by Virgil
So the foil rustles in the breezes low.
Quickly Æneas plucks the lingering spray, 253
And to the Sibyl bears the welcome gift away.
XXX . Nor less the dead Misenus they deplore,
And honours to the thankless dust assign.
A stately pyre they build upon the shore,
Rich with oak-timbers and the resinous pine,
And sombre foliage in the sides entwine.
In front, the cypress marks the fatal soil,
Above, they leave the warrior’s arms to shine.
These heat the water, till the caldrons boil, 262
And wash the stiffened limbs, and fill the wounds with oil.
XXXI . Loud is the wailing; then with many a tear
They lay him on the bed, and o’er him throw
His purple robes. These lift the massive bier;
Those, as of yore — sad ministry of woe —
With eyes averted, hold the torch below.
Oil, spice and viands, in promiscuous heap,
They pour and pile upon the fire; and now,
The embers crumbling and the flames asleep, 271
With draughts of ruddy wine the thirsty ash they steep.
XXXII . And Cornyæus in a brazen urn
Enshrined the bones, upgathered in a caul,
And bearing round pure water, thrice in turn
From olive branch the lustral dew lets fall,
And, sprinkling, speaks the latest words of all.
A lofty mound Æneas hastes to frame,
Crowned with his oar and trumpet, ‘neath a tall
And airy cliff, which still Misenus’ name 280
Preserves, and ages keep his everlasting fame.
XXXIII . This done, Æneas hastens to obey
The Sibyl’s hest. — There was a monstrous cave,
Rough, shingly, yawning wide-mouthed to the day,
Sheltered from access by the lake’s dark wave
And shadowing forests, gloomy as the grave.
O’er that dread space no flying thing could ply
Its wings unjeopardied (whence Grecians gave
The name “Aornos”), such a stench on high 289
Rose from the poisonous jaws, and filled the vaulted sky.
XXXIV . Here four black oxen, as the maid divine
Commands them, forth to sacrifice are led.
Over their brows she pours the sacred wine,
Then plucks the hairs that sprouted on the head
And burns them, as the first-fruits to the dead,
Calling aloud on Hecate, whose reign
In Heaven and Erebus is owned with dread.
These stab the victims in the throat, and drain 298
In bowls the steaming blood that gushes from the slain.
XXXV . A black-fleeced lamb Æneas slays, to please
The Furies’ mother and her sister dread,
A barren cow to Proserpine decrees.
Then to the Stygian monarch of the dead
The midnight altars he began to spread.
The bulls’ whole bodies on the flames he laid,
And fat oil on the broiling entrails shed,
When lo! as Morn her opening beams displayed, 307
Loud rumblings shook the ground, the wooded hill-tops swayed,
XXXVI . And hell-dogs baying through the gloom, proclaimed
The Goddess near. “Back, back, unhallowed crew,
And quit the grove!” the prophetess exclaimed,
“Thou, bare thy blade, and take the road in view.
Now, Trojan, for a stalwart heart and true;
Firmness and steadiness!” No more she cried,
But back into the open cave withdrew,
Fired with new frenzy. He, with fearless stride, 316
Treads on the Sibyl’s heels, rejoicing in his guide.
XXXVII . O silent Shades, and ye, the powers of Hell,
Chaos and Phlegethon, wide realms of night,
What ear hath heard, permit the tongue to tell,
High matter, veiled in darkness, to indite. —
On through the gloomy shade, in darkling plight,
Through Pluto’s solitary halls they stray,
As travellers, whom the Moon’s unkindly light
Baffles in woods, when, on a lonely way, 325
Jove shrouds the heavens, and night has turned the world to grey.
XXXVIII . Before the threshold, in the jaws of Hell,
Grief spreads her pillow, with remorseful Care.
There sad Old Age and pale Diseases dwell,
And misconceiving Famine, Want and Fear,
Terrific shapes, and Death and Toil appear.
Death’s kinsman, Sleep, and Joys of sinful kind,
And deadly War crouch opposite, and here
The Furies’ iron chamber, Discord blind 334
And Strife, her viperous locks with gory fillets twined.
XXXIX . High in the midst a giant elm doth fling
The shadows of its aged arms. There dwell
False Dreams and, nestling, to the foliage cling,
And monstrous shapes, too numerous to tell,
Keep covert, stabled in the porch of Hell.
The beast of Lerna, hissing in his ire,
Huge Centaurs, two-formed Scyllas, fierce and fell,
Briareus hundred-handed, Gorgons dire, 343
Harpies, the triple Shade, Chimæra fenced with fire.
XL . At once Æneas, stirred by sudden fear,
Clutches his sword, and points the naked blade
To affront them. Then, but that the Heaven-taught seer
Warned him that each was but an empty shade,
A shapeless soul, vain onset he had made,
And slashed the shadows. So he checked his hand,
And past the gateway in the gloom they strayed
Through Tartarus to Acheron’s dark strand, 352
Where thick the whirlpool boils, and voids the seething sand
XLI . Into the deep Cocytus. Charon there,
Grim ferryman, stands sentry. Mean his guise,
His chin a wilderness of hoary hair,
And like a flaming furnace stare his eyes.
