts—now at last our hands are on the flying skirts of Italy. Oh, let it suffice Troy’s fortune to have followed us thus far! Ye too may now justly spare our nation of Pergamus, gods and goddesses all, whose eyes were 5 affronted by Troy and the great glories of Dardan land. And thou, most holy prophetess, that canst read the future as the present, grant me—I am asking for no crown that Fate does not owe me—grant a settlement in Latium to the Teucrians and their wandering gods, even the travel-tost 10 deities of Troy. Then to Phœbus and his Trivian sister I will set up a temple of solid marble, and appoint feast-days in Phœbus’ name. For thee too an august shrine is in store in that our future realm. For there I will lodge thy oracles and the secret words of destiny which thou 15 shalt speak to my nation, and consecrate chosen men to thy gracious service. Only commit not thy strains to leaves, lest they float all confusedly the sport of the whirling winds. Utter them with thine own mouth, I implore thee.” So his prayer ended. 20

But the prophetess, not yet Phœbus’ willing slave, is storming with giant frenzy in her cavern, as though she hoped to unseat from her bosom the mighty god. All the more sharply he plies her mouth with his bit till its fury flags, tames her savage soul, and moulds her to his 25 will by strong constraint. And now the hundred mighty doors of the chamber have flown open of their own accord, and are wafting through the air the voice of prophecy: “O you whose vast perils by sea are over at length! but on land there are heavier yet in store. The sons of Dardanus 30 shall come to the realm of Lavinium—from this care set your mind at rest—but think not that they shall also have joy of their coming. War, savage war, and the Tiber foaming with surges of blood, is the vision I see. No lack for you of Simois, or Xanthus, or a Dorian[209] camp. 35 Another Achilles is reserved for Latium, he too goddess-born—nor will Juno ever be seen to quit her fastened hold on Troy—while you, a needy suppliant—what nation, what city in Italy will not have had you knocking at its gates! Once more will an alien bride bring on the Teucrians all this woe—once more a foreign bed. But you, yield not to affliction, but go forth all the bolder to meet it, so far as your destiny gives you leave. The first glimpse of 5 safety, little as you dream it, shall dawn on you from a Grecian town.”

Such are the words with which Cumæ’s Sibyl from her cell shrills forth awful mysteries and booms again from the cavern, robing her truth in darkness—such the violence 10 with which Apollo shakes the bridle in her frenzied mouth and plies her bosom with his goad. Soon as her frenzy abated and the madness of her lips grew calm, Æneas the hero began: “No feature, awful maiden, that suffering can show rises on my sight new or unlooked-for—I have 15 foreseen all and scanned all in fancy already. I have but one prayer to make: since here it is that Fame tells of the gate of the infernal monarch, and the murky pool of Acheron’s overflow, grant me to pass to the sight, to the presence of my loved father—teach the way, and unlock 20 the sacred doors. Him I bore away through flames and a driving tempest of darts on these my shoulders and rescued him from the midst of the foe: he was the companion of my journey, and encountered with me all the waves of ocean, all the terrors of sea and sky in his own 25 feeble frame, beyond the strength and the day of old age. Nay more—that I would kneel to thee and approach thy dwelling—this was his charge, his oft-repeated prayer. Oh, of thy grace, pity the son and the sire; for thou art all-powerful, nor is it for nought that Hecate has set thee 30 over the groves of Avernus. If Orpheus had the power to fetch back the shade of his wife, by the help of his Thracian lyre and its sounding strings—if Pollux redeemed his brother by dying in turn with him, and went and returned on the path those many times—why talk of Theseus, 35 why of great Alcides[210]? my line, like theirs, is from Jove most high.”

Such were his prayers, while his hands clasped the altar, when thus the prophetess began: “Heir of the blood of gods, son of Anchises of Troy, easy is the going down to Avernus—all night and all day the gate of gloomy Pluto stands unbarred; but to retrace your footsteps, and win your way back to the upper air, that is the labour, that 5 the task. There have been a few, favourites of gracious Jove, or exalted to heaven by the blaze of inborn worth, themselves sprung from the gods, who have had the power. The whole intervening space is possessed by woods, and lapped round by the black windings of Cocytus’[211] 10 stream. And now, if your heart’s yearning is so great, your passion so strong, twice to stem the Stygian pool, twice to gaze on the night of Tartarus—if it be your joy to give scope to a madman’s striving—hear what must first be done. Deep in the shade of a tree lurks a branch, all 15 of gold, foliage alike and limber twig, dedicated to the service of the Juno of the shades; it is shrouded by the whole labyrinth of the forest, closed in by the boskage that darkens the glens. Yet none may pierce the subterranean mystery, till a man have gathered from the tree that leafy 20 sprout of gold, for this it is that fair Proserpine has ordained to be brought her as her own proper tribute. Pluck off one, another is there unfailingly, of gold as pure, a twig burgeoning with as fine an ore. Let then your eye be keen to explore it, your hand quick to pluck it when duly 25 found, for it will follow the touch with willingness and ease, if you have a call from Fate; if not, no strength of yours will overcome it, no force of steel tear it away. But, besides this, you have the breathless corpse of a friend lying unburied—alas! you know it not—tainting 30 your whole fleet with the air of death, while you are asking Heaven’s will, and lingering on this our threshold. Him first consign to his proper place, and hide him in the grave. Lead black cattle to the altar: be this the expiation to pave your way. Thus at last you shall look on the groves 35 of Styx and the realms untrodden of the living.” She said, and closed her lips in silence.

