He said, and wept; then spread his sails before\nThe winds, and reach'd at length the Cumaean shore:\nTheir anchors dropp'd, his crew the vessels moor.\nThey turn their heads to sea, their sterns to land,\nAnd greet with greedy joy th' Italian strand.\nSome strike from clashing flints their fiery seed;\nSome gather sticks, the kindled flames to feed,\nOr search for hollow trees, and fell the woods,\nOr trace thro' valleys the discover'd floods.\nThus, while their sev'ral charges they fulfil,\nThe pious prince ascends the sacred hill\nWhere Phoebus is ador'd; and seeks the shade\nWhich hides from sight his venerable maid.\nDeep in a cave the Sibyl makes abode;\nThence full of fate returns, and of the god.\nThro' Trivia's grove they walk; and now behold,\nAnd enter now, the temple roof'd with gold.\nWhen Daedalus, to fly the Cretan shore,\nHis heavy limbs on jointed pinions bore,\n(The first who sail'd in air,) 't is sung by Fame,\nTo the Cumaean coast at length he came,\nAnd here alighting, built this costly frame.\nInscrib'd to Phoebus, here he hung on high\nThe steerage of his wings, that cut the sky:\nThen o'er the lofty gate his art emboss'd\nAndrogeos' death, and off'rings to his ghost;\nSev'n youths from Athens yearly sent, to meet\nThe fate appointed by revengeful Crete.\nAnd next to those the dreadful urn was plac'd,\nIn which the destin'd names by lots were cast:\nThe mournful parents stand around in tears,\nAnd rising Crete against their shore appears.\nThere too, in living sculpture, might be seen\nThe mad affection of the Cretan queen;\nThen how she cheats her bellowing lover's eye;\nThe rushing leap, the doubtful progeny,\nThe lower part a beast, a man above,\nThe monument of their polluted love.\nNot far from thence he grav'd the wondrous maze,\nA thousand doors, a thousand winding ways:\nHere dwells the monster, hid from human view,\nNot to be found, but by the faithful clew;\nTill the kind artist, mov'd with pious grief,\nLent to the loving maid this last relief,\nAnd all those erring paths describ'd so well\nThat Theseus conquer'd and the monster fell.\nHere hapless Icarus had found his part,\nHad not the father's grief restrain'd his art.\nHe twice assay'd to cast his son in gold;\nTwice from his hands he dropp'd the forming mold.<\/p>\n
All this with wond'ring eyes Aeneas view'd;\nEach varying object his delight renew'd:\nEager to read the rest- Achates came,\nAnd by his side the mad divining dame,\nThe priestess of the god, Deiphobe her name.\n\"Time suffers not,\" she said, \"to feed your eyes\nWith empty pleasures; haste the sacrifice.\nSev'n bullocks, yet unyok'd, for Phoebus choose,\nAnd for Diana sev'n unspotted ewes.\"\nThis said, the servants urge the sacred rites,\nWhile to the temple she the prince invites.\nA spacious cave, within its farmost part,\nWas hew'd and fashion'd by laborious art\nThro' the hill's hollow sides: before the place,\nA hundred doors a hundred entries grace;\nAs many voices issue, and the sound\nOf Sybil's words as many times rebound.\nNow to the mouth they come. Aloud she cries:\n\"This is the time; enquire your destinies.\nHe comes; behold the god!\" Thus while she said,\n(And shiv'ring at the sacred entry stay'd,)\nHer color chang'd; her face was not the same,\nAnd hollow groans from her deep spirit came.\nHer hair stood up; convulsive rage possess'd\nHer trembling limbs, and heav'd her lab'ring breast.\nGreater than humankind she seem'd to look,\nAnd with an accent more than mortal spoke.\nHer staring eyes with sparkling fury roll;\nWhen all the god came rushing on her soul.\nSwiftly she turn'd, and, foaming as she spoke:\n\"Why this delay?\" she cried- \"the pow'rs invoke!\nThy pray'rs alone can open this abode;\nElse vain are my demands, and dumb the god.\"<\/p>\n
She said no more. The trembling Trojans hear,\nO'erspread with a damp sweat and holy fear.\nThe prince himself, with awful dread possess'd,\nHis vows to great Apollo thus address'd:\n\"Indulgent god, propitious pow'r to Troy,\nSwift to relieve, unwilling to destroy,\nDirected by whose hand the Dardan dart\nPierc'd the proud Grecian's only mortal part:\nThus far, by fate's decrees and thy commands,\nThro' ambient seas and thro' devouring sands,\nOur exil'd crew has sought th' Ausonian ground;\nAnd now, at length, the flying coast is found.\nThus far the fate of Troy, from place to place,\nWith fury has pursued her wand'ring race.\nHere cease, ye pow'rs, and let your vengeance end:\nTroy is no more, and can no more offend.\nAnd thou, O sacred maid, inspir'd to see\nTh' event of things in dark futurity;\nGive me what Heav'n has promis'd to my fate,\nTo conquer and command the Latian state;\nTo fix my wand'ring gods, and find a place\nFor the long exiles of the Trojan race.\nThen shall my grateful hands a temple rear\nTo the twin gods, with vows and solemn pray'r;\nAnd annual rites, and festivals, and games,\nShall be perform'd to their auspicious names.\nNor shalt thou want thy honors in my land;\nFor there thy faithful oracles shall stand,\nPreserv'd in shrines; and ev'ry sacred lay,\nWhich, by thy mouth, Apollo shall convey:\nAll shall be treasur'd by a chosen train\nOf holy priests, and ever shall remain.\nBut O! commit not thy prophetic mind\nTo flitting leaves, the sport of ev'ry wind,\nLest they disperse in air our empty fate;\nWrite not, but, what the pow'rs ordain, relate.\"<\/p>\n
Struggling in vain, impatient of her load,\nAnd lab'ring underneath the pond'rous god,\nThe more she strove to shake him from her breast,\nWith more and far superior force he press'd;\nCommands his entrance, and, without control,\nUsurps her organs and inspires her soul.\nNow, with a furious blast, the hundred doors\nOpe of themselves; a rushing whirlwind roars\nWithin the cave, and Sibyl's voice restores:\n\"Escap'd the dangers of the wat'ry reign,\nYet more and greater ills by land remain.\nThe coast, so long desir'd (nor doubt th' event),\nThy troops shall reach, but, having reach'd, repent.\nWars, horrid wars, I view- a field of blood,\nAnd Tiber rolling with a purple flood.\nSimois nor Xanthus shall be wanting there:\nA new Achilles shall in arms appear,\nAnd he, too, goddess-born. Fierce Juno's hate,\nAdded to hostile force, shall urge thy fate.\nTo what strange nations shalt not thou resort,\nDriv'n to solicit aid at ev'ry court!\nThe cause the same which Ilium once oppress'd;\nA foreign mistress, and a foreign guest.\nBut thou, secure of soul, unbent with woes,\nThe more thy fortune frowns, the more oppose.\nThe dawnings of thy safety shall be shown\nFrom whence thou least shalt hope, a Grecian town.\"<\/p>\n
Thus, from the dark recess, the Sibyl spoke,\nAnd the resisting air the thunder broke;\nThe cave rebellow'd, and the temple shook.\nTh' ambiguous god, who rul'd her lab'ring breast,\nIn these mysterious words his mind express'd;\nSome truths reveal'd, in terms involv'd the rest.\nAt length her fury fell, her foaming ceas'd,\nAnd, ebbing in her soul, the god decreas'd.\nThen thus the chief: \"No terror to my view,\nNo frightful face of danger can be new.\nInur'd to suffer, and resolv'd to dare,\nThe Fates, without my pow'r, shall be without my care.\nThis let me crave, since near your grove the road\nTo hell lies open, and the dark abode\nWhich Acheron surrounds, th' innavigable flood;\nConduct me thro' the regions void of light,\nAnd lead me longing to my father's sight.\nFor him, a thousand dangers I have sought,\nAnd, rushing where the thickest Grecians fought,\nSafe on my back the sacred burthen brought.\nHe, for my sake, the raging ocean tried,\nAnd wrath of Heav'n, my still auspicious guide,\nAnd bore beyond the strength decrepid age supplied.\nOft, since he breath'd his last, in dead of night\nHis reverend image stood before my sight;\nEnjoin'd to seek, below, his holy shade;\nConducted there by your unerring aid.\nBut you, if pious minds by pray'rs are won,\nOblige the father, and protect the son.\nYours is the pow'r; nor Proserpine in vain\nHas made you priestess of her nightly reign.\nIf Orpheus, arm'd with his enchanting lyre,\nThe ruthless king with pity could inspire,\nAnd from the shades below redeem his wife;\nIf Pollux, off'ring his alternate life,\nCould free his brother, and can daily go\nBy turns aloft, by turns descend below-\nWhy name I Theseus, or his greater friend,\nWho trod the downward path, and upward could ascend?\nNot less than theirs from Jove my lineage came;\nMy mother greater, my descent the same.\"\nSo pray'd the Trojan prince, and, while he pray'd,\nHis hand upon the holy altar laid.<\/p>\n
Then thus replied the prophetess divine:\n\"O goddess-born of great Anchises' line,\nThe gates of hell are open night and day;\nSmooth the descent, and easy is the way:\nBut to return, and view the cheerful skies,\nIn this the task and mighty labor lies.\nTo few great Jupiter imparts this grace,\nAnd those of shining worth and heav'nly race.\nBetwixt those regions and our upper light,\nDeep forests and impenetrable night\nPossess the middle space: th' infernal bounds\nCocytus, with his sable waves, surrounds.\nBut if so dire a love your soul invades,\nAs twice below to view the trembling shades;\nIf you so hard a toil will undertake,\nAs twice to pass th' innavigable lake;\nReceive my counsel. In the neighb'ring grove\nThere stands a tree; the queen of Stygian Jove\nClaims it her own; thick woods and gloomy night\nConceal the happy plant from human sight.\nOne bough it bears; but (wondrous to behold!)\nThe ductile rind and leaves of radiant gold:\nThis from the vulgar branches must be torn,\nAnd to fair Proserpine the present borne,\nEre leave be giv'n to tempt the nether skies.\nThe first thus rent a second will arise,\nAnd the same metal the same room supplies.\nLook round the wood, with lifted eyes, to see\nThe lurking gold upon the fatal tree:\nThen rend it off, as holy rites command;\nThe willing metal will obey thy hand,\nFollowing with ease, if favor'd by thy fate,\nThou art foredoom'd to view the Stygian state:\nIf not, no labor can the tree constrain;\nAnd strength of stubborn arms and steel are vain.\nBesides, you know not, while you here attend,\nTh' unworthy fate of your unhappy friend:\nBreathless he lies; and his unburied ghost,\nDepriv'd of fun'ral rites, pollutes your host.\nPay first his pious dues; and, for the dead,\nTwo sable sheep around his hearse be led;\nThen, living turfs upon his body lay:\nThis done, securely take the destin'd way,\nTo find the regions destitute of day.\"<\/p>\n
She said, and held her peace. Aeneas went\nSad from the cave, and full of discontent,\nUnknowing whom the sacred Sibyl meant.\nAchates, the companion of his breast,\nGoes grieving by his side, with equal cares oppress'd.\nWalking, they talk'd, and fruitlessly divin'd\nWhat friend the priestess by those words design'd.\nBut soon they found an object to deplore:\nMisenus lay extended on the shore;\nSon of the God of Winds: none so renown'd\nThe warrior trumpet in the field to sound;\nWith breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms,\nAnd rouse to dare their fate in honorable arms.\nHe serv'd great Hector, and was ever near,\nNot with his trumpet only, but his spear.\nBut by Pelides' arms when Hector fell,\nHe chose Aeneas; and he chose as well.\nSwoln with applause, and aiming still at more,\nHe now provokes the sea gods from the shore;\nWith envy Triton heard the martial sound,\nAnd the bold champion, for his challenge, drown'd;\nThen cast his mangled carcass on the strand:\nThe gazing crowd around the body stand.\nAll weep; but most Aeneas mourns his fate,\nAnd hastens to perform the funeral state.\nIn altar-wise, a stately pile they rear;\nThe basis broad below, and top advanc'd in air.\nAn ancient wood, fit for the work design'd,\n(The shady covert of the salvage kind,)\nThe Trojans found: the sounding ax is plied;\nFirs, pines, and pitch trees, and the tow'ring pride\nOf forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke,\nAnd piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak.\nHuge trunks of trees, fell'd from the steepy crown\nOf the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.\nArm'd like the rest the Trojan prince appears,\nAnd by his pious labor urges theirs.<\/p>\n
Thus while he wrought, revolving in his mind\nThe ways to compass what his wish design'd,\nHe cast his eyes upon the gloomy grove,\nAnd then with vows implor'd the Queen of Love:\n\"O may thy pow'r, propitious still to me,\nConduct my steps to find the fatal tree,\nIn this deep forest; since the Sibyl's breath\nForetold, alas! too true, Misenus' death.\"\nScarce had he said, when, full before his sight,\nTwo doves, descending from their airy flight,\nSecure upon the grassy plain alight.\nHe knew his mother's birds; and thus he pray'd:\n\"Be you my guides, with your auspicious aid,\nAnd lead my footsteps, till the branch be found,\nWhose glitt'ring shadow gilds the sacred ground.\nAnd thou, great parent, with celestial care,\nIn this distress be present to my pray'r!\"\nThus having said, he stopp'd with watchful sight,\nObserving still the motions of their flight,\nWhat course they took, what happy signs they shew.\nThey fed, and, flutt'ring, by degrees withdrew\nStill farther from the place, but still in view:\nHopping and flying, thus they led him on\nTo the slow lake, whose baleful stench to shun\nThey wing'd their flight aloft; then, stooping low,\nPerch'd on the double tree that bears the golden bough.\nThro' the green leafs the glitt'ring shadows glow;\nAs, on the sacred oak, the wintry mistletoe,\nWhere the proud mother views her precious brood,\nAnd happier branches, which she never sow'd.\nSuch was the glitt'ring; such the ruddy rind,\nAnd dancing leaves, that wanton'd in the wind.\nHe seiz'd the shining bough with griping hold,\nAnd rent away, with ease, the ling'ring gold;\nThen to the Sibyl's palace bore the prize.\nMeantime the Trojan troops, with weeping eyes,\nTo dead Misenus pay his obsequies.\nFirst, from the ground a lofty pile they rear,\nOf pitch trees, oaks, and pines, and unctuous fir:\nThe fabric's front with cypress twigs they strew,\nAnd stick the sides with boughs of baleful yew.\nThe topmost part his glitt'ring arms adorn;\nWarm waters, then, in brazen caldrons borne,\nAre pour'd to wash his body, joint by joint,\nAnd fragrant oils the stiffen'd limbs anoint.\nWith groans and cries Misenus they deplore:\nThen on a bier, with purple cover'd o'er,\nThe breathless body, thus bewail'd, they lay,\nAnd fire the pile, their faces turn'd away-\nSuch reverend rites their fathers us'd to pay.\nPure oil and incense on the fire they throw,\nAnd fat of victims, which his friends bestow.