Virgil’s Æneid | Project Gutenberg

So saying and weeping, he gives rope to his fleet, and in

due time is wafted smoothly to Cumæ’s shores of Eubœan

fame. They turn their prows seaward: then the anchor

with griping fang began to moor vessel after vessel, and

crooked keels fringe all the coast. With fiery zeal the 5

crews leap out on the Hesperian shore: some look for the

seed of fire where it lies deep down in the veins of flint:

some strip the woods, the wild beast’s shaggy covert, and

point with joy to the streams they find. But good Æneas

repairs to the heights on which Apollo sits exalted, and 10

the privacy of the dread Sibyl,[203] stretching far away into a

vast cavern—the Sibyl, into whose breast the prophet that

speaks at Delos breathes his own mighty mind and soul,

and opens the future to her eye. And now they are entering

the groves of the Trivian goddess and the golden 15

palace.

Dædalus, so runs the legend, flying from Minos’ sceptre,

dared to trust himself in air on swift wings of his own workmanship,

sailed to the cold north along an unwonted way,

and at last stood buoyant on the top of this Eubœan hill. 20

Grateful to the land that first received him, he dedicated

to thee, Phœbus, his feathery oarage, and raised a mighty

temple. On the doors was seen Androgeos’ death: there

too were the sons of Cecrops,[204] constrained—O cruel woe!

to pay in penalty the yearly tale of seven of their sons’ 25

lives: the urn is standing, and the lots drawn out. On the

other side, breasting the wave, the Gnossian land frowns

responsive. There is Pasiphaë’s tragic passion for the

bull, and the mingled birth, the Minotaur, half man, half

brute, a monument of monstrous love. There is the edifice,[205] 30

that marvel of toiling skill, and its inextricable maze—inextricable,

had not Dædalus in pity for the enthralling

passion of the royal princess, himself unravelled

the craft and mystery of those chambers, guiding the

lover’s dark steps with a clue of thread. You too, poor

Icarus,[206] had borne no mean part in that splendid portraiture, 5

would grief have given art its way. Twice the artist

essayed to represent the tragedy in gold: twice the father’s

hands dropped down palsied. So they would have gone on

scanning all in succession, had not Achates returned from

his errand, and with him the priestess of Phœbus and 10

Diana, Deïphobe, Glaucus’ daughter, who thus bespeaks

the king: “Not this the time for shows like these; your

present work is to sacrifice seven bullocks untouched by the

yoke, seven sheep duly chosen.”

This said to Æneas, whose followers swiftly perform the 15

prescribed rites, she summons the Teucrians into the lofty

temple, herself its priestess. One huge side of the Eubœan

cliff has been hollowed into a cave, approached by a hundred

broad avenues, a hundred mouths—from these a

hundred voices are poured, the responses of the Sibyl. 20

Just as they were on the threshold, “It is the moment

to pray for the oracle,” cries the maiden; “the god, the god

is here.” Thus as she spoke at the gate, her visage, her

hue changed suddenly—her hair started from its braid—her

bosom heaves and pants, her wild soul swells with 25

frenzy—she grows larger to the view, and her tones are

not of earth, as the breath of the divine presence comes

on her nearer and nearer. “What! a laggard at vows and

prayers? Æneas of Troy a laggard? for that is the only

spell to part asunder the great closed lips of the terror-smitten 30

shrine.” She said, and was mute. A cold

shudder runs through the Teucrians’ iron frames, and their

king pours out his very soul in prayer: “Phœbus, ever

Troy’s pitying friend in her cruel agonies—thou who

didst level Paris’ Dardan[207] bow and string his Dardan arm 35

against the vast frame of Æacides[208]—by thy guidance I

have penetrated all these unknown seas that swathe

mighty continents. The Massylian tribes, thrust away by

Nature out of view, and the quicksands that environ their

coasts—now at last our hands are on the flying skirts of

Italy. Oh, let it suffice Troy’s fortune to have followed

us thus far! Ye too may now justly spare our nation of

Pergamus, gods and goddesses all, whose eyes were 5

affronted by Troy and the great glories of Dardan land.