Æneas, with saddened face and steadfast eye, moves on, leaving the cave behind, and revolves in his mind the secrets of the future. Achates, ever faithful, walks at his side, and plants his foot with no less consciousness of care. Many were the things exchanged in their ranging talk—who could be the dead comrade that the priestess 5 spoke of, what the corpse that needed burial. And lo! Misenus, soon as they came, there on the dry beach they see him, snatched by death that should have spared him—Misenus, son of Æolus, than whom none was mightier to stir men’s hearts with his clarion, and kindle with music 10 the war-god’s flame. Hector the great had been his chief: in Hector’s service he performed a warrior’s part, famous alike with the trumpet and the spear. But after the conquering arm of Achilles robbed his master of life, valiant hero, he made himself the comrade of the Dardan Æneas, 15 nor found the standard he followed meaner than of old. But in those days, as he was making his hollow shell ring over the waters, infatuate mortal, challenging the gods to compete, Triton, roused to jealousy, seized him, if the story be true, and plunged him in a moment in the billow 20 that laps among the rocks. So they all stood round, uttering loud shrieks; louder than the rest Æneas the good. And then without delay they set about the Sibyl’s bidding, weeping sore, and in mournful rivalry heap up the funeral pyre with trees, and carry it into the sky. 25

Away they go to an ancient wood, the wild beast’s tall covert—down go the pitch-trees; the holm-oak rings with the axe’s blows, and so do the ashen beams; the wedge cleaves through the fissile[212] oak; they roll down from the heights huge mountain ashes. There is Æneas, in this, 30 as in other labours, the first to cheer on his comrades, and wielding a weapon like theirs; and thus he ponders in the sad silence of his own breast, looking at the immeasurable wood, and thus gives utterance to his prayer: “Oh that at this moment that golden branch on the tree would reveal 35 itself to our sight in all this depth of forest! for I see that in all things the prophetess has told us of you, Misenus, alas! too truly!” Scarce had he spoken, when, as by chance, a pair of doves come flying along the sky, under the hero’s very eyes, and settle on the turf at his feet. At once the mighty chief recognizes his mother’s birds, and gladly breathes a second prayer: “Oh guide us on our way, wherever it be, and as ye fly direct our steps into the grove 5 where the precious branch casts its shade on the rich ground! Thou too forsake not our perplexity, O goddess mother!” Thus much he said, and checked his advancing foot, watching to see what prognostics they bring, whither they aim their onward course. They, as they graze, go 10 ever forward on the wing, as far as the eyes of the travellers can keep them in view. Then when they come to Avernus’ noisome jaws, swiftly they soar aloft, and gliding through the clear sky, settle twain on the same tree, their chosen seat, whence there flashed through the branches the contrasted 15 gleam of gold. Even as in the woods, in the cold of midwinter, the mistletoe is wont to put forth new leaves, a vegetable growth, but of no parent tree, and with its yellow produce to surround the tapering boles, so looked the leafy gold among the holm-oak’s dark shade—so in the 20 light breeze tinkled the foil. Æneas snatches it at once, plucks it off with eagerness overpowering its delay, and carries it to the home of the prophetic Sibyl.

Meantime, with not less zeal, the Teucrians on the shore were mourning for Misenus, and paying the last 25 honour to the thankless ashes. First they raised a pile, unctuous with pine-wood, and high-heaped with planks of oak: they wreath its sides with gloomy foliage, and set up before it funeral cypresses, and adorn it with a covering of refulgent armour. Some make ready heated water and 30 cauldrons bubbling over the fire, and wash and anoint the cold corpse. Loud rings the wail: then, the dirge over, they place the limbs on the couch that claims them, and fling over them purple garments, the dead men’s usual covering. Some put their shoulders to the heavy 35 bier in melancholy service, and after ancestral fashion, with averted eyes, apply the torch from under. The rich heap is ablaze—offerings of incense, sacrificial viands, oil streaming from the bowl. After that the ashes were fallen in and the blaze was lulled, they drenched with wine the relics and the thirsty embers on the pyre, and Corynæus gathered up the bones, and stored them in a brazen urn. He, too, carried round pure water, and sprinkled thrice 5 the comrades of the dead, scattering the thin drops with a branch of fruitful olive—so he expiated the company, and spoke the last solemn words. But good Æneas raises over the dead a monument of massive size, setting up for the hero his own proper arms, the oar and the trumpet, 10 under a skyey mountain, which is now from him called Misenus, and retains from age to age the everlasting name.

This done, he hastens to execute the Sibyl’s bidding. A deep cave there was, yawning wide with giant throat, rough and shingly, shadowed by the black pool and the 15 gloom of the forest—a cave, over whose mouth no winged thing could fly unharmed, so poisonous the breath that exhaling from its pitchy jaws steamed up to the sky—whence Greece has given the spot the name _Aornos_.[213] Here first the priestess places in sacrificial station four 20 black-skinned bullocks, and empties wine over their brows, and plucking from between their horns the hairs of the crown, throws them into the hallowed flame, as the firstfruits of worship, with loud cries on Hecate, queen in heaven and Erebus both. Others put the knife to the 25 throat, and catch in chargers the steaming blood. With his own sword Æneas strikes down a lamb of sable fleece, for the Furies’[214] mother and her mighty sister, and a barren heifer for thee, dread Proserpine. Then to the Stygian monarch he rears altars, blazing through the 30 darkness, and piles on the flame the bulls’ carcases entire, pouring fat oil on the entrails all aglow. When, hark! as the sun began to glimmer and dawn, the ground is bellowing under their feet, and the wood-crowned heights are nodding, and the baying of dogs sounds through the 35 gloom, for the goddess is at hand. “Hence, hence with your unhallowed feet!” clamours the prophetess, “and rid the whole grove of your presence. And you—strike into the road, and pluck your sword from his scabbard—now is the hour for courage, Æneas, now for a stout heart.” No more she said, but flung herself wildly into the cavern’s mouth; and he, with no faltering step, keeps pace with his guide. 5

Ye gods, whose empire is the shades—spirits of silence, Chaos and Phlegethon, stretching wide in the stillness of night, suffer me to tell what has reached my ears; grant me your aid to reveal things buried underground, deep and dark. 10

On they went, darkling in solitary night, far into the gloom, through Pluto’s void halls and ghostly realms—like a journey in a wood under the niggard beams of a doubtful moon, when Jupiter has shrouded heaven in shadow, and black Night has stolen the colour from 15 Nature’s face. There before the threshold, in the very mouth of Hell, Agony and the fiends of Remorse have made their lair: there dwell wan Diseases, and woful Age, and Terror, and Hunger that prompts to Sin, and loathly Want—shapes of hideous view—and Death, and Suffering; 20 then comes Sleep, Death’s blood-brother, and the soul’s guilty joys, and deadly War couched in the gate, and the Furies’ iron chambers, and frantic Strife, with bloody fillets wreathed in her snaky hair.