\nThese gifts the greedy flames to dust devour;\nThen on the living coals red wine they pour;\nAnd, last, the relics by themselves dispose,\nWhich in a brazen urn the priests inclose.\nOld Corynaeus compass'd thrice the crew,\nAnd dipp'd an olive branch in holy dew;\nWhich thrice he sprinkled round, and thrice aloud\nInvok'd the dead, and then dismissed the crowd.\nBut good Aeneas order'd on the shore\nA stately tomb, whose top a trumpet bore,\nA soldier's fauchion, and a seaman's oar.\nThus was his friend interr'd; and deathless fame\nStill to the lofty cape consigns his name.\nThese rites perform'd, the prince, without delay,\nHastes to the nether world his destin'd way.\nDeep was the cave; and, downward as it went\nFrom the wide mouth, a rocky rough descent;\nAnd here th' access a gloomy grove defends,\nAnd there th' unnavigable lake extends,\nO'er whose unhappy waters, void of light,\nNo bird presumes to steer his airy flight;\nSuch deadly stenches from the depths arise,\nAnd steaming sulphur, that infects the skies.\nFrom hence the Grecian bards their legends make,\nAnd give the name Avernus to the lake.\nFour sable bullocks, in the yoke untaught,\nFor sacrifice the pious hero brought.\nThe priestess pours the wine betwixt their horns;\nThen cuts the curling hair; that first oblation burns,\nInvoking Hecate hither to repair:\nA pow'rful name in hell and upper air.\nThe sacred priests with ready knives bereave\nThe beasts of life, and in full bowls receive\nThe streaming blood: a lamb to Hell and Night\n(The sable wool without a streak of white)\nAeneas offers; and, by fate's decree,\nA barren heifer, Proserpine, to thee,\nWith holocausts he Pluto's altar fills;\nSev'n brawny bulls with his own hand he kills;\nThen on the broiling entrails oil he pours;\nWhich, ointed thus, the raging flame devours.\nLate the nocturnal sacrifice begun,\nNor ended till the next returning sun.\nThen earth began to bellow, trees to dance,\nAnd howling dogs in glimm'ring light advance,\nEre Hecate came. \"Far hence be souls profane!\"\nThe Sibyl cried, \"and from the grove abstain!\nNow, Trojan, take the way thy fates afford;\nAssume thy courage, and unsheathe thy sword.\"\nShe said, and pass'd along the gloomy space;\nThe prince pursued her steps with equal pace.<\/p>\n
Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight,\nYe gods who rule the regions of the night,\nYe gliding ghosts, permit me to relate\nThe mystic wonders of your silent state!<\/p>\n
Obscure they went thro' dreary shades, that led\nAlong the waste dominions of the dead.\nThus wander travelers in woods by night,\nBy the moon's doubtful and malignant light,\nWhen Jove in dusky clouds involves the skies,\nAnd the faint crescent shoots by fits before their eyes.<\/p>\n
Just in the gate and in the jaws of hell,\nRevengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell,\nAnd pale Diseases, and repining Age,\nWant, Fear, and Famine's unresisted rage;\nHere Toils, and Death, and Death's half-brother, Sleep,\nForms terrible to view, their sentry keep;\nWith anxious Pleasures of a guilty mind,\nDeep Frauds before, and open Force behind;\nThe Furies' iron beds; and Strife, that shakes\nHer hissing tresses and unfolds her snakes.\nFull in the midst of this infernal road,\nAn elm displays her dusky arms abroad:\nThe God of Sleep there hides his heavy head,\nAnd empty dreams on ev'ry leaf are spread.\nOf various forms unnumber'd specters more,\nCentaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door.\nBefore the passage, horrid Hydra stands,\nAnd Briareus with all his hundred hands;\nGorgons, Geryon with his triple frame;\nAnd vain Chimaera vomits empty flame.\nThe chief unsheath'd his shining steel, prepar'd,\nTho' seiz'd with sudden fear, to force the guard,\nOff'ring his brandish'd weapon at their face;\nHad not the Sibyl stopp'd his eager pace,\nAnd told him what those empty phantoms were:\nForms without bodies, and impassive air.\nHence to deep Acheron they take their way,\nWhose troubled eddies, thick with ooze and clay,\nAre whirl'd aloft, and in Cocytus lost.\nThere Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast-\nA sordid god: down from his hoary chin\nA length of beard descends, uncomb'd, unclean;\nHis eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;\nA girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.\nHe spreads his canvas; with his pole he steers;\nThe freights of flitting ghosts in his thin bottom bears.\nHe look'd in years; yet in his years were seen\nA youthful vigor and autumnal green.\nAn airy crowd came rushing where he stood,\nWhich fill'd the margin of the fatal flood:\nHusbands and wives, boys and unmarried maids,\nAnd mighty heroes' more majestic shades,\nAnd youths, intomb'd before their fathers' eyes,\nWith hollow groans, and shrieks, and feeble cries.\nThick as the leaves in autumn strow the woods,\nOr fowls, by winter forc'd, forsake the floods,\nAnd wing their hasty flight to happier lands;\nSuch, and so thick, the shiv'ring army stands,\nAnd press for passage with extended hands.\nNow these, now those, the surly boatman bore:\nThe rest he drove to distance from the shore.\nThe hero, who beheld with wond'ring eyes\nThe tumult mix'd with shrieks, laments, and cries,\nAsk'd of his guide, what the rude concourse meant;\nWhy to the shore the thronging people bent;\nWhat forms of law among the ghosts were us'd;\nWhy some were ferried o'er, and some refus'd.<\/p>\n
\"Son of Anchises, offspring of the gods,\"\nThe Sibyl said, \"you see the Stygian floods,\nThe sacred stream which heav'n's imperial state\nAttests in oaths, and fears to violate.\nThe ghosts rejected are th' unhappy crew\nDepriv'd of sepulchers and fun'ral due:\nThe boatman, Charon; those, the buried host,\nHe ferries over to the farther coast;\nNor dares his transport vessel cross the waves\nWith such whose bones are not compos'd in graves.\nA hundred years they wander on the shore;\nAt length, their penance done, are wafted o'er.\"\nThe Trojan chief his forward pace repress'd,\nRevolving anxious thoughts within his breast,\nHe saw his friends, who, whelm'd beneath the waves,\nTheir fun'ral honors claim'd, and ask'd their quiet graves.\nThe lost Leucaspis in the crowd he knew,\nAnd the brave leader of the Lycian crew,\nWhom, on the Tyrrhene seas, the tempests met;\nThe sailors master'd, and the ship o'erset.<\/p>\n
Amidst the spirits, Palinurus press'd,\nYet fresh from life, a new-admitted guest,\nWho, while he steering view'd the stars, and bore\nHis course from Afric to the Latian shore,\nFell headlong down. The Trojan fix'd his view,\nAnd scarcely thro' the gloom the sullen shadow knew.\nThen thus the prince: \"What envious pow'r, O friend,\nBrought your lov'd life to this disastrous end?\nFor Phoebus, ever true in all he said,\nHas in your fate alone my faith betray'd.\nThe god foretold you should not die, before\nYou reach'd, secure from seas, th' Italian shore.\nIs this th' unerring pow'r?\" The ghost replied;\n\"Nor Phoebus flatter'd, nor his answers lied;\nNor envious gods have sent me to the deep:\nBut, while the stars and course of heav'n I keep,\nMy wearied eyes were seiz'd with fatal sleep.\nI fell; and, with my weight, the helm constrain'd\nWas drawn along, which yet my gripe retain'd.\nNow by the winds and raging waves I swear,\nYour safety, more than mine, was then my care;\nLest, of the guide bereft, the rudder lost,\nYour ship should run against the rocky coast.\nThree blust'ring nights, borne by the southern blast,\nI floated, and discover'd land at last:\nHigh on a mounting wave my head I bore,\nForcing my strength, and gath'ring to the shore.\nPanting, but past the danger, now I seiz'd\nThe craggy cliffs, and my tir'd members eas'd.\nWhile, cumber'd with my dropping clothes, I lay,\nThe cruel nation, covetous of prey,\nStain'd with my blood th' unhospitable coast;\nAnd now, by winds and waves, my lifeless limbs are toss'd:\nWhich O avert, by yon ethereal light,\nWhich I have lost for this eternal night!\nOr, if by dearer ties you may be won,\nBy your dead sire, and by your living son,\nRedeem from this reproach my wand'ring ghost;\nOr with your navy seek the Velin coast,\nAnd in a peaceful grave my corpse compose;\nOr, if a nearer way your mother shows,\nWithout whose aid you durst not undertake\nThis frightful passage o'er the Stygian lake,\nLend to this wretch your hand, and waft him o'er\nTo the sweet banks of yon forbidden shore.\"\nScarce had he said, the prophetess began:\n\"What hopes delude thee, miserable man?\nThink'st thou, thus unintomb'd, to cross the floods,\nTo view the Furies and infernal gods,\nAnd visit, without leave, the dark abodes?\nAttend the term of long revolving years;\nFate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.\nThis comfort of thy dire misfortune take:\nThe wrath of Heav'n, inflicted for thy sake,\nWith vengeance shall pursue th' inhuman coast,\nTill they propitiate thy offended ghost,\nAnd raise a tomb, with vows and solemn pray'r;\nAnd Palinurus' name the place shall bear.\"\nThis calm'd his cares; sooth'd with his future fame,\nAnd pleas'd to hear his propagated name.<\/p>\n
Now nearer to the Stygian lake they draw:\nWhom, from the shore, the surly boatman saw;\nObserv'd their passage thro' the shady wood,\nAnd mark'd their near approaches to the flood.\nThen thus he call'd aloud, inflam'd with wrath:\n\"Mortal, whate'er, who this forbidden path\nIn arms presum'st to tread, I charge thee, stand,\nAnd tell thy name, and bus'ness in the land.\nKnow this, the realm of night- the Stygian shore:\nMy boat conveys no living bodies o'er;\nNor was I pleas'd great Theseus once to bear,\nWho forc'd a passage with his pointed spear,\nNor strong Alcides- men of mighty fame,\nAnd from th' immortal gods their lineage came.\nIn fetters one the barking porter tied,\nAnd took him trembling from his sov'reign's side:\nTwo sought by force to seize his beauteous bride.\"\nTo whom the Sibyl thus: \"Compose thy mind;\nNor frauds are here contriv'd, nor force design'd.\nStill may the dog the wand'ring troops constrain\nOf airy ghosts, and vex the guilty train,\nAnd with her grisly lord his lovely queen remain.\nThe Trojan chief, whose lineage is from Jove,\nMuch fam'd for arms, and more for filial love,\nIs sent to seek his sire in your Elysian grove.\nIf neither piety, nor Heav'n's command,\nCan gain his passage to the Stygian strand,\nThis fatal present shall prevail at least.\"\nThen shew'd the shining bough, conceal'd within her vest.\nNo more was needful: for the gloomy god\nStood mute with awe, to see the golden rod;\nAdmir'd the destin'd off'ring to his queen-\nA venerable gift, so rarely seen.\nHis fury thus appeas'd, he puts to land;\nThe ghosts forsake their seats at his command:\nHe clears the deck, receives the mighty freight;\nThe leaky vessel groans beneath the weight.\nSlowly she sails, and scarcely stems the tides;\nThe pressing water pours within her sides.\nHis passengers at length are wafted o'er,\nExpos'd, in muddy weeds, upon the miry shore.<\/p>\n
No sooner landed, in his den they found\nThe triple porter of the Stygian sound,\nGrim Cerberus, who soon began to rear\nHis crested snakes, and arm'd his bristling hair.\nThe prudent Sibyl had before prepar'd\nA sop, in honey steep'd, to charm the guard;\nWhich, mix'd with pow'rful drugs, she cast before\nHis greedy grinning jaws, just op'd to roar.\nWith three enormous mouths he gapes; and straight,\nWith hunger press'd, devours the pleasing bait.\nLong draughts of sleep his monstrous limbs enslave;\nHe reels, and, falling, fills the spacious cave.\nThe keeper charm'd, the chief without delay\nPass'd on, and took th' irremeable way.\nBefore the gates, the cries of babes new born,\nWhom fate had from their tender mothers torn,\nAssault his ears: then those, whom form of laws\nCondemn'd to die, when traitors judg'd their cause.\nNor want they lots, nor judges to review\nThe wrongful sentence, and award a new.\nMinos, the strict inquisitor, appears;\nAnd lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears.\nRound in his urn the blended balls he rolls,\nAbsolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.\nThe next, in place and punishment, are they\nWho prodigally throw their souls away;\nFools, who, repining at their wretched state,\nAnd loathing anxious life, suborn'd their fate.\nWith late repentance now they would retrieve\nThe bodies they forsook, and wish to live;\nTheir pains and poverty desire to bear,\nTo view the light of heav'n, and breathe the vital air:\nBut fate forbids; the Stygian floods oppose,\nAnd with circling streams the captive souls inclose.<\/p>\n
Not far from thence, the Mournful Fields appear\nSo call'd from lovers that inhabit there.\nThe souls whom that unhappy flame invades,\nIn secret solitude and myrtle shades\nMake endless moans, and, pining with desire,\nLament too late their unextinguish'd fire.\nHere Procris, Eriphyle here he found,\nBaring her breast, yet bleeding with the wound\nMade by her son. He saw Pasiphae there,\nWith Phaedra's ghost, a foul incestuous pair.\nThere Laodamia, with Evadne, moves,\nUnhappy both, but loyal in their loves:\nCaeneus, a woman once, and once a man,\nBut ending in the sex she first began.\nNot far from these Phoenician Dido stood,\nFresh from her wound, her bosom bath'd in blood;\nWhom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,\nObscure in shades, and with a doubtful view,\n(Doubtful as he who sees, thro' dusky night,\nOr thinks he sees, the moon's uncertain light,)\nWith tears he first approach'd the sullen shade;\nAnd, as his love inspir'd him, thus he said:\n\"Unhappy queen! then is the common breath\nOf rumor true, in your reported death,\nAnd I, alas! the cause? By Heav'n, I vow,\nAnd all the pow'rs that rule the realms below,\nUnwilling I forsook your friendly state,\nCommanded by the gods, and forc'd by fate-\nThose gods, that fate, whose unresisted might\nHave sent me to these regions void of light,\nThro' the vast empire of eternal night.\nNor dar'd I to presume, that, press'd with grief,\nMy flight should urge you to this dire relief.\nStay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows:\n'T is the last interview that fate allows!\"\nIn vain he thus attempts her mind to move\nWith tears, and pray'rs, and late-repenting love.\nDisdainfully she look'd; then turning round,\nBut fix'd her eyes unmov'd upon the ground,\nAnd what he says and swears, regards no more\nThan the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;\nBut whirl'd away, to shun his hateful sight,\nHid in the forest and the shades of night;\nThen sought Sichaeus thro' the shady grove,\nWho answer'd all her cares, and equal'd all her love.<\/p>\n