And thou, most holy prophetess, that canst read the future

as the present, grant me—I am asking for no crown that

Fate does not owe me—grant a settlement in Latium to the

Teucrians and their wandering gods, even the travel-tost 10

deities of Troy. Then to Phœbus and his Trivian sister

I will set up a temple of solid marble, and appoint feast-days

in Phœbus’ name. For thee too an august shrine

is in store in that our future realm. For there I will lodge

thy oracles and the secret words of destiny which thou 15

shalt speak to my nation, and consecrate chosen men to

thy gracious service. Only commit not thy strains to

leaves, lest they float all confusedly the sport of the

whirling winds. Utter them with thine own mouth, I

implore thee.” So his prayer ended. 20

But the prophetess, not yet Phœbus’ willing slave, is

storming with giant frenzy in her cavern, as though she

hoped to unseat from her bosom the mighty god. All

the more sharply he plies her mouth with his bit till its

fury flags, tames her savage soul, and moulds her to his 25

will by strong constraint. And now the hundred mighty

doors of the chamber have flown open of their own accord,

and are wafting through the air the voice of prophecy: “O

you whose vast perils by sea are over at length! but on

land there are heavier yet in store. The sons of Dardanus 30

shall come to the realm of Lavinium—from this care set

your mind at rest—but think not that they shall also

have joy of their coming. War, savage war, and the

Tiber foaming with surges of blood, is the vision I see. No

lack for you of Simois, or Xanthus, or a Dorian[209] camp. 35

Another Achilles is reserved for Latium, he too goddess-born—nor

will Juno ever be seen to quit her fastened hold

on Troy—while you, a needy suppliant—what nation,

what city in Italy will not have had you knocking at its

gates! Once more will an alien bride bring on the Teucrians

all this woe—once more a foreign bed. But you,

yield not to affliction, but go forth all the bolder to meet it,

so far as your destiny gives you leave. The first glimpse of 5

safety, little as you dream it, shall dawn on you from a

Grecian town.”

Such are the words with which Cumæ’s Sibyl from her

cell shrills forth awful mysteries and booms again from

the cavern, robing her truth in darkness—such the violence 10

with which Apollo shakes the bridle in her frenzied mouth

and plies her bosom with his goad. Soon as her frenzy

abated and the madness of her lips grew calm, Æneas the

hero began: “No feature, awful maiden, that suffering can

show rises on my sight new or unlooked-for—I have 15

foreseen all and scanned all in fancy already. I have

but one prayer to make: since here it is that Fame tells of

the gate of the infernal monarch, and the murky pool of

Acheron’s overflow, grant me to pass to the sight, to

the presence of my loved father—teach the way, and unlock 20

the sacred doors. Him I bore away through flames

and a driving tempest of darts on these my shoulders and

rescued him from the midst of the foe: he was the companion

of my journey, and encountered with me all the

waves of ocean, all the terrors of sea and sky in his own 25

feeble frame, beyond the strength and the day of old age.

Nay more—that I would kneel to thee and approach thy

dwelling—this was his charge, his oft-repeated prayer.

Oh, of thy grace, pity the son and the sire; for thou art

all-powerful, nor is it for nought that Hecate has set thee 30

over the groves of Avernus. If Orpheus had the power to

fetch back the shade of his wife, by the help of his Thracian

lyre and its sounding strings—if Pollux redeemed

his brother by dying in turn with him, and went and returned

on the path those many times—why talk of Theseus, 35

why of great Alcides[210]? my line, like theirs, is from

Jove most high.”

Such were his prayers, while his hands clasped the altar,

when thus the prophetess began: “Heir of the blood of

gods, son of Anchises of Troy, easy is the going down to

Avernus—all night and all day the gate of gloomy

Pluto stands unbarred; but to retrace your footsteps, and

win your way back to the upper air, that is the labour, that 5

the task. There have been a few, favourites of gracious

Jove, or exalted to heaven by the blaze of inborn worth,

themselves sprung from the gods, who have had the power.

The whole intervening space is possessed by woods,

and lapped round by the black windings of Cocytus’[211] 10

stream. And now, if your heart’s yearning is so great,

your passion so strong, twice to stem the Stygian pool,

twice to gaze on the night of Tartarus—if it be your joy

to give scope to a madman’s striving—hear what must

first be done. Deep in the shade of a tree lurks a branch, all 15

of gold, foliage alike and limber twig, dedicated to the

service of the Juno of the shades; it is shrouded by the

whole labyrinth of the forest, closed in by the boskage that

darkens the glens. Yet none may pierce the subterranean

mystery, till a man have gathered from the tree that leafy 20

sprout of gold, for this it is that fair Proserpine has ordained

to be brought her as her own proper tribute. Pluck

off one, another is there unfailingly, of gold as pure, a twig

burgeoning with as fine an ore. Let then your eye be

keen to explore it, your hand quick to pluck it when duly 25

found, for it will follow the touch with willingness and

ease, if you have a call from Fate; if not, no strength of

yours will overcome it, no force of steel tear it away.

But, besides this, you have the breathless corpse of a

friend lying unburied—alas! you know it not—tainting 30

your whole fleet with the air of death, while you are asking

Heaven’s will, and lingering on this our threshold. Him

first consign to his proper place, and hide him in the grave.

Lead black cattle to the altar: be this the expiation to

pave your way. Thus at last you shall look on the groves 35

of Styx and the realms untrodden of the living.” She

said, and closed her lips in silence.

Æneas, with saddened face and steadfast eye, moves on,

leaving the cave behind, and revolves in his mind the secrets

of the future. Achates, ever faithful, walks at his

side, and plants his foot with no less consciousness of

care. Many were the things exchanged in their ranging

talk—who could be the dead comrade that the priestess 5

spoke of, what the corpse that needed burial. And lo!