In the midst there stands, with boughs and aged arms 25 outspread, a massive elm, of broad shade, the chosen seat, so Rumour tells, of bodiless dreams, which cling close to its every leaf. There, too, are a hundred monstrous shapes of wild beasts of divers kinds, Centaurs stalled in the entrance and two-formed Scyllas, and 30 Briareus,[215] the hundred-handed, and the portent of Lerna,[216] hissing fearfully, and Chimæra[217] in her panoply of flames, Gorgons,[218] and Harpies, and the semblance of the three-bodied spectre. At once Æneas grasps his sword, in the haste of sudden alarm, and meets their advance with its 35 drawn blade; and did not his companion warn him, of her own knowledge, that they are but thin unbodied spirits flitting in a hollow mask of substance, he would be rushing among them, and slashing shadows asunder with the steel’s unavailing blows.

Hence runs the road that leads to the waters of Tartarean Acheron, whose gulfy stream, churning mud in its monstrous depths, is all aglow, and disgorges into Cocytus 5 the whole of its sand. These waters are guarded by a grisly ferryman, frightful and foul—Charon; his chin an uncleared forest of hoary hair; his eyes a mass of flame; while his uncleanly garb hangs from his shoulders, gathered into a knot. With his own hand he pushes on the craft 10 with a pole, and trims the sails, and moves the dead heavily along in his boat of iron-gray, himself already in years; but a god’s old age is green and vigorous. Towards him the whole crowd was pouring to the bank: matrons and warriors, and bodies of mighty heroes discharged of 15 life, boys and unwedded maidens, and youths laid on the pile of death in their parents’ eyes—many as are the leaves that drop and fall in the woods in autumn’s early cold, or many as are the birds that flock massed together from the deep to the land, when the wintry year drives 20 them over sea to tenant a sunnier clime. There they stood, each praying that he might be the first to cross, with hands yearningly outstretched towards the further shore; but the grim boatman takes on board now these, now those, while others he drives away, and bars them 25 from the river’s brink. Æneas cries as a man perplexed and startled by the tumult: “Tell me, dread maiden, what means this concourse to the stream? Of what are these spirits in quest? What choice decides that these shall retire from the shore, while those are rowing through 30 that leaden pool?” To him in brief returned the aged priestess: “Son of Anchises, Heaven’s undoubted offspring, before you are Cocytus’ depths and the marshy flood of Styx, that power by whose name the gods fear to swear in vain. The whole multitude you see here is 35 helpless and tombless; Charon is the ferryman; those who ride the wave are the buried. He may not ferry them from the dreadful banks across that noisy current till their bones have found a place of rest. A hundred years they wander hovering about these shores; then at last they embark, and see again the flood of their longing.” Anchises’ son stood and paused, musing deeply, and pitying at his heart a lot so unkind. Yes, there he sees, sadly 5 wandering without death’s last tribute, Leucaspis and Orontes, the captain of Lycia’s fleet: both had sailed with him from Troy over the stormy water, and the south wind whelmed them both, engulfing the vessel and its crew. 10

Lo! he sees his pilot, Palinurus, moving along—Palinurus, who but now, while voyaging from Libya, his eyes bent on the stars, had fallen’ from the stern, flung out into the wide waste of waters. So when he had at last taken knowledge of his features, now saddened, in the 15 deep gloom, he thus accosts him first: “Who was it, Palinurus, of all the gods, that tore you from us, and whelmed you in the wide sea? Tell me who. Till now I never found him false; but in this one response Apollo has proved a cheat, foretelling that you would be unharmed 20 on the deep, and win your way to the Ausonian frontier, and thus it is that he keeps his word!” “Nay,” returned he, “my chief, Anchises’ son, Phœbus’ tripod has told you no lie, nor did any god whelm me in the sea. No, I chanced to fall, tearing away by main force the 25 rudder, to which I was clinging like sentry to his post, as I guided your course, and dragging it with me in my headlong whirl. Witness those cruel waters, I felt no fear for my own life like that which seized me for your ship, lest, disarmed and disabled, shaken loose from her 30 ruler’s hand, she should give way under the great sea that was rising then. Three long nights of storm the south wind swept me over the vast wilderness of convulsed ocean. Hardly at last, at the fourth dawn, I looked out aloft upon Italy from the crest of the wave. Stroke by 35 stroke I was swimming to shore; and now I was just laying hold on safety, had not the savage natives come on me, sword in hand, clogged as I was with my dripping clothes, and clutching with talon fingers the steep mountain-top, and deemed blindly they had found a prize. Now the wave is my home, and the winds keep tossing me on the beach. Oh, by heaven’s pleasant sunshine and bright sky; by your father, I adjure you; by the 5 promise growing up with your Iulus, rescue me with that unconquered arm from this cruel fate: be yourself, and either spread earth upon me, for that you can surely do, and put back to Velia’s haven; or, if any way there be, any that your goddess mother can reveal—for well I 10 ween it is not without Heaven’s leave that you purpose to stem these fearful tides and the reluctant pool of Styx—stretch your hand to your poor friend, and take me with you over the water, that at least I may find in death a place of rest and peace.” So had he spoken, when thus 15 the priestess begins: “What demon, Palinurus, has set on you so monstrous a desire? You, unburied, look on the Stygian water, and the dread river of the furies? You set foot on the bank unbidden? Cease to dream that Heaven’s destiny can be swayed by prayer. Yet 20 hear and retain a word which may console your hard lot. For know that the dwellers in that fatal border, goaded far and wide through their cities by prodigies from heaven, shall propitiate your dust: they shall erect a tomb, and through that tomb send down your funeral dues, and the 25 spot shall bear forever the name of Palinurus.” These words allayed his cares, and banished for a while grief from that sad bosom: his heart leaps to the land that is called by his name.