Some pious tears the pitying hero paid,\nAnd follow'd with his eyes the flitting shade,\nThen took the forward way, by fate ordain'd,\nAnd, with his guide, the farther fields attain'd,\nWhere, sever'd from the rest, the warrior souls remain'd.\nTydeus he met, with Meleager's race,\nThe pride of armies, and the soldiers' grace;\nAnd pale Adrastus with his ghastly face.\nOf Trojan chiefs he view'd a num'rous train,\nAll much lamented, all in battle slain;\nGlaucus and Medon, high above the rest,\nAntenor's sons, and Ceres' sacred priest.\nAnd proud Idaeus, Priam's charioteer,\nWho shakes his empty reins, and aims his airy spear.\nThe gladsome ghosts, in circling troops, attend\nAnd with unwearied eyes behold their friend;\nDelight to hover near, and long to know\nWhat bus'ness brought him to the realms below.\nBut Argive chiefs, and Agamemnon's train,\nWhen his refulgent arms flash'd thro' the shady plain,\nFled from his well-known face, with wonted fear,\nAs when his thund'ring sword and pointed spear\nDrove headlong to their ships, and glean'd the routed rear.\nThey rais'd a feeble cry, with trembling notes;\nBut the weak voice deceiv'd their gasping throats.<\/p>\n
Here Priam's son, Deiphobus, he found,\nWhose face and limbs were one continued wound:\nDishonest, with lopp'd arms, the youth appears,\nSpoil'd of his nose, and shorten'd of his ears.\nHe scarcely knew him, striving to disown\nHis blotted form, and blushing to be known;\nAnd therefore first began: \"O Teucer's race,\nWho durst thy faultless figure thus deface?\nWhat heart could wish, what hand inflict, this dire disgrace?\n'Twas fam'd, that in our last and fatal night\nYour single prowess long sustain'd the fight,\nTill tir'd, not forc'd, a glorious fate you chose,\nAnd fell upon a heap of slaughter'd foes.\nBut, in remembrance of so brave a deed,\nA tomb and fun'ral honors I decreed;\nThrice call'd your manes on the Trojan plains:\nThe place your armor and your name retains.\nYour body too I sought, and, had I found,\nDesign'd for burial in your native ground.\"<\/p>\n
The ghost replied: \"Your piety has paid\nAll needful rites, to rest my wand'ring shade;\nBut cruel fate, and my more cruel wife,\nTo Grecian swords betray'd my sleeping life.\nThese are the monuments of Helen's love:\nThe shame I bear below, the marks I bore above.\nYou know in what deluding joys we pass'd\nThe night that was by Heav'n decreed our last:\nFor, when the fatal horse, descending down,\nPregnant with arms, o'erwhelm'd th' unhappy town\nShe feign'd nocturnal orgies; left my bed,\nAnd, mix'd with Trojan dames, the dances led\nThen, waving high her torch, the signal made,\nWhich rous'd the Grecians from their ambuscade.\nWith watching overworn, with cares oppress'd,\nUnhappy I had laid me down to rest,\nAnd heavy sleep my weary limbs possess'd.\nMeantime my worthy wife our arms mislaid,\nAnd from beneath my head my sword convey'd;\nThe door unlatch'd, and, with repeated calls,\nInvites her former lord within my walls.\nThus in her crime her confidence she plac'd,\nAnd with new treasons would redeem the past.\nWhat need I more? Into the room they ran,\nAnd meanly murther'd a defenseless man.\nUlysses, basely born, first led the way.\nAvenging pow'rs! with justice if I pray,\nThat fortune be their own another day!\nBut answer you; and in your turn relate,\nWhat brought you, living, to the Stygian state:\nDriv'n by the winds and errors of the sea,\nOr did you Heav'n's superior doom obey?\nOr tell what other chance conducts your way,\nTo view with mortal eyes our dark retreats,\nTumults and torments of th' infernal seats.\"<\/p>\n
While thus in talk the flying hours they pass,\nThe sun had finish'd more than half his race:\nAnd they, perhaps, in words and tears had spent\nThe little time of stay which Heav'n had lent;\nBut thus the Sibyl chides their long delay:\n\"Night rushes down, and headlong drives the day:\n'T is here, in different paths, the way divides;\nThe right to Pluto's golden palace guides;\nThe left to that unhappy region tends,\nWhich to the depth of Tartarus descends;\nThe seat of night profound, and punish'd fiends.\"\nThen thus Deiphobus: \"O sacred maid,\nForbear to chide, and be your will obey'd!\nLo! to the secret shadows I retire,\nTo pay my penance till my years expire.\nProceed, auspicious prince, with glory crown'd,\nAnd born to better fates than I have found.\"\nHe said; and, while he said, his steps he turn'd\nTo secret shadows, and in silence mourn'd.<\/p>\n
The hero, looking on the left, espied\nA lofty tow'r, and strong on ev'ry side\nWith treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds,\nWhose fiery flood the burning empire bounds;\nAnd, press'd betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise resounds\nWide is the fronting gate, and, rais'd on high\nWith adamantine columns, threats the sky.\nVain is the force of man, and Heav'n's as vain,\nTo crush the pillars which the pile sustain.\nSublime on these a tow'r of steel is rear'd;\nAnd dire Tisiphone there keeps the ward,\nGirt in her sanguine gown, by night and day,\nObservant of the souls that pass the downward way.\nFrom hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains\nOf sounding lashes and of dragging chains.\nThe Trojan stood astonish'd at their cries,\nAnd ask'd his guide from whence those yells arise;\nAnd what the crimes, and what the tortures were,\nAnd loud laments that rent the liquid air.<\/p>\n
She thus replied: \"The chaste and holy race\nAre all forbidden this polluted place.\nBut Hecate, when she gave to rule the woods,\nThen led me trembling thro' these dire abodes,\nAnd taught the tortures of th' avenging gods.\nThese are the realms of unrelenting fate;\nAnd awful Rhadamanthus rules the state.\nHe hears and judges each committed crime;\nEnquires into the manner, place, and time.\nThe conscious wretch must all his acts reveal,\n(Loth to confess, unable to conceal),\nFrom the first moment of his vital breath,\nTo his last hour of unrepenting death.\nStraight, o'er the guilty ghost, the Fury shakes\nThe sounding whip and brandishes her snakes,\nAnd the pale sinner, with her sisters, takes.\nThen, of itself, unfolds th' eternal door;\nWith dreadful sounds the brazen hinges roar.\nYou see, before the gate, what stalking ghost\nCommands the guard, what sentries keep the post.\nMore formidable Hydra stands within,\nWhose jaws with iron teeth severely grin.\nThe gaping gulf low to the center lies,\nAnd twice as deep as earth is distant from the skies.\nThe rivals of the gods, the Titan race,\nHere, sing'd with lightning, roll within th' unfathom'd space.\nHere lie th' Alaean twins, (I saw them both,)\nEnormous bodies, of gigantic growth,\nWho dar'd in fight the Thund'rer to defy,\nAffect his heav'n, and force him from the sky.\nSalmoneus, suff'ring cruel pains, I found,\nFor emulating Jove; the rattling sound\nOf mimic thunder, and the glitt'ring blaze\nOf pointed lightnings, and their forky rays.\nThro' Elis and the Grecian towns he flew;\nTh' audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew:\nHe wav'd a torch aloft, and, madly vain,\nSought godlike worship from a servile train.\nAmbitious fool! with horny hoofs to pass\nO'er hollow arches of resounding brass,\nTo rival thunder in its rapid course,\nAnd imitate inimitable force!\nBut he, the King of Heav'n, obscure on high,\nBar'd his red arm, and, launching from the sky\nHis writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke,\nDown to the deep abyss the flaming felon strook.\nThere Tityus was to see, who took his birth\nFrom heav'n, his nursing from the foodful earth.\nHere his gigantic limbs, with large embrace,\nInfold nine acres of infernal space.\nA rav'nous vulture, in his open'd side,\nHer crooked beak and cruel talons tried;\nStill for the growing liver digg'd his breast;\nThe growing liver still supplied the feast;\nStill are his entrails fruitful to their pains:\nTh' immortal hunger lasts, th' immortal food remains.\nIxion and Perithous I could name,\nAnd more Thessalian chiefs of mighty fame.\nHigh o'er their heads a mold'ring rock is plac'd,\nThat promises a fall, and shakes at ev'ry blast.\nThey lie below, on golden beds display'd;\nAnd genial feasts with regal pomp are made.\nThe Queen of Furies by their sides is set,\nAnd snatches from their mouths th' untasted meat,\nWhich if they touch, her hissing snakes she rears,\nTossing her torch, and thund'ring in their ears.\nThen they, who brothers' better claim disown,\nExpel their parents, and usurp the throne;\nDefraud their clients, and, to lucre sold,\nSit brooding on unprofitable gold;\nWho dare not give, and ev'n refuse to lend\nTo their poor kindred, or a wanting friend.\nVast is the throng of these; nor less the train\nOf lustful youths, for foul adult'ry slain:\nHosts of deserters, who their honor sold,\nAnd basely broke their faith for bribes of gold.\nAll these within the dungeon's depth remain,\nDespairing pardon, and expecting pain.\nAsk not what pains; nor farther seek to know\nTheir process, or the forms of law below.\nSome roll a weighty stone; some, laid along,\nAnd bound with burning wires, on spokes of wheels are hung\nUnhappy Theseus, doom'd for ever there,\nIs fix'd by fate on his eternal chair;\nAnd wretched Phlegyas warns the world with cries\n(Could warning make the world more just or wise):\n'Learn righteousness, and dread th' avenging deities.'\nTo tyrants others have their country sold,\nImposing foreign lords, for foreign gold;\nSome have old laws repeal'd, new statutes made,\nNot as the people pleas'd, but as they paid;\nWith incest some their daughters' bed profan'd:\nAll dar'd the worst of ills, and, what they dar'd, attain'd.\nHad I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,\nAnd throats of brass, inspir'd with iron lungs,\nI could not half those horrid crimes repeat,\nNor half the punishments those crimes have met.\nBut let us haste our voyage to pursue:\nThe walls of Pluto's palace are in view;\nThe gate, and iron arch above it, stands\nOn anvils labor'd by the Cyclops' hands.\nBefore our farther way the Fates allow,\nHere must we fix on high the golden bough.\"<\/p>\n
She said: and thro' the gloomy shades they pass'd,\nAnd chose the middle path. Arriv'd at last,\nThe prince with living water sprinkled o'er\nHis limbs and body; then approach'd the door,\nPossess'd the porch, and on the front above\nHe fix'd the fatal bough requir'd by Pluto's love.\nThese holy rites perform'd, they took their way\nWhere long extended plains of pleasure lay:\nThe verdant fields with those of heav'n may vie,\nWith ether vested, and a purple sky;\nThe blissful seats of happy souls below.\nStars of their own, and their own suns, they know;\nTheir airy limbs in sports they exercise,\nAnd on the green contend the wrestler's prize.\nSome in heroic verse divinely sing;\nOthers in artful measures led the ring.\nThe Thracian bard, surrounded by the rest,\nThere stands conspicuous in his flowing vest;\nHis flying fingers, and harmonious quill,\nStrikes sev'n distinguish'd notes, and sev'n at once they fill.\nHere found they Teucer's old heroic race,\nBorn better times and happier years to grace.\nAssaracus and Ilus here enjoy\nPerpetual fame, with him who founded Troy.\nThe chief beheld their chariots from afar,\nTheir shining arms, and coursers train'd to war:\nTheir lances fix'd in earth, their steeds around,\nFree from their harness, graze the flow'ry ground.\nThe love of horses which they had, alive,\nAnd care of chariots, after death survive.\nSome cheerful souls were feasting on the plain;\nSome did the song, and some the choir maintain,\nBeneath a laurel shade, where mighty Po\nMounts up to woods above, and hides his head below.\nHere patriots live, who, for their country's good,\nIn fighting fields, were prodigal of blood:\nPriests of unblemish'd lives here make abode,\nAnd poets worthy their inspiring god;\nAnd searching wits, of more mechanic parts,\nWho grac'd their age with new-invented arts:\nThose who to worth their bounty did extend,\nAnd those who knew that bounty to commend.\nThe heads of these with holy fillets bound,\nAnd all their temples were with garlands crown'd.<\/p>\n
To these the Sibyl thus her speech address'd,\nAnd first to him surrounded by the rest\n(Tow'ring his height, and ample was his breast):\n\"Say, happy souls, divine Musaeus, say,\nWhere lives Anchises, and where lies our way\nTo find the hero, for whose only sake\nWe sought the dark abodes, and cross'd the bitter lake?\"\nTo this the sacred poet thus replied:\n\"In no fix'd place the happy souls reside.\nIn groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,\nBy crystal streams, that murmur thro' the meads:\nBut pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;\nThe path conducts you to your journey's end.\"\nThis said, he led them up the mountain's brow,\nAnd shews them all the shining fields below.\nThey wind the hill, and thro' the blissful meadows go.<\/p>\n
But old Anchises, in a flow'ry vale,\nReview'd his muster'd race, and took the tale:\nThose happy spirits, which, ordain'd by fate,\nFor future beings and new bodies wait-\nWith studious thought observ'd th' illustrious throng,\nIn nature's order as they pass'd along:\nTheir names, their fates, their conduct, and their care,\nIn peaceful senates and successful war.\nHe, when Aeneas on the plain appears,\nMeets him with open arms, and falling tears.\n\"Welcome,\" he said, \"the gods' undoubted race!\nO long expected to my dear embrace!\nOnce more 't is giv'n me to behold your face!\nThe love and pious duty which you pay\nHave pass'd the perils of so hard a way.\n'T is true, computing times, I now believ'd\nThe happy day approach'd; nor are my hopes deceiv'd.\nWhat length of lands, what oceans have you pass'd;\nWhat storms sustain'd, and on what shores been cast?\nHow have I fear'd your fate! but fear'd it most,\nWhen love assail'd you, on the Libyan coast.\"\nTo this, the filial duty thus replies:\n\"Your sacred ghost before my sleeping eyes\nAppear'd, and often urg'd this painful enterprise.\nAfter long tossing on the Tyrrhene sea,\nMy navy rides at anchor in the bay.\nBut reach your hand, O parent shade, nor shun\nThe dear embraces of your longing son!\"\nHe said; and falling tears his face bedew:\nThen thrice around his neck his arms he threw;\nAnd thrice the flitting shadow slipp'd away,\nLike winds, or empty dreams that fly the day.<\/p>\n