Hung in a loop around his shoulders lies
A filthy gaberdine. He trims the sail,
And, pole in hand, across the water plies
His steel-grey shallop with the corpses pale, 361
Old, but a god’s old age has left him green and hale.
XLII . There shoreward rushed a multitude, the shades
Of noble heroes, numbered with the dead,
Boys, husbands, mothers and unwedded maids,
Sons on the pile before their parents spread,
As leaves in number, which the trees have shed
When Autumn’s frosts begin to chill the air,
Or birds, that from the wintry blasts have fled
And over seas to sunnier shores repair. 370
So thick the foremost stand, and, stretching hands of prayer,
XLIII . Plead for a passage. Now the boatman stern
Takes these, now those, then thrusts the rest away,
And vainly for the distant bank they yearn.
Then spake Æneas, for with strange dismay
He viewed the tumult, “Prithee, maiden, say
What means this thronging to the river-side?
What seek the souls? Why separate, do they
Turn back, while others sweep the leaden tide? 379
Who parts the shades, what doom the difference can decide?”
XLIV . Thereto in brief the aged priestess spake:
“Son of Anchises, and the god’s true heir,
Thou see’st Cocytus and the Stygian lake,
By whose dread majesty no god will dare
His solemn oath attested to forswear.
These are the needy, who a burial crave;
The ferryman is Charon; they who fare
Across
the flood, the buried; none that wave 388
Can traverse, ere his bones have rested in the grave.
XLV . “A hundred years they wander in the cold
Around these shores, till at the destined date
The wished-for pools, admitted, they behold.”
Sad stood Æneas, pitying their estate,
And, thoughtful, pondered their unequal fate.
Leucaspis there, and Lycia’s chief he viewed,
Orontes, joyless, tombless, whom of late,
Sea-tost from Troy, the blustering South pursued, 397
And ship and crew at once whelmed in the rolling flood.
XLVI . There paced in sorrow Palinurus’ ghost,
Who, lately from the Libyan shore their guide,
Watching the stars, headforemost from his post
Had fallen, and perished in the wildering tide.
Him, known, but dimly in the gloom descried,
The Dardan hails, “O Palinurus! who
Of all the gods hath torn thee from our side?
Speak, for Apollo, never known untrue, 406
This once hath answered false, and mocked with hopes undue.
XLVII . “Safe — so he sang — should’st thou escape the sea,
And scatheless to Ausonia’s coast attain.
Lo, this, his plighted promise!”— “Nay,” said he,
“Nor answered Phoebus’ oracle in vain,
Nor did a god o’erwhelm me in the main.
For while I ruled the rudder, charged to keep
Our course, and steered thee o’er the billowy plain,
Sudden, I slipped, and, falling prone and steep, 415
Snapped with sheer force the helm, and dragged it to the deep.
XLVIII . “Naught — let the rough seas witness — but for thee
I feared, lest rudderless, her pilot lost,
Your ship should fail in such a towering sea.
Three wintry nights, nipt with the chilling frost,
Upon the boundless waters I was tost,
And on the fourth dawn from a wave at last
Descried Italia. Slowly to her coast
I swam, and clutching at the rock, held fast, 424
Cumbered with dripping clothes, and deemed the worst o’erpast.
XLIX . “When lo! the savage folk, with sword and stave,
Set on me, weening to have found rich prey.
And now my bones lie weltering on the wave,
Now on strange shores winds blow them far away.
O! by the memory of thy sire, I pray,
By young Iulus, and his hope so fair,
By heaven’s sweet breath and light of gladsome day,
Relieve my misery, assuage my care, 433
Sail back to Velia’s port, great conqueror, and there
L . “Strew earth upon me, for the task is light;
Or, if thy goddess-mother deign to show
Some path — for never in the god’s despite
O’er these dread waters would’st thou dare to go,
Thine aid in pity on a wretch bestow;
Reach forth thy hand, and bear me to my rest,
Dead with the dead to ease me of my woe.”
He spake, and him the prophetess addressed: 442
“O Palinurus! whence so impious a request?
LI . “Think’st thou the Stygian waters to explore
Unburied, and the Furies’ flood to see,
And reach unbidden yon relentless shore?
Hope not by prayer to bend the Fates’ decree,
But take this comfort to thy misery;
The neighbouring towns, and people far and near,
Compelled by prodigies, thy ghost shall free,
And load thy tomb with offerings year by year, 451
And Palinurus’ name for aye the place shall bear.”
LII . These words relieved his heaviness; joy came
Upon his saddened spirit, pleased to hear
The well-known land remembered by his name.
Thus on they journey, and the stream draw near;
Whom when the Stygian boatman saw appear,
As shoreward through the silent grove they stray,
With stern rebuke he challenged them: “Beware;
Stand off; approach not, but your purpose say; 460
What brought you here, whoe’er ye come in armed array?