They accordingly continue their journey, and approach 30 the river. Soon as the boatman saw them, at the moment, from the wave of Styx, moving through the stilly forest, and turning their steps to the bank, he first bespeaks them thus, and assails them unaccosted: “You, whoever you are, that are making for these waters of ours in warlike 35 trim, speak your errand from the spot where you are, and come no nearer. This is the place for the shadows, for Sleep and slumberous Night. The bodies of the living may not be ferried in my Stygian barque. Nay, it was not to my joy that I gave Alcides a passage over the lake, nor Theseus and Pirithous, born of gods though they were, and of strength unsubdued. The one laid a jailer’s hand on the warder of Tartarus, even at the foot of the 5 king’s own throne, and dragged him trembling along: the others essayed to carry off the queen from Pluto’s bridal chamber.” To which the Amphrysian priestess replied in brief: “Here there are no stratagems like those; be not discomposed; these weapons are not borne for 10 violence; the monstrous guardian of your gate is free to terrify the bloodless spectres from his den with his unending bark; Proserpine is free to keep her uncle’s home as faithful wife should. This is Æneas of Troy, renowned for piety and arms alike: it is to see his father that he 15 is going down to Erebus’ lowest depth of gloom. If thou art moved in nought by the spectacle of piety so signal, yet let this branch”—she uncovered the branch which was concealed in her robe—‘claim recognition.’ At once the angry swell subsides, and the breast is calm. 20 No further parley. Gazing in wonder at the sacred offering of the fated bough, last seen so long ago, he turns to them the sea-green boat, and draws near the bank. Then he dislodges other ghostly passengers who were sitting along the benches, and clears the gangways, while 25 he takes into the vessel’s hollow the mighty Æneas. The sutures of the boat cracked beneath the weight, as through its rents it drew in large draughts of marsh-water. At length priestess and prince are safe across the flood, set down amid featureless mud and blue-green rushes. 30

Cerberus,[219] the monster, makes the whole realm ring with his three barking throats, as he lies in giant length fronting them in his den’s mouth. The priestess, seeing the snakes already bristling on his neck, throws him a morsel steeped in the slumber of honey and medicated 35 meal. He, in the frenzy of hunger, opens his triple jaws to catch it as it comes, and stretches his enormous back at length on the ground, till his huge bulk covers the den. Æneas masters the approach while the warder sleeps, and swiftly passes from the bank of the river without return.

At once there breaks on his ear a voice of mighty wailing, infant spirits sobbing and crying on the threshold, babes that, portionless of the sweets of life, were snatched 5 from the breast by the black death-day’s tyranny, and whelmed in untimely night. Next to them are those who were done to death by false accusation. Yet let none think that the lot of award or the judge’s sentence are wanting here. There sits Minos,[220] the president, urn 10 in hand: he summons an assembly of the speechless, and takes cognizance of earthly lives and earthly sins.

Next to them comes the dwelling-place of the sons of sorrow, who, though guiltless, procured their own death by violence, and, for mere hatred of the sunshine, flung their 15 lives away. Oh, how gladly would they now, in the air above, bear to the end the load of poverty and the full extremity of toil! But Fate bars the way: the unlovely pool swathes them round in her doleful waters, and Styx, with her ninefold windings, keeps them fast. 20

Not far hence the traveller’s eye sees stretching on every side the Mourning Fields: such the name they bear. Here dwell those whom cruel Love’s consuming tooth has eaten to the heart, in the privacy of hidden walks and an enshrouding myrtle wood: their tender sorrows 25 quit them not even in death. In this region he sees Phædra and Procris, and sad Eriphyle, pointing to the wounds of her ruthless son, and Evadne, and Pasiphaë: along with them moves Laodamia, and Cæneus, once a man, now a woman, brought back by the turn of fate to 30 her former self. Among these was Phœnicia’s daughter, Dido, fresh from her death-wound, wandering in that mighty wood: soon as the Trojan hero stood at her side, and knew her, looming dimly through the dusk—as a man sees or thinks he sees through the clouds, when the 35 month is young, the rising moon—his tears broke forth, and he addressed her tenderly and lovingly. “Unhappy Dido! and was it then a true messenger that reached me with the tale that you were dead: that the sword had done its worst? Was it, alas, to a grave that I brought you? By the stars of heaven I swear, by the powers above, by all that is most sacred here underground, against my will, fair queen, I quitted your coast. 5 No; it was the command of the gods; the same stern force which compels me now to pass through this realm of shade, this wilderness of squalor and abysmal night; it was that which drove me by its uttered will: nor could I have thought that my departure would bring on you 10 such violence of grief. Stay your step, and withdraw not from the look I bend on you. Whom would you shun? the last word which fate suffers me to address you is this.” With words like these, Æneas kept soothing the soul that blazed forth through those scowling eyes, and moving 15 himself to tears. She stood with averted head and eyes on the ground, her features as little moved by the speech he essayed as if she held the station of a stubborn flint, or a crag of Marpessa.[221] At length she flung herself away, and, unforgiving still, fled into the shadow of the 20 wood, where her former lord, Sychæus, answers her sorrows with his, and gives her full measure for her love. Yet, none the less, Æneas, thrilled through and through by her cruel fate, follows far on her track with tears, and sends his pity along with her. 25

Thence he turns, to encounter the appointed way. And now they were already in the furthest region, the separate place tenanted by the great heroes of war. Here there meets him Tydeus, here Parthenopæus, illustrious in arms, and the spectre of pale Adrastus. Here 30 are chiefs of Dardan line, wailed long and loudly in the upper air as they lay low in fight: as he saw them all in long array, he groaned heavily. Glaucus and Medon, and Thersilochus, the three sons of Antenor, and Polyphœtes, Ceres’ priest, and Idæus, with his hand still on the car, 35 still on the armour. They surround him, right and left, the ghostly crowd; one look is not sufficient: they would fain linger on and on, and step side by side with him, and learn the cause of his coming. But the nobles of the Danaans, and the flower of Agamemnon’s bands, when they saw the hero and his armour gleaming through the shade, were smitten with strange alarm: some turn their backs in flight, as erst they fled to the ships: others raise 5 a feeble war-shout. The cry they essay mocks their straining throats.