Now, in a secret vale, the Trojan sees\nA sep'rate grove, thro' which a gentle breeze\nPlays with a passing breath, and whispers thro' the trees;\nAnd, just before the confines of the wood,\nThe gliding Lethe leads her silent flood.\nAbout the boughs an airy nation flew,\nThick as the humming bees, that hunt the golden dew;\nIn summer's heat on tops of lilies feed,\nAnd creep within their bells, to suck the balmy seed:\nThe winged army roams the fields around;\nThe rivers and the rocks remurmur to the sound.\nAeneas wond'ring stood, then ask'd the cause\nWhich to the stream the crowding people draws.\nThen thus the sire: \"The souls that throng the flood\nAre those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow'd:\nIn Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste,\nOf future life secure, forgetful of the past.\nLong has my soul desir'd this time and place,\nTo set before your sight your glorious race,\nThat this presaging joy may fire your mind\nTo seek the shores by destiny design'd.\"-\n\"O father, can it be, that souls sublime\nReturn to visit our terrestrial clime,\nAnd that the gen'rous mind, releas'd by death,\nCan covet lazy limbs and mortal breath?\"<\/p>\n
Anchises then, in order, thus begun\nTo clear those wonders to his godlike son:\n\"Know, first, that heav'n, and earth's compacted frame,\nAnd flowing waters, and the starry flame,\nAnd both the radiant lights, one common soul\nInspires and feeds, and animates the whole.\nThis active mind, infus'd thro' all the space,\nUnites and mingles with the mighty mass.\nHence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,\nAnd birds of air, and monsters of the main.\nTh' ethereal vigor is in all the same,\nAnd every soul is fill'd with equal flame;\nAs much as earthy limbs, and gross allay\nOf mortal members, subject to decay,\nBlunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day.\nFrom this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,\nDesire and fear by turns possess their hearts,\nAnd grief, and joy; nor can the groveling mind,\nIn the dark dungeon of the limbs confin'd,\nAssert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind:\nNor death itself can wholly wash their stains;\nBut long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains.\nThe relics of inveterate vice they wear,\nAnd spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear.\nFor this are various penances enjoin'd;\nAnd some are hung to bleach upon the wind,\nSome plung'd in waters, others purg'd in fires,\nTill all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires.\nAll have their manes, and those manes bear:\nThe few, so cleans'd, to these abodes repair,\nAnd breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.\nThen are they happy, when by length of time\nThe scurf is worn away of each committed crime;\nNo speck is left of their habitual stains,\nBut the pure ether of the soul remains.\nBut, when a thousand rolling years are past,\n(So long their punishments and penance last,)\nWhole droves of minds are, by the driving god,\nCompell'd to drink the deep Lethaean flood,\nIn large forgetful draughts to steep the cares\nOf their past labors, and their irksome years,\nThat, unrememb'ring of its former pain,\nThe soul may suffer mortal flesh again.\"<\/p>\n
Thus having said, the father spirit leads\nThe priestess and his son thro' swarms of shades,\nAnd takes a rising ground, from thence to see\nThe long procession of his progeny.\n\"Survey,\" pursued the sire, \"this airy throng,\nAs, offer'd to thy view, they pass along.\nThese are th' Italian names, which fate will join\nWith ours, and graff upon the Trojan line.\nObserve the youth who first appears in sight,\nAnd holds the nearest station to the light,\nAlready seems to snuff the vital air,\nAnd leans just forward, on a shining spear:\nSilvius is he, thy last-begotten race,\nBut first in order sent, to fill thy place;\nAn Alban name, but mix'd with Dardan blood,\nBorn in the covert of a shady wood:\nHim fair Lavinia, thy surviving wife,\nShall breed in groves, to lead a solitary life.\nIn Alba he shall fix his royal seat,\nAnd, born a king, a race of kings beget.\nThen Procas, honor of the Trojan name,\nCapys, and Numitor, of endless fame.\nA second Silvius after these appears;\nSilvius Aeneas, for thy name he bears;\nFor arms and justice equally renown'd,\nWho, late restor'd, in Alba shall be crown'd.\nHow great they look! how vig'rously they wield\nTheir weighty lances, and sustain the shield!\nBut they, who crown'd with oaken wreaths appear,\nShall Gabian walls and strong Fidena rear;\nNomentum, Bola, with Pometia, found;\nAnd raise Collatian tow'rs on rocky ground.\nAll these shall then be towns of mighty fame,\nTho' now they lie obscure, and lands without a name.\nSee Romulus the great, born to restore\nThe crown that once his injur'd grandsire wore.\nThis prince a priestess of your blood shall bear,\nAnd like his sire in arms he shall appear.\nTwo rising crests, his royal head adorn;\nBorn from a god, himself to godhead born:\nHis sire already signs him for the skies,\nAnd marks the seat amidst the deities.\nAuspicious chief! thy race, in times to come,\nShall spread the conquests of imperial Rome-\nRome, whose ascending tow'rs shall heav'n invade,\nInvolving earth and ocean in her shade;\nHigh as the Mother of the Gods in place,\nAnd proud, like her, of an immortal race.\nThen, when in pomp she makes the Phrygian round,\nWith golden turrets on her temples crown'd;\nA hundred gods her sweeping train supply;\nHer offspring all, and all command the sky.<\/p>\n
\"Now fix your sight, and stand intent, to see\nYour Roman race, and Julian progeny.\nThe mighty Caesar waits his vital hour,\nImpatient for the world, and grasps his promis'd pow'r.\nBut next behold the youth of form divine,\nCeasar himself, exalted in his line;\nAugustus, promis'd oft, and long foretold,\nSent to the realm that Saturn rul'd of old;\nBorn to restore a better age of gold.\nAfric and India shall his pow'r obey;\nHe shall extend his propagated sway\nBeyond the solar year, without the starry way,\nWhere Atlas turns the rolling heav'ns around,\nAnd his broad shoulders with their lights are crown'd.\nAt his foreseen approach, already quake\nThe Caspian kingdoms and Maeotian lake:\nTheir seers behold the tempest from afar,\nAnd threat'ning oracles denounce the war.\nNile hears him knocking at his sev'nfold gates,\nAnd seeks his hidden spring, and fears his nephew's fates.\nNor Hercules more lands or labors knew,\nNot tho' the brazen-footed hind he slew,\nFreed Erymanthus from the foaming boar,\nAnd dipp'd his arrows in Lernaean gore;\nNor Bacchus, turning from his Indian war,\nBy tigers drawn triumphant in his car,\nFrom Nisus' top descending on the plains,\nWith curling vines around his purple reins.\nAnd doubt we yet thro' dangers to pursue\nThe paths of honor, and a crown in view?\nBut what's the man, who from afar appears?\nHis head with olive crown'd, his hand a censer bears,\nHis hoary beard and holy vestments bring\nHis lost idea back: I know the Roman king.\nHe shall to peaceful Rome new laws ordain,\nCall'd from his mean abode a scepter to sustain.\nHim Tullus next in dignity succeeds,\nAn active prince, and prone to martial deeds.\nHe shall his troops for fighting fields prepare,\nDisus'd to toils, and triumphs of the war.\nBy dint of sword his crown he shall increase,\nAnd scour his armor from the rust of peace.\nWhom Ancus follows, with a fawning air,\nBut vain within, and proudly popular.\nNext view the Tarquin kings, th' avenging sword\nOf Brutus, justly drawn, and Rome restor'd.\nHe first renews the rods and ax severe,\nAnd gives the consuls royal robes to wear.\nHis sons, who seek the tyrant to sustain,\nAnd long for arbitrary lords again,\nWith ignominy scourg'd, in open sight,\nHe dooms to death deserv'd, asserting public right.\nUnhappy man, to break the pious laws\nOf nature, pleading in his children's cause!\nHoweer the doubtful fact is understood,\n'T is love of honor, and his country's good:\nThe consul, not the father, sheds the blood.\nBehold Torquatus the same track pursue;\nAnd, next, the two devoted Decii view:\nThe Drusian line, Camillus loaded home\nWith standards well redeem'd, and foreign foes o'ercome\nThe pair you see in equal armor shine,\nNow, friends below, in close embraces join;\nBut, when they leave the shady realms of night,\nAnd, cloth'd in bodies, breathe your upper light,\nWith mortal hate each other shall pursue:\nWhat wars, what wounds, what slaughter shall ensue!\nFrom Alpine heights the father first descends;\nHis daughter's husband in the plain attends:\nHis daughter's husband arms his eastern friends.\nEmbrace again, my sons, be foes no more;\nNor stain your country with her children's gore!\nAnd thou, the first, lay down thy lawless claim,\nThou, of my blood, who bearist the Julian name!\nAnother comes, who shall in triumph ride,\nAnd to the Capitol his chariot guide,\nFrom conquer'd Corinth, rich with Grecian spoils.\nAnd yet another, fam'd for warlike toils,\nOn Argos shall impose the Roman laws,\nAnd on the Greeks revenge the Trojan cause;\nShall drag in chains their Achillean race;\nShall vindicate his ancestors' disgrace,\nAnd Pallas, for her violated place.\nGreat Cato there, for gravity renown'd,\nAnd conqu'ring Cossus goes with laurels crown'd.\nWho can omit the Gracchi? who declare\nThe Scipios' worth, those thunderbolts of war,\nThe double bane of Carthage? Who can see\nWithout esteem for virtuous poverty,\nSevere Fabricius, or can cease t' admire\nThe plowman consul in his coarse attire?\nTir'd as I am, my praise the Fabii claim;\nAnd thou, great hero, greatest of thy name,\nOrdain'd in war to save the sinking state,\nAnd, by delays, to put a stop to fate!\nLet others better mold the running mass\nOf metals, and inform the breathing brass,\nAnd soften into flesh a marble face;\nPlead better at the bar; describe the skies,\nAnd when the stars descend, and when they rise.\nBut, Rome, 't is thine alone, with awful sway,\nTo rule mankind, and make the world obey,\nDisposing peace and war by thy own majestic way;\nTo tame the proud, the fetter'd slave to free:\nThese are imperial arts, and worthy thee.\"<\/p>\n
He paus'd; and, while with wond'ring eyes they view'd\nThe passing spirits, thus his speech renew'd:\n\"See great Marcellus! how, untir'd in toils,\nHe moves with manly grace, how rich with regal spoils!\nHe, when his country, threaten'd with alarms,\nRequires his courage and his conqu'ring arms,\nShall more than once the Punic bands affright;\nShall kill the Gaulish king in single fight;\nThen to the Capitol in triumph move,\nAnd the third spoils shall grace Feretrian Jove.\"\nAeneas here beheld, of form divine,\nA godlike youth in glitt'ring armor shine,\nWith great Marcellus keeping equal pace;\nBut gloomy were his eyes, dejected was his face.\nHe saw, and, wond'ring, ask'd his airy guide,\nWhat and of whence was he, who press'd the hero's side:\n\"His son, or one of his illustrious name?\nHow like the former, and almost the same!\nObserve the crowds that compass him around;\nAll gaze, and all admire, and raise a shouting sound:\nBut hov'ring mists around his brows are spread,\nAnd night, with sable shades, involves his head.\"\n\"Seek not to know,\" the ghost replied with tears,\n\"The sorrows of thy sons in future years.\nThis youth (the blissful vision of a day)\nShall just be shown on earth, and snatch'd away.\nThe gods too high had rais'd the Roman state,\nWere but their gifts as permanent as great.\nWhat groans of men shall fill the Martian field!\nHow fierce a blaze his flaming pile shall yield!\nWhat fun'ral pomp shall floating Tiber see,\nWhen, rising from his bed, he views the sad solemnity!\nNo youth shall equal hopes of glory give,\nNo youth afford so great a cause to grieve;\nThe Trojan honor, and the Roman boast,\nAdmir'd when living, and ador'd when lost!\nMirror of ancient faith in early youth!\nUndaunted worth, inviolable truth!\nNo foe, unpunish'd, in the fighting field\nShall dare thee, foot to foot, with sword and shield;\nMuch less in arms oppose thy matchless force,\nWhen thy sharp spurs shall urge thy foaming horse.\nAh! couldst thou break thro' fate's severe decree,\nA new Marcellus shall arise in thee!\nFull canisters of fragrant lilies bring,\nMix'd with the purple roses of the spring;\nLet me with fun'ral flow'rs his body strow;\nThis gift which parents to their children owe,\nThis unavailing gift, at least, I may bestow!\"\nThus having said, he led the hero round\nThe confines of the blest Elysian ground;\nWhich when Anchises to his son had shown,\nAnd fir'd his mind to mount the promis'd throne,\nHe tells the future wars, ordain'd by fate;\nThe strength and customs of the Latian state;\nThe prince, and people; and forearms his care\nWith rules, to push his fortune, or to bear.<\/p>\n
Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn;\nOf polish'd ivory this, that of transparent horn:\nTrue visions thro' transparent horn arise;\nThro' polish'd ivory pass deluding lies.\nOf various things discoursing as he pass'd,\nAnchises hither bends his steps at last.\nThen, thro' the gate of iv'ry, he dismiss'd\nHis valiant offspring and divining guest.\nStraight to the ships Aeneas his way,\nEmbark'd his men, and skimm'd along the sea,\nStill coasting, till he gain'd Cajeta's bay.\nAt length on oozy ground his galleys moor;\nTheir heads are turn'd to sea, their sterns to shore.<\/p>","rendered":"
He said, and wept; then spread his sails before
\nThe winds, and reach’d at length the Cumaean shore:
\nTheir anchors dropp’d, his crew the vessels moor.
\nThey turn their heads to sea, their sterns to land,
\nAnd greet with greedy joy th’ Italian strand.
\nSome strike from clashing flints their fiery seed;
\nSome gather sticks, the kindled flames to feed,
\nOr search for hollow trees, and fell the woods,
\nOr trace thro’ valleys the discover’d floods.
\nThus, while their sev’ral charges they fulfil,
\nThe pious prince ascends the sacred hill
\nWhere Phoebus is ador’d; and seeks the shade
\nWhich hides from sight his venerable maid.
\nDeep in a cave the Sibyl makes abode;
\nThence full of fate returns, and of the god.
\nThro’ Trivia’s grove they walk; and now behold,
\nAnd enter now, the temple roof’d with gold.
\nWhen Daedalus, to fly the Cretan shore,
\nHis heavy limbs on jointed pinions bore,
\n(The first who sail’d in air,) ‘t is sung by Fame,
\nTo the Cumaean coast at length he came,
\nAnd here alighting, built this costly frame.
\nInscrib’d to Phoebus, here he hung on high
\nThe steerage of his wings, that cut the sky:
\nThen o’er the lofty gate his art emboss’d
\nAndrogeos’ death, and off’rings to his ghost;
\nSev’n youths from Athens yearly sent, to meet
\nThe fate appointed by revengeful Crete.
\nAnd next to those the dreadful urn was plac’d,
\nIn which the destin’d names by lots were cast:
\nThe mournful parents stand around in tears,
\nAnd rising Crete against their shore appears.