LIII . “Here Shades inhabit, — Sleep and drowsy Night, —
I may not steer the living to yon shore.
Small joy was mine, when, in the gods’ despite,
Alive Alcides o’er the stream I bore,
And Theseus and Pirithous, though more
Than men in prowess, nor of mortal clay.
One tried to seize Hell’s guardian, and before
Our monarch’s throne to chain the trembling prey; 469
These from her lord’s own bed to drag the queen to day.”
LIV . Briefly the seer Amphrysian spake again:
“No guile these arms intend, nor open fight;
Fear not; still may the monster in his den
With endless howl the bloodless ghosts affright,
And chaste Proserpine guard her uncle’s right.
Duteous and brave, his father’s shade to view,
Descends the famed Æneas; if the sight
Of love so great is powerless to subdue, 478
Mark this,” — and from her vest the fateful gift she drew.
LV . Down fell his wrath: the venerable bough,
So long unseen, with wonderment he eyed;
Then, shoreward turning with his cold-blue prow,
From bench and gangway thrusts the shades aside,
And takes the great Æneas and his guide.
The stitched bark, groaning with the load it bore,
Gapes at each seam, and drinks the plenteous tide,
Till Prince and Prophetess, borne safely o’er, 487
Stand on the dank, grey ooze and grim, unsightly shore.
LVI . Crouched in a fronting cave, huge Cerberus wakes
These kingdoms with his three-mouthed bark. His head
The priestess marked, all bristling now with snakes,
And flung a sop of honied drugs and bread.
He, famine-stung, with triple jaws dispread,
The morsel snaps, then prone along the cave
Lies stretched on earth, with loosened limbs, as dead.
The sentry lulled, Æneas, blithe and brave, 496
Seizes the pass, and leaves the irremeable wave.
LVII . Loud shrieks are heard, and wails of the distrest,
The souls of babes, that on the threshold cry,
Reft of sweet life, and ravished from the breast,
And early plunged in bitter death. Hard by
Are those, whom slanderous charges doomed to die.
Not without judgment these abodes they win.
Here, urn in hand, dread Minos sits to try
The charge anew; he summons from within 505
The silent court, and learns each several life and sin.
LVIII . And next are those, who, hateful of the day,
With guiltless hands their sorrowing lives have ta’en,
And miserably flung their souls away.
How gladly now, in upper air again,
Would they endure their poverty and pain!
It may not be. The Fates their doom decide
Past hope, and bind them to this sad domain.
Dark round them rolls the sea, unlovely tide; 514
Ninefold the waves of Styx those dreary realms divide.
LIX . Not far off stretch the Mourning Meads, where those
Whom cruel Love hath wasted with despair,
In myrtle groves and alleys hide their woes,
Nor Death itself relieves them of their care.
Lo, Phædra, Procris, Eriphyle there,
Baring the breast by filial hands imbrued,
Evadne, and Pasipha
ë, and fair
Laodamia in the crowd he viewed, 523
And Cæneus, maid, then man, and now a maid renewed.
LX . There through the wood Phoenician Dido strayed,
Fresh from her wound. Whom when Æneas knew,
Scarce seen, though near, amid the doubtful shade,
As one who views, or only seems to view,
The clouded moon rise when the month is new,
Fondly he spake, while tears were in his eye:
“Ah, hapless Dido! then the news was true
That thou had’st sought the bitter end. Was I, 532
Alas! the cause of death? O by the starry sky,
LXI . “By Gods above, by faith, if aught, below,
Unwillingly, O Queen, I left thy sight.
The Gods, at whose compulsion now I go
Through these dark Shades, this realm of deepest Night,
These wastes of squalor, ’twas their word of might
That drove me forth; nor could I dream such woe
Was thine at my departing. Stay thy flight.
Whom dost thou fly? O, whither wilt thou go? 541
One word — the last, sad word — one parting look bestow!”
LXII . So strove Æneas, weeping, to appease
Her wrathful spirit. She, with down-fixt eyes
Turns from him, scowling, heedless of his pleas,
And hard as flint or marble, nor replies.
Then, starting, to the shadowy grove she flies,
Where dead Sychæus, her old lord, renews
His love with hers, and sorrows with her sighs.
Touched by her fate, the Dardan hero views, 550
And far with tearful gaze the melting shade pursues.
LXIII . Thus onward to the furthest fields they strayed,
The haunts of heroes here doth Tydeus fare,
Parthenopæus, pale Adrastus’ shade.
And many a Dardan, wailed in upper air,
And fallen in war. Sighing, he sees them there,
Glaucus, Thersilochus and Medon slain,
Antenor’s sons, three brethren past compare,
And Polyphoetes, priest of Ceres’ fane, 559
And brave Idæus, still grasping the sword and rein.
LXIV . All throng around, nor rest content to claim
One look, but linger with delight, and fain