Here it is that he sees Priam’s son, mangled all over, Deiphobus, his face cruelly marred—face and both hands—his temples despoiled of his ears, and his nose 10 lopped by unseemly carnage. Scarce, in truth, he recognized him, trembling as he was, and trying to hide the terrible vengeance wreaked on him: unaccosted, he addresses him in the tones he knew of old: “Deiphobus, mighty warrior, scion of Teucer’s illustrious stock, who 15 has had the ambition to avenge himself so cruelly? who has had his will of you thus? For me, Rumour told me on that fatal night that you had sunk down, tired with the work of slaughtering the Greeks, on a heap of undistinguished carnage. Then with my own hand, I set up 20 an empty tomb on the Rhœtean shore, and thrice with a loud voice invoked your spirit. There are your name and your arms to keep the spot in memory: your self, dear friend, I could not see, so as to give you repose in the fatherland I was leaving.” To whom the son of Priam: 25 “Dear friend, you have failed in nought: all that Deiphobus could claim has been paid by you to him and to his shade. No; it was my own destiny and the deadly wickedness of the Spartan woman that plunged me thus deep in ill: these tokens are of her leaving. How we 30 spent that fatal night in treacherous joyance you know well: too good cause is there to bear it in mind. When the fateful horse at one bound surmounted the height of Pergamus, and brought a mailclad infantry in its laden womb, she feigned a solemn dance, and led round the 35 city Phrygian dames in Bacchic ecstasy; herself in their midst raising a mighty torch aloft, and calling to the Danaans from the top of the citadel. That hour I, spent with care and overborne with sleep, was in the hold of our ill-starred bridal chamber, weighed down as I lay, by slumber sweet and sound, the very image of the deep calm of death. Meantime, my peerless helpmate removes from the house arms of every sort: yes, my trusty sword 5 she had withdrawn from my pillow, and now she calls Menelaus to come in, and throws wide the door, hoping, I doubt not, that the greatness of the boon would soften her lover’s heart, and that the memory of her crime of old could thus be wiped from men’s minds. Why make 10 the story long? They burst into the chamber, along with them that child of Æolus,[222] then as ever the counsellor of evil. Recompense, ye gods, the Greeks in kind, if these lips, that ask for retribution, are pure and loyal. But you; what chance has brought you here in your lifetime, 15 let me ask in turn? Are you come under the spell of ocean-wandering, or by the command of heaven? or what tyranny of fortune constrains you to visit these sad, sunless dwellings, the abode of confusion?”

In this interchange of talk, the Dawn-goddess in her 20 flushing car, careering through the sky, had well passed the summit of the arch; and perchance they had spent all their allotted time in converse like this, had not the Sibyl warned her companion with brief address: “Night is hastening, Æneas; and we, as we weep, are making 25 hours pass. This is the spot where the road parts in twain. The right, which goes under the palace-wall of mighty Dis—there lies our way to Elysium; the left puts in motion the tortures of the wicked, and sends them to Tartarus, the home of crime.” Deiphobus replied: 30 “Frown not, dread priestess; I depart, to make the ghostly number complete, and plunge again in darkness. Go on your way, our nation’s glory, go: may your experience of fate be more blest.” He said, and, while yet speaking, turned away. 35