\nThere too, in living sculpture, might be seen
\nThe mad affection of the Cretan queen;
\nThen how she cheats her bellowing lover’s eye;
\nThe rushing leap, the doubtful progeny,
\nThe lower part a beast, a man above,
\nThe monument of their polluted love.
\nNot far from thence he grav’d the wondrous maze,
\nA thousand doors, a thousand winding ways:
\nHere dwells the monster, hid from human view,
\nNot to be found, but by the faithful clew;
\nTill the kind artist, mov’d with pious grief,
\nLent to the loving maid this last relief,
\nAnd all those erring paths describ’d so well
\nThat Theseus conquer’d and the monster fell.
\nHere hapless Icarus had found his part,
\nHad not the father’s grief restrain’d his art.
\nHe twice assay’d to cast his son in gold;
\nTwice from his hands he dropp’d the forming mold.<\/p>\n
All this with wond’ring eyes Aeneas view’d;
\nEach varying object his delight renew’d:
\nEager to read the rest- Achates came,
\nAnd by his side the mad divining dame,
\nThe priestess of the god, Deiphobe her name.
\n“Time suffers not,” she said, “to feed your eyes
\nWith empty pleasures; haste the sacrifice.
\nSev’n bullocks, yet unyok’d, for Phoebus choose,
\nAnd for Diana sev’n unspotted ewes.”
\nThis said, the servants urge the sacred rites,
\nWhile to the temple she the prince invites.
\nA spacious cave, within its farmost part,
\nWas hew’d and fashion’d by laborious art
\nThro’ the hill’s hollow sides: before the place,
\nA hundred doors a hundred entries grace;
\nAs many voices issue, and the sound
\nOf Sybil’s words as many times rebound.
\nNow to the mouth they come. Aloud she cries:
\n“This is the time; enquire your destinies.
\nHe comes; behold the god!” Thus while she said,
\n(And shiv’ring at the sacred entry stay’d,)
\nHer color chang’d; her face was not the same,
\nAnd hollow groans from her deep spirit came.
\nHer hair stood up; convulsive rage possess’d
\nHer trembling limbs, and heav’d her lab’ring breast.
\nGreater than humankind she seem’d to look,
\nAnd with an accent more than mortal spoke.
\nHer staring eyes with sparkling fury roll;
\nWhen all the god came rushing on her soul.
\nSwiftly she turn’d, and, foaming as she spoke:
\n“Why this delay?” she cried- “the pow’rs invoke!
\nThy pray’rs alone can open this abode;
\nElse vain are my demands, and dumb the god.”<\/p>\n
She said no more. The trembling Trojans hear,
\nO’erspread with a damp sweat and holy fear.
\nThe prince himself, with awful dread possess’d,
\nHis vows to great Apollo thus address’d:
\n“Indulgent god, propitious pow’r to Troy,
\nSwift to relieve, unwilling to destroy,
\nDirected by whose hand the Dardan dart
\nPierc’d the proud Grecian’s only mortal part:
\nThus far, by fate’s decrees and thy commands,
\nThro’ ambient seas and thro’ devouring sands,
\nOur exil’d crew has sought th’ Ausonian ground;
\nAnd now, at length, the flying coast is found.
\nThus far the fate of Troy, from place to place,
\nWith fury has pursued her wand’ring race.
\nHere cease, ye pow’rs, and let your vengeance end:
\nTroy is no more, and can no more offend.
\nAnd thou, O sacred maid, inspir’d to see
\nTh’ event of things in dark futurity;
\nGive me what Heav’n has promis’d to my fate,
\nTo conquer and command the Latian state;
\nTo fix my wand’ring gods, and find a place
\nFor the long exiles of the Trojan race.
\nThen shall my grateful hands a temple rear
\nTo the twin gods, with vows and solemn pray’r;
\nAnd annual rites, and festivals, and games,
\nShall be perform’d to their auspicious names.
\nNor shalt thou want thy honors in my land;
\nFor there thy faithful oracles shall stand,
\nPreserv’d in shrines; and ev’ry sacred lay,
\nWhich, by thy mouth, Apollo shall convey:
\nAll shall be treasur’d by a chosen train
\nOf holy priests, and ever shall remain.
\nBut O! commit not thy prophetic mind
\nTo flitting leaves, the sport of ev’ry wind,
\nLest they disperse in air our empty fate;
\nWrite not, but, what the pow’rs ordain, relate.”<\/p>\n
Struggling in vain, impatient of her load,
\nAnd lab’ring underneath the pond’rous god,
\nThe more she strove to shake him from her breast,
\nWith more and far superior force he press’d;
\nCommands his entrance, and, without control,
\nUsurps her organs and inspires her soul.
\nNow, with a furious blast, the hundred doors
\nOpe of themselves; a rushing whirlwind roars
\nWithin the cave, and Sibyl’s voice restores:
\n“Escap’d the dangers of the wat’ry reign,
\nYet more and greater ills by land remain.
\nThe coast, so long desir’d (nor doubt th’ event),
\nThy troops shall reach, but, having reach’d, repent.
\nWars, horrid wars, I view- a field of blood,
\nAnd Tiber rolling with a purple flood.
\nSimois nor Xanthus shall be wanting there:
\nA new Achilles shall in arms appear,
\nAnd he, too, goddess-born. Fierce Juno’s hate,
\nAdded to hostile force, shall urge thy fate.
\nTo what strange nations shalt not thou resort,
\nDriv’n to solicit aid at ev’ry court!
\nThe cause the same which Ilium once oppress’d;
\nA foreign mistress, and a foreign guest.
\nBut thou, secure of soul, unbent with woes,
\nThe more thy fortune frowns, the more oppose.
\nThe dawnings of thy safety shall be shown
\nFrom whence thou least shalt hope, a Grecian town.”<\/p>\n
Thus, from the dark recess, the Sibyl spoke,
\nAnd the resisting air the thunder broke;
\nThe cave rebellow’d, and the temple shook.
\nTh’ ambiguous god, who rul’d her lab’ring breast,
\nIn these mysterious words his mind express’d;
\nSome truths reveal’d, in terms involv’d the rest.
\nAt length her fury fell, her foaming ceas’d,
\nAnd, ebbing in her soul, the god decreas’d.
\nThen thus the chief: “No terror to my view,
\nNo frightful face of danger can be new.
\nInur’d to suffer, and resolv’d to dare,
\nThe Fates, without my pow’r, shall be without my care.
\nThis let me crave, since near your grove the road
\nTo hell lies open, and the dark abode
\nWhich Acheron surrounds, th’ innavigable flood;
\nConduct me thro’ the regions void of light,
\nAnd lead me longing to my father’s sight.
\nFor him, a thousand dangers I have sought,
\nAnd, rushing where the thickest Grecians fought,
\nSafe on my back the sacred burthen brought.
\nHe, for my sake, the raging ocean tried,
\nAnd wrath of Heav’n, my still auspicious guide,
\nAnd bore beyond the strength decrepid age supplied.
\nOft, since he breath’d his last, in dead of night
\nHis reverend image stood before my sight;
\nEnjoin’d to seek, below, his holy shade;
\nConducted there by your unerring aid.
\nBut you, if pious minds by pray’rs are won,
\nOblige the father, and protect the son.
\nYours is the pow’r; nor Proserpine in vain
\nHas made you priestess of her nightly reign.
\nIf Orpheus, arm’d with his enchanting lyre,
\nThe ruthless king with pity could inspire,
\nAnd from the shades below redeem his wife;
\nIf Pollux, off’ring his alternate life,
\nCould free his brother, and can daily go
\nBy turns aloft, by turns descend below-
\nWhy name I Theseus, or his greater friend,
\nWho trod the downward path, and upward could ascend?
\nNot less than theirs from Jove my lineage came;
\nMy mother greater, my descent the same.”
\nSo pray’d the Trojan prince, and, while he pray’d,
\nHis hand upon the holy altar laid.<\/p>\n
Then thus replied the prophetess divine:
\n“O goddess-born of great Anchises’ line,
\nThe gates of hell are open night and day;
\nSmooth the descent, and easy is the way:
\nBut to return, and view the cheerful skies,
\nIn this the task and mighty labor lies.
\nTo few great Jupiter imparts this grace,
\nAnd those of shining worth and heav’nly race.
\nBetwixt those regions and our upper light,
\nDeep forests and impenetrable night
\nPossess the middle space: th’ infernal bounds
\nCocytus, with his sable waves, surrounds.
\nBut if so dire a love your soul invades,
\nAs twice below to view the trembling shades;
\nIf you so hard a toil will undertake,
\nAs twice to pass th’ innavigable lake;
\nReceive my counsel. In the neighb’ring grove
\nThere stands a tree; the queen of Stygian Jove
\nClaims it her own; thick woods and gloomy night
\nConceal the happy plant from human sight.
\nOne bough it bears; but (wondrous to behold!)
\nThe ductile rind and leaves of radiant gold:
\nThis from the vulgar branches must be torn,
\nAnd to fair Proserpine the present borne,
\nEre leave be giv’n to tempt the nether skies.
\nThe first thus rent a second will arise,
\nAnd the same metal the same room supplies.
\nLook round the wood, with lifted eyes, to see
\nThe lurking gold upon the fatal tree:
\nThen rend it off, as holy rites command;
\nThe willing metal will obey thy hand,
\nFollowing with ease, if favor’d by thy fate,
\nThou art foredoom’d to view the Stygian state:
\nIf not, no labor can the tree constrain;
\nAnd strength of stubborn arms and steel are vain.
\nBesides, you know not, while you here attend,
\nTh’ unworthy fate of your unhappy friend:
\nBreathless he lies; and his unburied ghost,
\nDepriv’d of fun’ral rites, pollutes your host.
\nPay first his pious dues; and, for the dead,
\nTwo sable sheep around his hearse be led;
\nThen, living turfs upon his body lay:
\nThis done, securely take the destin’d way,
\nTo find the regions destitute of day.”<\/p>\n
She said, and held her peace. Aeneas went
\nSad from the cave, and full of discontent,
\nUnknowing whom the sacred Sibyl meant.
\nAchates, the companion of his breast,
\nGoes grieving by his side, with equal cares oppress’d.
\nWalking, they talk’d, and fruitlessly divin’d
\nWhat friend the priestess by those words design’d.
\nBut soon they found an object to deplore:
\nMisenus lay extended on the shore;
\nSon of the God of Winds: none so renown’d
\nThe warrior trumpet in the field to sound;
\nWith breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms,
\nAnd rouse to dare their fate in honorable arms.
\nHe serv’d great Hector, and was ever near,
\nNot with his trumpet only, but his spear.
\nBut by Pelides’ arms when Hector fell,
\nHe chose Aeneas; and he chose as well.
\nSwoln with applause, and aiming still at more,
\nHe now provokes the sea gods from the shore;
\nWith envy Triton heard the martial sound,
\nAnd the bold champion, for his challenge, drown’d;
\nThen cast his mangled carcass on the strand:
\nThe gazing crowd around the body stand.
\nAll weep; but most Aeneas mourns his fate,
\nAnd hastens to perform the funeral state.
\nIn altar-wise, a stately pile they rear;
\nThe basis broad below, and top advanc’d in air.
\nAn ancient wood, fit for the work design’d,
\n(The shady covert of the salvage kind,)
\nThe Trojans found: the sounding ax is plied;
\nFirs, pines, and pitch trees, and the tow’ring pride
\nOf forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke,
\nAnd piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak.
\nHuge trunks of trees, fell’d from the steepy crown
\nOf the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.
\nArm’d like the rest the Trojan prince appears,
\nAnd by his pious labor urges theirs.<\/p>\n
Thus while he wrought, revolving in his mind
\nThe ways to compass what his wish design’d,
\nHe cast his eyes upon the gloomy grove,
\nAnd then with vows implor’d the Queen of Love:
\n“O may thy pow’r, propitious still to me,
\nConduct my steps to find the fatal tree,
\nIn this deep forest; since the Sibyl’s breath
\nForetold, alas! too true, Misenus’ death.”
\nScarce had he said, when, full before his sight,
\nTwo doves, descending from their airy flight,
\nSecure upon the grassy plain alight.
\nHe knew his mother’s birds; and thus he pray’d:
\n“Be you my guides, with your auspicious aid,
\nAnd lead my footsteps, till the branch be found,
\nWhose glitt’ring shadow gilds the sacred ground.
\nAnd thou, great parent, with celestial care,
\nIn this distress be present to my pray’r!”
\nThus having said, he stopp’d with watchful sight,
\nObserving still the motions of their flight,
\nWhat course they took, what happy signs they shew.
\nThey fed, and, flutt’ring, by degrees withdrew
\nStill farther from the place, but still in view:
\nHopping and flying, thus they led him on
\nTo the slow lake, whose baleful stench to shun
\nThey wing’d their flight aloft; then, stooping low,
\nPerch’d on the double tree that bears the golden bough.
\nThro’ the green leafs the glitt’ring shadows glow;
\nAs, on the sacred oak, the wintry mistletoe,
\nWhere the proud mother views her precious brood,
\nAnd happier branches, which she never sow’d.
\nSuch was the glitt’ring; such the ruddy rind,
\nAnd dancing leaves, that wanton’d in the wind.
\nHe seiz’d the shining bough with griping hold,
\nAnd rent away, with ease, the ling’ring gold;
\nThen to the Sibyl’s palace bore the prize.
\nMeantime the Trojan troops, with weeping eyes,
\nTo dead Misenus pay his obsequies.
\nFirst, from the ground a lofty pile they rear,
\nOf pitch trees, oaks, and pines, and unctuous fir:
\nThe fabric’s front with cypress twigs they strew,
\nAnd stick the sides with boughs of baleful yew.
\nThe topmost part his glitt’ring arms adorn;
\nWarm waters, then, in brazen caldrons borne,
\nAre pour’d to wash his body, joint by joint,
\nAnd fragrant oils the stiffen’d limbs anoint.
\nWith groans and cries Misenus they deplore:
\nThen on a bier, with purple cover’d o’er,
\nThe breathless body, thus bewail’d, they lay,
\nAnd fire the pile, their faces turn’d away-
\nSuch reverend rites their fathers us’d to pay.
\nPure oil and incense on the fire they throw,
\nAnd fat of victims, which his friends bestow.
\nThese gifts the greedy flames to dust devour;
\nThen on the living coals red wine they pour;
\nAnd, last, the relics by themselves dispose,
\nWhich in a brazen urn the priests inclose.
\nOld Corynaeus compass’d thrice the crew,
\nAnd dipp’d an olive branch in holy dew;
\nWhich thrice he sprinkled round, and thrice aloud
\nInvok’d the dead, and then dismissed the crowd.
\nBut good Aeneas order’d on the shore
\nA stately tomb, whose top a trumpet bore,
\nA soldier’s fauchion, and a seaman’s oar.
\nThus was his friend interr’d; and deathless fame
\nStill to the lofty cape consigns his name.
\nThese rites perform’d, the prince, without delay,
\nHastes to the nether world his destin’d way.