Suddenly, Æneas looks back, and, under a rock on the left, sees a broad stronghold, girt by a triple wall; a fierce stream surrounds it with surges of fire, Tartarean Phlegethon, and tosses craggy fragments in thunder. Full in front is a vast gate, its pillars of solid adamant. No force of man, not even the embattled powers of heaven, could break it down. Rising in air is a turret of iron, and Tisiphone, with a gory robe girt round her, sits at the vestibule 5 with sleepless vigilance night and day. Hence sounds of wailing meet the ear, and the crack of remorseless whips; the clank of steel follows, and the trailing of the chain. Æneas stood still, riveted by the terror of the noise. “What shapes is guilt wearing now? tell me, 10 dread maiden. What are the torments that lie on it so hard? what mean these loud upsoaring shrieks?” The priestess returned: “Noble leader of the Teucrians, no innocent foot may tread that guilty threshold; but the day when Hecate set me over the groves of Avernus, she 15 taught me from her own lips the punishments of Heaven, and led me through from end to end. Here rules Gnosian Rhadamanthus, a reign of iron—avenger, at once, and judge of cowering guilt, he compels a confession of what crimes soever men in upper air, blindly rejoicing in the 20 cheat, have kept secret till the hour of death, to be expiated then. In a moment, Tisiphone the torturer, with uplifted scourge, lashes from side to side the spurned and guilty soul; and brandishing in her left hand knots of serpents, summons her unpitying sisterhood. Then at 25 last, grating on their dread-sounding hinge, the awful gates are opened. See you what manner of sentry is seated at the entrance? what a presence is guarding the threshold? Know that a Hydra fiercer yet with fifty monstrous throats, each a yawning pit, holds her seat 30 within. Then there is the abyss of Tartarus in sheer descent, extending under the shades, twice as far as man’s skyward gaze from earth to the heaven of Olympus. Here are earth’s ancient progeny, the Titan brood, hurled down by the thunderbolt to wallow in the depths 35 of the gulf. Here too saw I the twin sons of Aloeus, frames of giant bulk, who essayed by force of hand to pluck down the mighty heavens, and dislodge Jove from his realm in the sky. I saw too Salmoneus, smitten with cruel vengeance, while mimicking the fires of Jove and the rumblings of Olympus. Borne in a four-horse car, a flaring torch in hand, he was making his triumphal progress 5 through the tribes of Greece, and the midst of Elis’ city, and bidding men accord him a god’s homage. Madman! to counterfeit the storm-cloud and the unrivalled thunderbolt with the rattle of brass and the beat of horses’ horny hoofs. But the almighty sire from the depth of his cloudy dwelling hurled his weapon—no 10 futile firebrand his, no pinewood’s smoky glare—and dashed him headlong down with that tremendous blast. Tityos, too, the foster-child of Earth’s common breast, it was mine to see: his body lies extended over nine whole acres, and there is a monstrous vulture with hooked beak 15 shearing away his imperishable liver, and reaping a harvest of suffering from his vitals, as it digs deep for its meal, and burrows in the cavern of his breast, nor gives the new-growing filaments rest or respite. What need to tell of the Lapithæ, of Ixion[223] and Pirithous—men who live 20 under a black crag, ever falling, and just in act to drop? The lofty couch is spread for the banquet, and the pillar of gold gleams underneath: the feast is before them, served in kingly luxury; but the eldest of the Furies is couched at their side: she will not let them stretch a hand 25 to the board: she starts up with torch uplifted and thunder in her tones. Here are they who lived in hatred with their brethren while life yet was; who smote a parent or wove for a client the web of fraud; who gained a treasure and brooded over it alone, and never shared it 30 with their kin—a mighty number these—adulterers, who were slain for their crime; citizens who followed the standard of treason; slaves who shrunk not from breaking their troth to their lords: all in prison awaiting their doom. Ask not _what_ doom is theirs, what 35 phase, what fate has whelmed them so deep. Others roll the huge stone up the hill, or hang dispread from the spokes of the wheel: there sits, as he will sit for evermore, unhappy Theseus: and Phlegyas, from the depth of his agony, keeps warning all, and proclaiming with a voice of terror through the shades: ‘Learn hereby to be righteous, and not to scorn the gods.’ This sold his country for gold, and saddled her with a tyrant; for gain he 5 made and unmade laws: this assailed his daughter’s bed, and essayed a forbidden union: all dared some monstrous crime, and enjoyed their daring. No; had I even a hundred tongues, and a hundred mouths, and lungs of iron, not then could I embrace all the types of crime, or rehearse 10 the whole muster-roll of vengeance.”

So spoke Apollo’s aged priestess; and then resuming: “But come,” she cries, “speed on your way, and fulfil the duty you have essayed: quicken we our pace. I see the walls which the Cyclopian forge raised in air, and the 15 arched gates confronting us, where sacred rule bids us set down our offering.” As she spoke, they step side by side through the dusky ways, despatch the interval of distance, and draw near the gate. Æneas masters the approach, sprinkles his body with pure spring water, and 20 fixes the branch on the portal’s front.

And now these things done at length, and the offering to the goddess accomplished, they have reached the regions of bliss, green pleasaunces of happy groves, and the abodes of the blest. Here ether clothes the plains with 25 an ampler plenitude and a dazzling lustre; and the eye beholds a sun and stars of its own. There are some, plying their limbs on the grassy wrestling-ground, conflicting in sport, and grappling each other on the yellow sand: some are beating their feet in the dance, and chanting 30 songs. There, too, is the Thracian priest[224] in his flowing robe, singing the seven notes in unison with the dancer’s measure, and striking them now with his fingers, now with the quill of ivory. Here are the old race of Teucer, a goodly family, heroes of lofty soul, born in 35 earth’s better days, Ilus and Assaracus, and Dardanus, founder of Troy. From afar he gazes wonderingly on their warrior arms and their ghostly chariots. Their spears stand rooted in the ground, and their unyoked steeds graze dispersedly over the meadow. All the delight they took when alive in chariots and armour, all their pride in grooming and feeding their horses, goes with them underground, and animates them there. See, too, his eye rests 5 on others regaling on either hand upon the grass, and singing in chorus a joyous pæan, all in a fragrant grove of bay, the source whence, welling forth into the upper world, Eridanus[225] flows in broad current between his wooded banks. Here is a noble company who braved 10 wounds in fight for fatherland; all the priests who kept their purity while life was; all the poets whose hearts were clean, and their songs worthy Phœbus’ ear; all who by cunning inventions gave a grace to life, and whose worthy deeds made their fellows think of them with love: 15 each has his brow cinctured with a snow-white fillet. Looking on the multitude as it streamed around, the Sibyl bespoke them thus—Musæus before all; for he stands the centre of that vast crowd, which looks up to him, as with rising shoulders he towers above them: 20 “Tell us, happy spirits, and you, best of bards, which is Anchises’ haunt? which his home? for it is to see him that we have come hither, and won our way over the mighty river of Erebus.” Instant the hero replied in brief: “Here there are no fixed abodes: our dwellings are in 25 shadowy groves: our settlements on the velvet slope of banks and meadows fresh with running streams. But come, if you will, climb this hill with me, and I will set your feet at once on a road that will lead you.” So saying, he moves on before, and from the top of the ridge 30 points to broad fields of light, while they descend from the summit.

But father Anchises, down in the depth of the green dell, was surveying with fond observance the spirits now confined there, but hereafter to pass into the light of day, 35 and scanning, as chance would have it, the whole multitude of his people, even his loved posterity, their destinies, their warrior deeds, their ways and their works. Soon as he saw Æneas advancing through the grass to meet him, he stretched out both his hands with eager movement, tears gushed over his cheeks, and words escaped his lips: “And are you come at last? has love fulfilled a father’s hopes and surmounted the perils of the 5 way? is it mine to look on your face, my son, and listen and reply as we talked of old? Yes; I was even thinking so in my own mind. I was reckoning that it would be, counting over the days. Nor has my longing played me false. Oh, the lands and the mighty seas from which 10 you have come to my presence! the dangers, my son, that have tossed and smitten you! Oh, how I have feared lest you should come to harm in that realm of Libya!” The son replied: “Your shade it was, father, your melancholy shade, that, coming to me oft and oft, constrained 15 me to knock at these doors: here, in the Tyrrhene deep my ships are riding at anchor. Let us grasp hand in hand: let us, my father! Oh, withdraw not from my embrace!” As he spoke, the streaming tears rolled down his face. Thrice, as he stood, he essayed to fling his 20 arms round that dear neck: thrice the phantom escaped the hands that caught at it in vain, impalpable as the wind, fleeting as the wings of sleep.

Meanwhile Æneas sees in the retired vale a secluded grove with brakes and rustling woods, and the river of 25 Lethe,[226] which floats along by those abodes of peace. Round it were flying races and tribes untold: even as in the meadows when bees in calm summer-tide settle on flower after flower, and stream over the milk-white lilies, the humming fills the plain. Startled at the sudden 30 sight, Æneas wonderingly inquires what it means, what are those waters in the distance, or who the men that are thronging the banks in crowds so vast. To him his father Anchises: “They are spirits to whom Destiny has promised new bodies, there at the side of Lethe’s water, drinking 35 the wave of carelessness, and the long draught of oblivion. In truth I have long wished to tell you of them and show them before you, to recount the long line of my kindred, that you may rejoice with me now that Italy is found.” “Oh, my father! and must we think that there are souls that fly hence aloft into the upper air, and thus return to the sluggish fellowship of the body? can their longing for light be so mad, as this?” “I will tell you, my son, 5 nor hold you longer in doubt.” So replies Anchises, and unfolds the story in order.

“Know, first, that heaven and earth, and the watery plains, and the Moon’s lucid ball, and Titan’s starry fires are kept alive by a spirit within: a mind pervading each 10 limb stirs the whole frame and mingles with the mighty mass. Hence spring the races of men and beasts, and living things with wings, and the strange forms that Ocean carries beneath his marble surface. These particles have a fiery glow, a heavenly nature, struggling against 15 the clogs of corrupting flesh, the dulness of limbs of clay and bodies ready to die. Hence come their fears and lusts, their joys and griefs: nor can they discern the heavenly light, prisoned as they are in night and blind dungeon walls. Nay, when life’s last ray has faded from 20 them, not even, then, poor wretches, are they wholly freed from ill, freed from every plague of the flesh: those many taints must needs be ingrained strangely in the being, so long as they have grown with it. So they are schooled with punishment, and pay in suffering for ancient ill: 25 some are hung up and dispread to the piercing winds: others have the stain of wickedness washed out under the whelming gulf, or burnt out with fire: each is chastised in his own spirit: then we are sped through the breadth of Elysium, while some few remain to inhabit these happy 30 plains, till the lapse of ages, when time’s cycle is complete, has cleansed the ingrained blot and left a pure residue of heavenly intelligence, the flame of essential ether. All of these, when they have rounded the circle of a thousand years, Heaven summons to the stream of 35 Lethe, a mighty concourse, to the end that with memory effaced they may return to the vault of the sky, and learn to wish for a new union with the body.”

Anchises ended: he draws his son and the Sibyl with him into the midst of the assemblage, the heart of that buzzing crowd, and mounts an eminence, whence he might see face to face the whole of the long procession, and learn each comer’s looks. 5

“Now, then, for the glories of the Dardan race from this time onward, the posterity reserved for you in the Italian line, noble spirits, the ordained heirs of our proud name: of these I will tell you, and inform you of your destiny. 10