\nDeep was the cave; and, downward as it went
\nFrom the wide mouth, a rocky rough descent;
\nAnd here th’ access a gloomy grove defends,
\nAnd there th’ unnavigable lake extends,
\nO’er whose unhappy waters, void of light,
\nNo bird presumes to steer his airy flight;
\nSuch deadly stenches from the depths arise,
\nAnd steaming sulphur, that infects the skies.
\nFrom hence the Grecian bards their legends make,
\nAnd give the name Avernus to the lake.
\nFour sable bullocks, in the yoke untaught,
\nFor sacrifice the pious hero brought.
\nThe priestess pours the wine betwixt their horns;
\nThen cuts the curling hair; that first oblation burns,
\nInvoking Hecate hither to repair:
\nA pow’rful name in hell and upper air.
\nThe sacred priests with ready knives bereave
\nThe beasts of life, and in full bowls receive
\nThe streaming blood: a lamb to Hell and Night
\n(The sable wool without a streak of white)
\nAeneas offers; and, by fate’s decree,
\nA barren heifer, Proserpine, to thee,
\nWith holocausts he Pluto’s altar fills;
\nSev’n brawny bulls with his own hand he kills;
\nThen on the broiling entrails oil he pours;
\nWhich, ointed thus, the raging flame devours.
\nLate the nocturnal sacrifice begun,
\nNor ended till the next returning sun.
\nThen earth began to bellow, trees to dance,
\nAnd howling dogs in glimm’ring light advance,
\nEre Hecate came. “Far hence be souls profane!”
\nThe Sibyl cried, “and from the grove abstain!
\nNow, Trojan, take the way thy fates afford;
\nAssume thy courage, and unsheathe thy sword.”
\nShe said, and pass’d along the gloomy space;
\nThe prince pursued her steps with equal pace.<\/p>\n
Ye realms, yet unreveal’d to human sight,
\nYe gods who rule the regions of the night,
\nYe gliding ghosts, permit me to relate
\nThe mystic wonders of your silent state!<\/p>\n
Obscure they went thro’ dreary shades, that led
\nAlong the waste dominions of the dead.
\nThus wander travelers in woods by night,
\nBy the moon’s doubtful and malignant light,
\nWhen Jove in dusky clouds involves the skies,
\nAnd the faint crescent shoots by fits before their eyes.<\/p>\n
Just in the gate and in the jaws of hell,
\nRevengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell,
\nAnd pale Diseases, and repining Age,
\nWant, Fear, and Famine’s unresisted rage;
\nHere Toils, and Death, and Death’s half-brother, Sleep,
\nForms terrible to view, their sentry keep;
\nWith anxious Pleasures of a guilty mind,
\nDeep Frauds before, and open Force behind;
\nThe Furies’ iron beds; and Strife, that shakes
\nHer hissing tresses and unfolds her snakes.
\nFull in the midst of this infernal road,
\nAn elm displays her dusky arms abroad:
\nThe God of Sleep there hides his heavy head,
\nAnd empty dreams on ev’ry leaf are spread.
\nOf various forms unnumber’d specters more,
\nCentaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door.
\nBefore the passage, horrid Hydra stands,
\nAnd Briareus with all his hundred hands;
\nGorgons, Geryon with his triple frame;
\nAnd vain Chimaera vomits empty flame.
\nThe chief unsheath’d his shining steel, prepar’d,
\nTho’ seiz’d with sudden fear, to force the guard,
\nOff’ring his brandish’d weapon at their face;
\nHad not the Sibyl stopp’d his eager pace,
\nAnd told him what those empty phantoms were:
\nForms without bodies, and impassive air.
\nHence to deep Acheron they take their way,
\nWhose troubled eddies, thick with ooze and clay,
\nAre whirl’d aloft, and in Cocytus lost.
\nThere Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast-
\nA sordid god: down from his hoary chin
\nA length of beard descends, uncomb’d, unclean;
\nHis eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;
\nA girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.
\nHe spreads his canvas; with his pole he steers;
\nThe freights of flitting ghosts in his thin bottom bears.
\nHe look’d in years; yet in his years were seen
\nA youthful vigor and autumnal green.
\nAn airy crowd came rushing where he stood,
\nWhich fill’d the margin of the fatal flood:
\nHusbands and wives, boys and unmarried maids,
\nAnd mighty heroes’ more majestic shades,
\nAnd youths, intomb’d before their fathers’ eyes,
\nWith hollow groans, and shrieks, and feeble cries.
\nThick as the leaves in autumn strow the woods,
\nOr fowls, by winter forc’d, forsake the floods,
\nAnd wing their hasty flight to happier lands;
\nSuch, and so thick, the shiv’ring army stands,
\nAnd press for passage with extended hands.
\nNow these, now those, the surly boatman bore:
\nThe rest he drove to distance from the shore.
\nThe hero, who beheld with wond’ring eyes
\nThe tumult mix’d with shrieks, laments, and cries,
\nAsk’d of his guide, what the rude concourse meant;
\nWhy to the shore the thronging people bent;
\nWhat forms of law among the ghosts were us’d;
\nWhy some were ferried o’er, and some refus’d.<\/p>\n
“Son of Anchises, offspring of the gods,”
\nThe Sibyl said, “you see the Stygian floods,
\nThe sacred stream which heav’n’s imperial state
\nAttests in oaths, and fears to violate.
\nThe ghosts rejected are th’ unhappy crew
\nDepriv’d of sepulchers and fun’ral due:
\nThe boatman, Charon; those, the buried host,
\nHe ferries over to the farther coast;
\nNor dares his transport vessel cross the waves
\nWith such whose bones are not compos’d in graves.
\nA hundred years they wander on the shore;
\nAt length, their penance done, are wafted o’er.”
\nThe Trojan chief his forward pace repress’d,
\nRevolving anxious thoughts within his breast,
\nHe saw his friends, who, whelm’d beneath the waves,
\nTheir fun’ral honors claim’d, and ask’d their quiet graves.
\nThe lost Leucaspis in the crowd he knew,
\nAnd the brave leader of the Lycian crew,
\nWhom, on the Tyrrhene seas, the tempests met;
\nThe sailors master’d, and the ship o’erset.<\/p>\n
Amidst the spirits, Palinurus press’d,
\nYet fresh from life, a new-admitted guest,
\nWho, while he steering view’d the stars, and bore
\nHis course from Afric to the Latian shore,
\nFell headlong down. The Trojan fix’d his view,
\nAnd scarcely thro’ the gloom the sullen shadow knew.
\nThen thus the prince: “What envious pow’r, O friend,
\nBrought your lov’d life to this disastrous end?
\nFor Phoebus, ever true in all he said,
\nHas in your fate alone my faith betray’d.
\nThe god foretold you should not die, before
\nYou reach’d, secure from seas, th’ Italian shore.
\nIs this th’ unerring pow’r?” The ghost replied;
\n“Nor Phoebus flatter’d, nor his answers lied;
\nNor envious gods have sent me to the deep:
\nBut, while the stars and course of heav’n I keep,
\nMy wearied eyes were seiz’d with fatal sleep.
\nI fell; and, with my weight, the helm constrain’d
\nWas drawn along, which yet my gripe retain’d.
\nNow by the winds and raging waves I swear,
\nYour safety, more than mine, was then my care;
\nLest, of the guide bereft, the rudder lost,
\nYour ship should run against the rocky coast.
\nThree blust’ring nights, borne by the southern blast,
\nI floated, and discover’d land at last:
\nHigh on a mounting wave my head I bore,
\nForcing my strength, and gath’ring to the shore.
\nPanting, but past the danger, now I seiz’d
\nThe craggy cliffs, and my tir’d members eas’d.
\nWhile, cumber’d with my dropping clothes, I lay,
\nThe cruel nation, covetous of prey,
\nStain’d with my blood th’ unhospitable coast;
\nAnd now, by winds and waves, my lifeless limbs are toss’d:
\nWhich O avert, by yon ethereal light,
\nWhich I have lost for this eternal night!
\nOr, if by dearer ties you may be won,
\nBy your dead sire, and by your living son,
\nRedeem from this reproach my wand’ring ghost;
\nOr with your navy seek the Velin coast,
\nAnd in a peaceful grave my corpse compose;
\nOr, if a nearer way your mother shows,
\nWithout whose aid you durst not undertake
\nThis frightful passage o’er the Stygian lake,
\nLend to this wretch your hand, and waft him o’er
\nTo the sweet banks of yon forbidden shore.”
\nScarce had he said, the prophetess began:
\n“What hopes delude thee, miserable man?
\nThink’st thou, thus unintomb’d, to cross the floods,
\nTo view the Furies and infernal gods,
\nAnd visit, without leave, the dark abodes?
\nAttend the term of long revolving years;
\nFate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.
\nThis comfort of thy dire misfortune take:
\nThe wrath of Heav’n, inflicted for thy sake,
\nWith vengeance shall pursue th’ inhuman coast,
\nTill they propitiate thy offended ghost,
\nAnd raise a tomb, with vows and solemn pray’r;
\nAnd Palinurus’ name the place shall bear.”
\nThis calm’d his cares; sooth’d with his future fame,
\nAnd pleas’d to hear his propagated name.<\/p>\n
Now nearer to the Stygian lake they draw:
\nWhom, from the shore, the surly boatman saw;
\nObserv’d their passage thro’ the shady wood,
\nAnd mark’d their near approaches to the flood.
\nThen thus he call’d aloud, inflam’d with wrath:
\n“Mortal, whate’er, who this forbidden path
\nIn arms presum’st to tread, I charge thee, stand,
\nAnd tell thy name, and bus’ness in the land.
\nKnow this, the realm of night- the Stygian shore:
\nMy boat conveys no living bodies o’er;
\nNor was I pleas’d great Theseus once to bear,
\nWho forc’d a passage with his pointed spear,
\nNor strong Alcides- men of mighty fame,
\nAnd from th’ immortal gods their lineage came.
\nIn fetters one the barking porter tied,
\nAnd took him trembling from his sov’reign’s side:
\nTwo sought by force to seize his beauteous bride.”
\nTo whom the Sibyl thus: “Compose thy mind;
\nNor frauds are here contriv’d, nor force design’d.
\nStill may the dog the wand’ring troops constrain
\nOf airy ghosts, and vex the guilty train,
\nAnd with her grisly lord his lovely queen remain.
\nThe Trojan chief, whose lineage is from Jove,
\nMuch fam’d for arms, and more for filial love,
\nIs sent to seek his sire in your Elysian grove.
\nIf neither piety, nor Heav’n’s command,
\nCan gain his passage to the Stygian strand,
\nThis fatal present shall prevail at least.”
\nThen shew’d the shining bough, conceal’d within her vest.
\nNo more was needful: for the gloomy god
\nStood mute with awe, to see the golden rod;
\nAdmir’d the destin’d off’ring to his queen-
\nA venerable gift, so rarely seen.
\nHis fury thus appeas’d, he puts to land;
\nThe ghosts forsake their seats at his command:
\nHe clears the deck, receives the mighty freight;
\nThe leaky vessel groans beneath the weight.
\nSlowly she sails, and scarcely stems the tides;
\nThe pressing water pours within her sides.
\nHis passengers at length are wafted o’er,
\nExpos’d, in muddy weeds, upon the miry shore.<\/p>\n
No sooner landed, in his den they found
\nThe triple porter of the Stygian sound,
\nGrim Cerberus, who soon began to rear
\nHis crested snakes, and arm’d his bristling hair.
\nThe prudent Sibyl had before prepar’d
\nA sop, in honey steep’d, to charm the guard;
\nWhich, mix’d with pow’rful drugs, she cast before
\nHis greedy grinning jaws, just op’d to roar.
\nWith three enormous mouths he gapes; and straight,
\nWith hunger press’d, devours the pleasing bait.
\nLong draughts of sleep his monstrous limbs enslave;
\nHe reels, and, falling, fills the spacious cave.
\nThe keeper charm’d, the chief without delay
\nPass’d on, and took th’ irremeable way.
\nBefore the gates, the cries of babes new born,
\nWhom fate had from their tender mothers torn,
\nAssault his ears: then those, whom form of laws
\nCondemn’d to die, when traitors judg’d their cause.
\nNor want they lots, nor judges to review
\nThe wrongful sentence, and award a new.
\nMinos, the strict inquisitor, appears;
\nAnd lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears.
\nRound in his urn the blended balls he rolls,
\nAbsolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.
\nThe next, in place and punishment, are they
\nWho prodigally throw their souls away;
\nFools, who, repining at their wretched state,
\nAnd loathing anxious life, suborn’d their fate.
\nWith late repentance now they would retrieve
\nThe bodies they forsook, and wish to live;
\nTheir pains and poverty desire to bear,
\nTo view the light of heav’n, and breathe the vital air:
\nBut fate forbids; the Stygian floods oppose,
\nAnd with circling streams the captive souls inclose.<\/p>\n
Not far from thence, the Mournful Fields appear
\nSo call’d from lovers that inhabit there.
\nThe souls whom that unhappy flame invades,
\nIn secret solitude and myrtle shades
\nMake endless moans, and, pining with desire,
\nLament too late their unextinguish’d fire.
\nHere Procris, Eriphyle here he found,
\nBaring her breast, yet bleeding with the wound
\nMade by her son. He saw Pasiphae there,
\nWith Phaedra’s ghost, a foul incestuous pair.
\nThere Laodamia, with Evadne, moves,
\nUnhappy both, but loyal in their loves:
\nCaeneus, a woman once, and once a man,
\nBut ending in the sex she first began.
\nNot far from these Phoenician Dido stood,
\nFresh from her wound, her bosom bath’d in blood;
\nWhom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
\nObscure in shades, and with a doubtful view,
\n(Doubtful as he who sees, thro’ dusky night,
\nOr thinks he sees, the moon’s uncertain light,)
\nWith tears he first approach’d the sullen shade;
\nAnd, as his love inspir’d him, thus he said:
\n“Unhappy queen! then is the common breath
\nOf rumor true, in your reported death,
\nAnd I, alas! the cause? By Heav’n, I vow,
\nAnd all the pow’rs that rule the realms below,
\nUnwilling I forsook your friendly state,
\nCommanded by the gods, and forc’d by fate-
\nThose gods, that fate, whose unresisted might
\nHave sent me to these regions void of light,
\nThro’ the vast empire of eternal night.
\nNor dar’d I to presume, that, press’d with grief,
\nMy flight should urge you to this dire relief.
\nStay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows:
\n‘T is the last interview that fate allows!”
\nIn vain he thus attempts her mind to move
\nWith tears, and pray’rs, and late-repenting love.