“He whom you see there, the youth leaning on the pointless spear, his lot is to fill the next place in light: he will be first to rise to upper day, born from the admixture of Italian blood, Silvius, that great Alban name, your latest offspring, whom in your old age at set of life 15 your spouse Lavinia will bear you in the woods, himself a king and the father of kings to be: from him it is that our race shall rule over Alba the Long. Next comes mighty Procas, the pride of the people of Troy, and Capys, and Numitor, and a second bearer of your name, 20 Silvius Æneas, himself renowned alike for piety and for valour, if ever he should come to the throne of Alba. What glorious youths! look what strength they carry in their port, while their brows are shaded by the civic oak! These shall uprear for you, high on the mountains, Nomentum, 25 and Gabii, and Fidenæ’s town, and the towers of Collatia, Pometii and Inuus’ camp, and Bola, and Cora; names which shall one day be named: now they are mere nameless lands. Romulus, too, the child of Mars, shall come along with his grandsire. Romulus, 30 whom a mother, bearing Ilium’s name, shall produce from the blood of Assaracus. See you the two plumes standing on his crest, how his sire marks him even now for the upper world by his own token of honour? Yes, my son, it is by his auspices that our glorious Rome shall 35 extend her empire to earth’s end, her ambition to the skies, and embrace seven hills with the wall of a single city, blest parent of a warrior brood: even as the mighty Berecyntian[227] mother rides tower-crowned through the towns of Phrygia, proud of the gods that have sprung from her, a hundred grand-children at her knee, all dwellers in heaven, all lords of the lofty sky. Hither now turn your two rays of vision: look at this family, at Romans 5 of your own. Here is Cæsar: here the whole progeny of Iulus, as it will pass one day under heaven’s mighty cope. This, this is he, the man promised to you so often, Augustus Cæsar, true child of a god, who shall establish again for Latium a golden age in that very region where Saturn 10 once reigned, while he stretches his sway alike beyond Garamantian and Indian. See, the land is lying outside the stars, outside the sun’s yearly path, where heaven-carrier Atlas turns round on his shoulder the pole, studded with burning constellations. In view of his approach, a 15 shiver runs already by oracular warning through Caspian realms and Mæotian land, and there is stir and confusion at the mouths of seven-fold Nile. Nay, even Alcides traversed no such length of earth, though he stalked the brazen-footed deer, or tamed Erymanthus’ savage wilds, 20 and appalled Lerna with his arrows: no, nor he who guides his triumphal car with reins of ivy-leaf, Bacchus, driving his tigers down from Nysa’s lofty top. And do we still hesitate to let prowess give scope to power, or does fear prevent our setting foot on Ausonian soil? 25 But who is he in the distance, conspicuous with a wreath of olive, with sacred vessels in his hand? Ah! I know the hoary hair and beard of the king of Rome, who shall give the infant city the support of law, sent from his homely Cures and a land of poverty into a mighty empire. 30 Next shall come one doomed to break his country’s peace, and stir up with the war-cry of his name, Tullus, warriors rusting in ease and squadrons that have forgotten their triumphs. Ancus follows, a greater boaster, even now too ready to catch the breath of a popular cheer. Would 35 you look too at the kings of Tarquin’s house, at the haughty spirit of Brutus the avenger, and the fasces[228] retrieved? He shall be the first to take the consul’s power and the axes of doom: the father will bring his rebel sons to death, all for fair freedom’s sake. Unhappy man! let after ages speak of that deed as they will, strong over all will be patriot passion and unmeasured thirst of praise. Look, there are the Drusi[229] and the Decii,[230] and Torquatus[231] 5 with his unpitying axe, and Camillus[232] the restorer of the standards. But those whom you see there, dressed alike in gleaming armour—spirits at harmony now and so long as they are confined in darkness—alas! how vast a war will they wage, each with each, if they shall attain 10 the light of day, what arraying of hosts, what carnage will there be! Father-in-law and son-in-law,[233] the one coming down from Alpine ramparts and the stronghold of Monœcus: the other drawn up against him with the forces of the east. Do not, do not, my children, make 15 wars like these familiar to your spirits: turn not your country’s valour against your country’s vitals: and you, restrain yourself the first: you, whose lineage is from heaven, drop the steel from your grasp, heir of Anchises’ blood. See here, a conqueror who shall drive to the lofty 20 Capitol the car of triumph over Corinth, glorious from Achæan slaughter: here one who shall lay Argos in dust, and Agamemnon’s own Mycenæ, ay, and the heir of Æacus, with Achilles’ martial blood in his veins: a Roman’s vengeance for his Trojan grandsires, and for Pallas’ insulted 25 fame. What tongue would leave you unpraised, great Cato, or Cossus, you? or the race of the Gracchi, or those twin thunderbolts of war, the Scipios, Libya’s ruin, or Fabricius, princely in his poverty, or you, Serranus, sowing your own ploughed fields? When, ye Fabii,[234] 30 will panting praise overtake you? You are in truth our greatest, the single saviour of our state by delay. Others, I doubt not, will mould the breathing brass to more flesh-like softness, and spread over marble the look of life. Others will plead better at the bar, will trace with the 35 rod the courses of heaven, and foretell the risings of the stars. Yours, Roman, be the lesson to govern the nations as their lord: this is your destined culture, to impose the settled rule of peace, to spare the humbled, and to crush the proud.”

Father Anchises paused; and, as they wondered, went on to say: “See how Marcellus advances in the glory of the general’s spoils, towering with conqueror’s majesty 5 over all the warriors near! When the state of Rome reels under the invader’s shock, he shall stay it; his horse’s hoofs shall trample the Carthaginian and the revolted Gaul; and he shall dedicate the third suit of armour to Quirinus[235] the sire.” Hereupon Æneas, for he saw walking 10 at Marcellus’ side a youth of goodly presence and in gleaming armour, but with little joy on his brow and downcast eyes: “Who, my father, is he that thus attends the warrior’s march? his son, or one of the glorious line of his posterity? What a hum runs through the attendant 15 train! how lofty his own mien! but the shadow of gloomy night hovers saddening round his head.” Father Anchises began, tears gushing forth the while: “Alas, my son! ask not of the heavy grief that those of your blood must bear. Of him the fates shall give but a glimpse to earth, 20 nor suffer him to continue longer. Yes, powers of the sky! Rome’s race would have been in your eyes too strong, had a boon like this been its own forever. What groanings of the brave shall be wafted from Mars’ broad field to Mars’ mighty town! What a funeral, father 25 Tiber, shall thine eyes behold, as thou flowest past that new-built sepulchre! No child of the stock of Ilion shall raise his Latian ancestors to such heights of hope: never while time lasts shall the land of Romulus take such pride in any that she has reared. Woe for the piety, for the 30 ancient faith, for the arm unconquered in battle! Never would foeman have met that armed presence unscathed, marched he on foot into the field or tore with bloody spur the flank of his foaming steed. Child of a nation’s sorrow! were there hope of thy breaking the tyranny of fate, thou 35 shalt be Marcellus. Bring me handfuls of lilies, that I may strew the grave with their dazzling hues, and crown, if only with these gifts, my young descendant’s shade, and perform the vain service of sorrow.” Thus they wander here and there through the whole expanse in the broad fields of shadow and take note of all. Soon as Anchises had taken his son from end to end, and fired his mind with the prospect of that glorious history, he then tells 5 the warrior of the battles that he must fight at once, and informs him of the Laurentian[236] tribes and Latinus’ town, and how to shun or stand the shock of every peril.

There are two gates of Sleep: the one, as story tells, of horn, supplying a ready exit for true spirits: the other 10 gleaming with the polish of dazzling ivory, but through it the powers below send false dreams to the world above. Thither Anchises, talking thus, conducts his son and the Sibyl, and dismisses them by the gate of ivory.[237] Æneas traces his way to the fleet and returns to his comrades; 15 then sails along the shore for Caieta’s haven. The anchor is cast from the prow: the keels are ranged on the beach.