\nDisdainfully she look’d; then turning round,
\nBut fix’d her eyes unmov’d upon the ground,
\nAnd what he says and swears, regards no more
\nThan the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;
\nBut whirl’d away, to shun his hateful sight,
\nHid in the forest and the shades of night;
\nThen sought Sichaeus thro’ the shady grove,
\nWho answer’d all her cares, and equal’d all her love.<\/p>\n
Some pious tears the pitying hero paid,
\nAnd follow’d with his eyes the flitting shade,
\nThen took the forward way, by fate ordain’d,
\nAnd, with his guide, the farther fields attain’d,
\nWhere, sever’d from the rest, the warrior souls remain’d.
\nTydeus he met, with Meleager’s race,
\nThe pride of armies, and the soldiers’ grace;
\nAnd pale Adrastus with his ghastly face.
\nOf Trojan chiefs he view’d a num’rous train,
\nAll much lamented, all in battle slain;
\nGlaucus and Medon, high above the rest,
\nAntenor’s sons, and Ceres’ sacred priest.
\nAnd proud Idaeus, Priam’s charioteer,
\nWho shakes his empty reins, and aims his airy spear.
\nThe gladsome ghosts, in circling troops, attend
\nAnd with unwearied eyes behold their friend;
\nDelight to hover near, and long to know
\nWhat bus’ness brought him to the realms below.
\nBut Argive chiefs, and Agamemnon’s train,
\nWhen his refulgent arms flash’d thro’ the shady plain,
\nFled from his well-known face, with wonted fear,
\nAs when his thund’ring sword and pointed spear
\nDrove headlong to their ships, and glean’d the routed rear.
\nThey rais’d a feeble cry, with trembling notes;
\nBut the weak voice deceiv’d their gasping throats.<\/p>\n
Here Priam’s son, Deiphobus, he found,
\nWhose face and limbs were one continued wound:
\nDishonest, with lopp’d arms, the youth appears,
\nSpoil’d of his nose, and shorten’d of his ears.
\nHe scarcely knew him, striving to disown
\nHis blotted form, and blushing to be known;
\nAnd therefore first began: “O Teucer’s race,
\nWho durst thy faultless figure thus deface?
\nWhat heart could wish, what hand inflict, this dire disgrace?
\n‘Twas fam’d, that in our last and fatal night
\nYour single prowess long sustain’d the fight,
\nTill tir’d, not forc’d, a glorious fate you chose,
\nAnd fell upon a heap of slaughter’d foes.
\nBut, in remembrance of so brave a deed,
\nA tomb and fun’ral honors I decreed;
\nThrice call’d your manes on the Trojan plains:
\nThe place your armor and your name retains.
\nYour body too I sought, and, had I found,
\nDesign’d for burial in your native ground.”<\/p>\n
The ghost replied: “Your piety has paid
\nAll needful rites, to rest my wand’ring shade;
\nBut cruel fate, and my more cruel wife,
\nTo Grecian swords betray’d my sleeping life.
\nThese are the monuments of Helen’s love:
\nThe shame I bear below, the marks I bore above.
\nYou know in what deluding joys we pass’d
\nThe night that was by Heav’n decreed our last:
\nFor, when the fatal horse, descending down,
\nPregnant with arms, o’erwhelm’d th’ unhappy town
\nShe feign’d nocturnal orgies; left my bed,
\nAnd, mix’d with Trojan dames, the dances led
\nThen, waving high her torch, the signal made,
\nWhich rous’d the Grecians from their ambuscade.
\nWith watching overworn, with cares oppress’d,
\nUnhappy I had laid me down to rest,
\nAnd heavy sleep my weary limbs possess’d.
\nMeantime my worthy wife our arms mislaid,
\nAnd from beneath my head my sword convey’d;
\nThe door unlatch’d, and, with repeated calls,
\nInvites her former lord within my walls.
\nThus in her crime her confidence she plac’d,
\nAnd with new treasons would redeem the past.
\nWhat need I more? Into the room they ran,
\nAnd meanly murther’d a defenseless man.
\nUlysses, basely born, first led the way.
\nAvenging pow’rs! with justice if I pray,
\nThat fortune be their own another day!
\nBut answer you; and in your turn relate,
\nWhat brought you, living, to the Stygian state:
\nDriv’n by the winds and errors of the sea,
\nOr did you Heav’n’s superior doom obey?
\nOr tell what other chance conducts your way,
\nTo view with mortal eyes our dark retreats,
\nTumults and torments of th’ infernal seats.”<\/p>\n
While thus in talk the flying hours they pass,
\nThe sun had finish’d more than half his race:
\nAnd they, perhaps, in words and tears had spent
\nThe little time of stay which Heav’n had lent;
\nBut thus the Sibyl chides their long delay:
\n“Night rushes down, and headlong drives the day:
\n‘T is here, in different paths, the way divides;
\nThe right to Pluto’s golden palace guides;
\nThe left to that unhappy region tends,
\nWhich to the depth of Tartarus descends;
\nThe seat of night profound, and punish’d fiends.”
\nThen thus Deiphobus: “O sacred maid,
\nForbear to chide, and be your will obey’d!
\nLo! to the secret shadows I retire,
\nTo pay my penance till my years expire.
\nProceed, auspicious prince, with glory crown’d,
\nAnd born to better fates than I have found.”
\nHe said; and, while he said, his steps he turn’d
\nTo secret shadows, and in silence mourn’d.<\/p>\n
The hero, looking on the left, espied
\nA lofty tow’r, and strong on ev’ry side
\nWith treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds,
\nWhose fiery flood the burning empire bounds;
\nAnd, press’d betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise resounds
\nWide is the fronting gate, and, rais’d on high
\nWith adamantine columns, threats the sky.
\nVain is the force of man, and Heav’n’s as vain,
\nTo crush the pillars which the pile sustain.
\nSublime on these a tow’r of steel is rear’d;
\nAnd dire Tisiphone there keeps the ward,
\nGirt in her sanguine gown, by night and day,
\nObservant of the souls that pass the downward way.
\nFrom hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains
\nOf sounding lashes and of dragging chains.
\nThe Trojan stood astonish’d at their cries,
\nAnd ask’d his guide from whence those yells arise;
\nAnd what the crimes, and what the tortures were,
\nAnd loud laments that rent the liquid air.<\/p>\n
She thus replied: “The chaste and holy race
\nAre all forbidden this polluted place.
\nBut Hecate, when she gave to rule the woods,
\nThen led me trembling thro’ these dire abodes,
\nAnd taught the tortures of th’ avenging gods.
\nThese are the realms of unrelenting fate;
\nAnd awful Rhadamanthus rules the state.
\nHe hears and judges each committed crime;
\nEnquires into the manner, place, and time.
\nThe conscious wretch must all his acts reveal,
\n(Loth to confess, unable to conceal),
\nFrom the first moment of his vital breath,
\nTo his last hour of unrepenting death.
\nStraight, o’er the guilty ghost, the Fury shakes
\nThe sounding whip and brandishes her snakes,
\nAnd the pale sinner, with her sisters, takes.
\nThen, of itself, unfolds th’ eternal door;
\nWith dreadful sounds the brazen hinges roar.
\nYou see, before the gate, what stalking ghost
\nCommands the guard, what sentries keep the post.
\nMore formidable Hydra stands within,
\nWhose jaws with iron teeth severely grin.
\nThe gaping gulf low to the center lies,
\nAnd twice as deep as earth is distant from the skies.
\nThe rivals of the gods, the Titan race,
\nHere, sing’d with lightning, roll within th’ unfathom’d space.
\nHere lie th’ Alaean twins, (I saw them both,)
\nEnormous bodies, of gigantic growth,
\nWho dar’d in fight the Thund’rer to defy,
\nAffect his heav’n, and force him from the sky.
\nSalmoneus, suff’ring cruel pains, I found,
\nFor emulating Jove; the rattling sound
\nOf mimic thunder, and the glitt’ring blaze
\nOf pointed lightnings, and their forky rays.
\nThro’ Elis and the Grecian towns he flew;
\nTh’ audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew:
\nHe wav’d a torch aloft, and, madly vain,
\nSought godlike worship from a servile train.
\nAmbitious fool! with horny hoofs to pass
\nO’er hollow arches of resounding brass,
\nTo rival thunder in its rapid course,
\nAnd imitate inimitable force!
\nBut he, the King of Heav’n, obscure on high,
\nBar’d his red arm, and, launching from the sky
\nHis writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke,
\nDown to the deep abyss the flaming felon strook.
\nThere Tityus was to see, who took his birth
\nFrom heav’n, his nursing from the foodful earth.
\nHere his gigantic limbs, with large embrace,
\nInfold nine acres of infernal space.
\nA rav’nous vulture, in his open’d side,
\nHer crooked beak and cruel talons tried;
\nStill for the growing liver digg’d his breast;
\nThe growing liver still supplied the feast;
\nStill are his entrails fruitful to their pains:
\nTh’ immortal hunger lasts, th’ immortal food remains.
\nIxion and Perithous I could name,
\nAnd more Thessalian chiefs of mighty fame.
\nHigh o’er their heads a mold’ring rock is plac’d,
\nThat promises a fall, and shakes at ev’ry blast.
\nThey lie below, on golden beds display’d;
\nAnd genial feasts with regal pomp are made.
\nThe Queen of Furies by their sides is set,
\nAnd snatches from their mouths th’ untasted meat,
\nWhich if they touch, her hissing snakes she rears,
\nTossing her torch, and thund’ring in their ears.
\nThen they, who brothers’ better claim disown,
\nExpel their parents, and usurp the throne;
\nDefraud their clients, and, to lucre sold,
\nSit brooding on unprofitable gold;
\nWho dare not give, and ev’n refuse to lend
\nTo their poor kindred, or a wanting friend.
\nVast is the throng of these; nor less the train
\nOf lustful youths, for foul adult’ry slain:
\nHosts of deserters, who their honor sold,
\nAnd basely broke their faith for bribes of gold.
\nAll these within the dungeon’s depth remain,
\nDespairing pardon, and expecting pain.
\nAsk not what pains; nor farther seek to know
\nTheir process, or the forms of law below.
\nSome roll a weighty stone; some, laid along,
\nAnd bound with burning wires, on spokes of wheels are hung
\nUnhappy Theseus, doom’d for ever there,
\nIs fix’d by fate on his eternal chair;
\nAnd wretched Phlegyas warns the world with cries
\n(Could warning make the world more just or wise):
\n‘Learn righteousness, and dread th’ avenging deities.’
\nTo tyrants others have their country sold,
\nImposing foreign lords, for foreign gold;
\nSome have old laws repeal’d, new statutes made,
\nNot as the people pleas’d, but as they paid;
\nWith incest some their daughters’ bed profan’d:
\nAll dar’d the worst of ills, and, what they dar’d, attain’d.
\nHad I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,
\nAnd throats of brass, inspir’d with iron lungs,
\nI could not half those horrid crimes repeat,
\nNor half the punishments those crimes have met.
\nBut let us haste our voyage to pursue:
\nThe walls of Pluto’s palace are in view;
\nThe gate, and iron arch above it, stands
\nOn anvils labor’d by the Cyclops’ hands.
\nBefore our farther way the Fates allow,
\nHere must we fix on high the golden bough.”<\/p>\n
She said: and thro’ the gloomy shades they pass’d,
\nAnd chose the middle path. Arriv’d at last,
\nThe prince with living water sprinkled o’er
\nHis limbs and body; then approach’d the door,
\nPossess’d the porch, and on the front above
\nHe fix’d the fatal bough requir’d by Pluto’s love.
\nThese holy rites perform’d, they took their way
\nWhere long extended plains of pleasure lay:
\nThe verdant fields with those of heav’n may vie,
\nWith ether vested, and a purple sky;
\nThe blissful seats of happy souls below.
\nStars of their own, and their own suns, they know;
\nTheir airy limbs in sports they exercise,
\nAnd on the green contend the wrestler’s prize.
\nSome in heroic verse divinely sing;
\nOthers in artful measures led the ring.
\nThe Thracian bard, surrounded by the rest,
\nThere stands conspicuous in his flowing vest;
\nHis flying fingers, and harmonious quill,
\nStrikes sev’n distinguish’d notes, and sev’n at once they fill.
\nHere found they Teucer’s old heroic race,
\nBorn better times and happier years to grace.
\nAssaracus and Ilus here enjoy
\nPerpetual fame, with him who founded Troy.
\nThe chief beheld their chariots from afar,
\nTheir shining arms, and coursers train’d to war:
\nTheir lances fix’d in earth, their steeds around,
\nFree from their harness, graze the flow’ry ground.
\nThe love of horses which they had, alive,
\nAnd care of chariots, after death survive.
\nSome cheerful souls were feasting on the plain;
\nSome did the song, and some the choir maintain,
\nBeneath a laurel shade, where mighty Po
\nMounts up to woods above, and hides his head below.
\nHere patriots live, who, for their country’s good,
\nIn fighting fields, were prodigal of blood:
\nPriests of unblemish’d lives here make abode,
\nAnd poets worthy their inspiring god;
\nAnd searching wits, of more mechanic parts,
\nWho grac’d their age with new-invented arts:
\nThose who to worth their bounty did extend,
\nAnd those who knew that bounty to commend.
\nThe heads of these with holy fillets bound,
\nAnd all their temples were with garlands crown’d.<\/p>\n
To these the Sibyl thus her speech address’d,
\nAnd first to him surrounded by the rest
\n(Tow’ring his height, and ample was his breast):
\n“Say, happy souls, divine Musaeus, say,
\nWhere lives Anchises, and where lies our way
\nTo find the hero, for whose only sake
\nWe sought the dark abodes, and cross’d the bitter lake?”
\nTo this the sacred poet thus replied:
\n“In no fix’d place the happy souls reside.
\nIn groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,
\nBy crystal streams, that murmur thro’ the meads:
\nBut pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;
\nThe path conducts you to your journey’s end.”
\nThis said, he led them up the mountain’s brow,
\nAnd shews them all the shining fields below.
\nThey wind the hill, and thro’ the blissful meadows go.<\/p>\n
But old Anchises, in a flow’ry vale,
\nReview’d his muster’d race, and took the tale:
\nThose happy spirits, which, ordain’d by fate,
\nFor future beings and new bodies wait-
\nWith studious thought observ’d th’ illustrious throng,
\nIn nature’s order as they pass’d along:
\nTheir names, their fates, their conduct, and their care,
\nIn peaceful senates and successful war.
\nHe, when Aeneas on the plain appears,
\nMeets him with open arms, and falling tears.
\n“Welcome,” he said, “the gods’ undoubted race!
\nO long expected to my dear embrace!
\nOnce more ‘t is giv’n me to behold your face!
\nThe love and pious duty which you pay
\nHave pass’d the perils of so hard a way.
\n‘T is true, computing times, I now believ’d
\nThe happy day approach’d; nor are my hopes deceiv’d.
\nWhat length of lands, what oceans have you pass’d;
\nWhat storms sustain’d, and on what shores been cast?
\nHow have I fear’d your fate! but fear’d it most,
\nWhen love assail’d you, on the Libyan coast.”
\nTo this, the filial duty thus replies:
\n“Your sacred ghost before my sleeping eyes
\nAppear’d, and often urg’d this painful enterprise.
\nAfter long tossing on the Tyrrhene sea,
\nMy navy rides at anchor in the bay.
\nBut reach your hand, O parent shade, nor shun
\nThe dear embraces of your longing son!”
\nHe said; and falling tears his face bedew:
\nThen thrice around his neck his arms he threw;
\nAnd thrice the flitting shadow slipp’d away,
\nLike winds, or empty dreams that fly the day.<\/p>\n
Now, in a secret vale, the Trojan sees
\nA sep’rate grove, thro’ which a gentle breeze
\nPlays with a passing breath, and whispers thro’ the trees;
\nAnd, just before the confines of the wood,
\nThe gliding Lethe leads her silent flood.
\nAbout the boughs an airy nation flew,
\nThick as the humming bees, that hunt the golden dew;
\nIn summer’s heat on tops of lilies feed,
\nAnd creep within their bells, to suck the balmy seed:
\nThe winged army roams the fields around;
\nThe rivers and the rocks remurmur to the sound.
\nAeneas wond’ring stood, then ask’d the cause
\nWhich to the stream the crowding people draws.
\nThen thus the sire: “The souls that throng the flood
\nAre those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow’d:
\nIn Lethe’s lake they long oblivion taste,
\nOf future life secure, forgetful of the past.
\nLong has my soul desir’d this time and place,
\nTo set before your sight your glorious race,
\nThat this presaging joy may fire your mind
\nTo seek the shores by destiny design’d.”-
\n“O father, can it be, that souls sublime
\nReturn to visit our terrestrial clime,
\nAnd that the gen’rous mind, releas’d by death,
\nCan covet lazy limbs and mortal breath?”<\/p>\n
Anchises then, in order, thus begun
\nTo clear those wonders to his godlike son:
\n“Know, first, that heav’n, and earth’s compacted frame,
\nAnd flowing waters, and the starry flame,
\nAnd both the radiant lights, one common soul
\nInspires and feeds, and animates the whole.
\nThis active mind, infus’d thro’ all the space,
\nUnites and mingles with the mighty mass.
\nHence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
\nAnd birds of air, and monsters of the main.
\nTh’ ethereal vigor is in all the same,
\nAnd every soul is fill’d with equal flame;
\nAs much as earthy limbs, and gross allay
\nOf mortal members, subject to decay,
\nBlunt not the beams of heav’n and edge of day.
\nFrom this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,
\nDesire and fear by turns possess their hearts,
\nAnd grief, and joy; nor can the groveling mind,
\nIn the dark dungeon of the limbs confin’d,
\nAssert the native skies, or own its heav’nly kind:
\nNor death itself can wholly wash their stains;
\nBut long-contracted filth ev’n in the soul remains.
\nThe relics of inveterate vice they wear,
\nAnd spots of sin obscene in ev’ry face appear.
\nFor this are various penances enjoin’d;
\nAnd some are hung to bleach upon the wind,
\nSome plung’d in waters, others purg’d in fires,
\nTill all the dregs are drain’d, and all the rust expires.
\nAll have their manes, and those manes bear:
\nThe few, so cleans’d, to these abodes repair,
\nAnd breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.
\nThen are they happy, when by length of time
\nThe scurf is worn away of each committed crime;
\nNo speck is left of their habitual stains,
\nBut the pure ether of the soul remains.
\nBut, when a thousand rolling years are past,
\n(So long their punishments and penance last,)
\nWhole droves of minds are, by the driving god,
\nCompell’d to drink the deep Lethaean flood,
\nIn large forgetful draughts to steep the cares
\nOf their past labors, and their irksome years,
\nThat, unrememb’ring of its former pain,
\nThe soul may suffer mortal flesh again.”<\/p>\n
Thus having said, the father spirit leads
\nThe priestess and his son thro’ swarms of shades,
\nAnd takes a rising ground, from thence to see
\nThe long procession of his progeny.
\n“Survey,” pursued the sire, “this airy throng,
\nAs, offer’d to thy view, they pass along.
\nThese are th’ Italian names, which fate will join
\nWith ours, and graff upon the Trojan line.
\nObserve the youth who first appears in sight,
\nAnd holds the nearest station to the light,
\nAlready seems to snuff the vital air,
\nAnd leans just forward, on a shining spear:
\nSilvius is he, thy last-begotten race,
\nBut first in order sent, to fill thy place;
\nAn Alban name, but mix’d with Dardan blood,
\nBorn in the covert of a shady wood:
\nHim fair Lavinia, thy surviving wife,
\nShall breed in groves, to lead a solitary life.
\nIn Alba he shall fix his royal seat,
\nAnd, born a king, a race of kings beget.
\nThen Procas, honor of the Trojan name,
\nCapys, and Numitor, of endless fame.
\nA second Silvius after these appears;
\nSilvius Aeneas, for thy name he bears;
\nFor arms and justice equally renown’d,
\nWho, late restor’d, in Alba shall be crown’d.
\nHow great they look! how vig’rously they wield
\nTheir weighty lances, and sustain the shield!
\nBut they, who crown’d with oaken wreaths appear,
\nShall Gabian walls and strong Fidena rear;
\nNomentum, Bola, with Pometia, found;
\nAnd raise Collatian tow’rs on rocky ground.
\nAll these shall then be towns of mighty fame,
\nTho’ now they lie obscure, and lands without a name.
\nSee Romulus the great, born to restore
\nThe crown that once his injur’d grandsire wore.
\nThis prince a priestess of your blood shall bear,
\nAnd like his sire in arms he shall appear.
\nTwo rising crests, his royal head adorn;
\nBorn from a god, himself to godhead born:
\nHis sire already signs him for the skies,
\nAnd marks the seat amidst the deities.
\nAuspicious chief! thy race, in times to come,
\nShall spread the conquests of imperial Rome-
\nRome, whose ascending tow’rs shall heav’n invade,
\nInvolving earth and ocean in her shade;
\nHigh as the Mother of the Gods in place,
\nAnd proud, like her, of an immortal race.
\nThen, when in pomp she makes the Phrygian round,
\nWith golden turrets on her temples crown’d;
\nA hundred gods her sweeping train supply;
\nHer offspring all, and all command the sky.<\/p>\n
“Now fix your sight, and stand intent, to see
\nYour Roman race, and Julian progeny.
\nThe mighty Caesar waits his vital hour,
\nImpatient for the world, and grasps his promis’d pow’r.
\nBut next behold the youth of form divine,
\nCeasar himself, exalted in his line;
\nAugustus, promis’d oft, and long foretold,
\nSent to the realm that Saturn rul’d of old;
\nBorn to restore a better age of gold.
\nAfric and India shall his pow’r obey;
\nHe shall extend his propagated sway
\nBeyond the solar year, without the starry way,
\nWhere Atlas turns the rolling heav’ns around,
\nAnd his broad shoulders with their lights are crown’d.
\nAt his foreseen approach, already quake
\nThe Caspian kingdoms and Maeotian lake:
\nTheir seers behold the tempest from afar,
\nAnd threat’ning oracles denounce the war.
\nNile hears him knocking at his sev’nfold gates,
\nAnd seeks his hidden spring, and fears his nephew’s fates.
\nNor Hercules more lands or labors knew,
\nNot tho’ the brazen-footed hind he slew,
\nFreed Erymanthus from the foaming boar,
\nAnd dipp’d his arrows in Lernaean gore;
\nNor Bacchus, turning from his Indian war,
\nBy tigers drawn triumphant in his car,
\nFrom Nisus’ top descending on the plains,
\nWith curling vines around his purple reins.
\nAnd doubt we yet thro’ dangers to pursue
\nThe paths of honor, and a crown in view?
\nBut what’s the man, who from afar appears?
\nHis head with olive crown’d, his hand a censer bears,
\nHis hoary beard and holy vestments bring
\nHis lost idea back: I know the Roman king.
\nHe shall to peaceful Rome new laws ordain,
\nCall’d from his mean abode a scepter to sustain.
\nHim Tullus next in dignity succeeds,
\nAn active prince, and prone to martial deeds.
\nHe shall his troops for fighting fields prepare,
\nDisus’d to toils, and triumphs of the war.
\nBy dint of sword his crown he shall increase,
\nAnd scour his armor from the rust of peace.
\nWhom Ancus follows, with a fawning air,
\nBut vain within, and proudly popular.
\nNext view the Tarquin kings, th’ avenging sword
\nOf Brutus, justly drawn, and Rome restor’d.
\nHe first renews the rods and ax severe,
\nAnd gives the consuls royal robes to wear.
\nHis sons, who seek the tyrant to sustain,
\nAnd long for arbitrary lords again,
\nWith ignominy scourg’d, in open sight,
\nHe dooms to death deserv’d, asserting public right.
\nUnhappy man, to break the pious laws
\nOf nature, pleading in his children’s cause!
\nHoweer the doubtful fact is understood,
\n‘T is love of honor, and his country’s good:
\nThe consul, not the father, sheds the blood.
\nBehold Torquatus the same track pursue;
\nAnd, next, the two devoted Decii view:
\nThe Drusian line, Camillus loaded home
\nWith standards well redeem’d, and foreign foes o’ercome
\nThe pair you see in equal armor shine,
\nNow, friends below, in close embraces join;
\nBut, when they leave the shady realms of night,
\nAnd, cloth’d in bodies, breathe your upper light,
\nWith mortal hate each other shall pursue:
\nWhat wars, what wounds, what slaughter shall ensue!
\nFrom Alpine heights the father first descends;
\nHis daughter’s husband in the plain attends:
\nHis daughter’s husband arms his eastern friends.
\nEmbrace again, my sons, be foes no more;
\nNor stain your country with her children’s gore!
\nAnd thou, the first, lay down thy lawless claim,
\nThou, of my blood, who bearist the Julian name!
\nAnother comes, who shall in triumph ride,
\nAnd to the Capitol his chariot guide,
\nFrom conquer’d Corinth, rich with Grecian spoils.
\nAnd yet another, fam’d for warlike toils,
\nOn Argos shall impose the Roman laws,
\nAnd on the Greeks revenge the Trojan cause;
\nShall drag in chains their Achillean race;
\nShall vindicate his ancestors’ disgrace,
\nAnd Pallas, for her violated place.
\nGreat Cato there, for gravity renown’d,
\nAnd conqu’ring Cossus goes with laurels crown’d.
\nWho can omit the Gracchi? who declare
\nThe Scipios’ worth, those thunderbolts of war,
\nThe double bane of Carthage? Who can see
\nWithout esteem for virtuous poverty,
\nSevere Fabricius, or can cease t’ admire
\nThe plowman consul in his coarse attire?
\nTir’d as I am, my praise the Fabii claim;
\nAnd thou, great hero, greatest of thy name,
\nOrdain’d in war to save the sinking state,
\nAnd, by delays, to put a stop to fate!
\nLet others better mold the running mass
\nOf metals, and inform the breathing brass,
\nAnd soften into flesh a marble face;
\nPlead better at the bar; describe the skies,
\nAnd when the stars descend, and when they rise.
\nBut, Rome, ‘t is thine alone, with awful sway,
\nTo rule mankind, and make the world obey,
\nDisposing peace and war by thy own majestic way;
\nTo tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free:
\nThese are imperial arts, and worthy thee.”<\/p>\n
He paus’d; and, while with wond’ring eyes they view’d
\nThe passing spirits, thus his speech renew’d:
\n“See great Marcellus! how, untir’d in toils,
\nHe moves with manly grace, how rich with regal spoils!
\nHe, when his country, threaten’d with alarms,
\nRequires his courage and his conqu’ring arms,
\nShall more than once the Punic bands affright;
\nShall kill the Gaulish king in single fight;
\nThen to the Capitol in triumph move,
\nAnd the third spoils shall grace Feretrian Jove.”
\nAeneas here beheld, of form divine,
\nA godlike youth in glitt’ring armor shine,
\nWith great Marcellus keeping equal pace;
\nBut gloomy were his eyes, dejected was his face.
\nHe saw, and, wond’ring, ask’d his airy guide,
\nWhat and of whence was he, who press’d the hero’s side:
\n“His son, or one of his illustrious name?
\nHow like the former, and almost the same!
\nObserve the crowds that compass him around;
\nAll gaze, and all admire, and raise a shouting sound:
\nBut hov’ring mists around his brows are spread,
\nAnd night, with sable shades, involves his head.”
\n“Seek not to know,” the ghost replied with tears,
\n“The sorrows of thy sons in future years.
\nThis youth (the blissful vision of a day)
\nShall just be shown on earth, and snatch’d away.
\nThe gods too high had rais’d the Roman state,
\nWere but their gifts as permanent as great.
\nWhat groans of men shall fill the Martian field!
\nHow fierce a blaze his flaming pile shall yield!
\nWhat fun’ral pomp shall floating Tiber see,
\nWhen, rising from his bed, he views the sad solemnity!
\nNo youth shall equal hopes of glory give,
\nNo youth afford so great a cause to grieve;
\nThe Trojan honor, and the Roman boast,
\nAdmir’d when living, and ador’d when lost!
\nMirror of ancient faith in early youth!
\nUndaunted worth, inviolable truth!
\nNo foe, unpunish’d, in the fighting field
\nShall dare thee, foot to foot, with sword and shield;
\nMuch less in arms oppose thy matchless force,
\nWhen thy sharp spurs shall urge thy foaming horse.
\nAh! couldst thou break thro’ fate’s severe decree,
\nA new Marcellus shall arise in thee!
\nFull canisters of fragrant lilies bring,
\nMix’d with the purple roses of the spring;
\nLet me with fun’ral flow’rs his body strow;
\nThis gift which parents to their children owe,
\nThis unavailing gift, at least, I may bestow!”
\nThus having said, he led the hero round
\nThe confines of the blest Elysian ground;
\nWhich when Anchises to his son had shown,
\nAnd fir’d his mind to mount the promis’d throne,
\nHe tells the future wars, ordain’d by fate;
\nThe strength and customs of the Latian state;
\nThe prince, and people; and forearms his care
\nWith rules, to push his fortune, or to bear.<\/p>\n
Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn;
\nOf polish’d ivory this, that of transparent horn:
\nTrue visions thro’ transparent horn arise;
\nThro’ polish’d ivory pass deluding lies.
\nOf various things discoursing as he pass’d,
\nAnchises hither bends his steps at last.
\nThen, thro’ the gate of iv’ry, he dismiss’d
\nHis valiant offspring and divining guest.
\nStraight to the ships Aeneas his way,
\nEmbark’d his men, and skimm’d along the sea,
\nStill coasting, till he gain’d Cajeta’s bay.
\nAt length on oozy ground his galleys moor;
\nTheir heads are turn’d to sea, their sterns to shore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"menu_order":6,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-116","chapter","type-chapter","status-web-only","hentry"],"part":110,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/116\/revisions"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/110"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/116\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}