Misenus, soon as they came, there on the dry beach they

see him, snatched by death that should have spared him—Misenus,

son of Æolus, than whom none was mightier to

stir men’s hearts with his clarion, and kindle with music 10

the war-god’s flame. Hector the great had been his chief:

in Hector’s service he performed a warrior’s part, famous

alike with the trumpet and the spear. But after the conquering

arm of Achilles robbed his master of life, valiant

hero, he made himself the comrade of the Dardan Æneas, 15

nor found the standard he followed meaner than of old.

But in those days, as he was making his hollow shell ring

over the waters, infatuate mortal, challenging the gods to

compete, Triton, roused to jealousy, seized him, if the

story be true, and plunged him in a moment in the billow 20

that laps among the rocks. So they all stood round, uttering

loud shrieks; louder than the rest Æneas the good.

And then without delay they set about the Sibyl’s bidding,

weeping sore, and in mournful rivalry heap up the funeral

pyre with trees, and carry it into the sky. 25

Away they go to an ancient wood, the wild beast’s tall

covert—down go the pitch-trees; the holm-oak rings with

the axe’s blows, and so do the ashen beams; the wedge

cleaves through the fissile[212] oak; they roll down from the

heights huge mountain ashes. There is Æneas, in this, 30

as in other labours, the first to cheer on his comrades, and

wielding a weapon like theirs; and thus he ponders in the

sad silence of his own breast, looking at the immeasurable

wood, and thus gives utterance to his prayer: “Oh that

at this moment that golden branch on the tree would reveal 35

itself to our sight in all this depth of forest! for I see that

in all things the prophetess has told us of you, Misenus,

alas! too truly!” Scarce had he spoken, when, as by

chance, a pair of doves come flying along the sky, under the

hero’s very eyes, and settle on the turf at his feet. At once

the mighty chief recognizes his mother’s birds, and gladly

breathes a second prayer: “Oh guide us on our way, wherever

it be, and as ye fly direct our steps into the grove 5

where the precious branch casts its shade on the rich

ground! Thou too forsake not our perplexity, O goddess

mother!” Thus much he said, and checked his advancing

foot, watching to see what prognostics they bring, whither

they aim their onward course. They, as they graze, go 10

ever forward on the wing, as far as the eyes of the travellers

can keep them in view. Then when they come to Avernus’

noisome jaws, swiftly they soar aloft, and gliding through

the clear sky, settle twain on the same tree, their chosen

seat, whence there flashed through the branches the contrasted 15

gleam of gold. Even as in the woods, in the cold of

midwinter, the mistletoe is wont to put forth new leaves, a

vegetable growth, but of no parent tree, and with its

yellow produce to surround the tapering boles, so looked

the leafy gold among the holm-oak’s dark shade—so in the 20

light breeze tinkled the foil. Æneas snatches it at once,

plucks it off with eagerness overpowering its delay, and

carries it to the home of the prophetic Sibyl.

Meantime, with not less zeal, the Teucrians on the

shore were mourning for Misenus, and paying the last 25

honour to the thankless ashes. First they raised a pile,

unctuous with pine-wood, and high-heaped with planks of

oak: they wreath its sides with gloomy foliage, and set

up before it funeral cypresses, and adorn it with a covering

of refulgent armour. Some make ready heated water and 30

cauldrons bubbling over the fire, and wash and anoint the

cold corpse. Loud rings the wail: then, the dirge over,

they place the limbs on the couch that claims them,

and fling over them purple garments, the dead men’s

usual covering. Some put their shoulders to the heavy 35

bier in melancholy service, and after ancestral fashion,

with averted eyes, apply the torch from under. The rich

heap is ablaze—offerings of incense, sacrificial viands, oil

streaming from the bowl. After that the ashes were fallen

in and the blaze was lulled, they drenched with wine the

relics and the thirsty embers on the pyre, and Corynæus

gathered up the bones, and stored them in a brazen urn.

He, too, carried round pure water, and sprinkled thrice 5

the comrades of the dead, scattering the thin drops with

a branch of fruitful olive—so he expiated the company,

and spoke the last solemn words. But good Æneas raises

over the dead a monument of massive size, setting up for

the hero his own proper arms, the oar and the trumpet, 10

under a skyey mountain, which is now from him called

Misenus, and retains from age to age the everlasting name.

This done, he hastens to execute the Sibyl’s bidding.

A deep cave there was, yawning wide with giant throat,

rough and shingly, shadowed by the black pool and the 15

gloom of the forest—a cave, over whose mouth no winged

thing could fly unharmed, so poisonous the breath that

exhaling from its pitchy jaws steamed up to the sky—whence

Greece has given the spot the name Aornos.[213]

Here first the priestess places in sacrificial station four 20

black-skinned bullocks, and empties wine over their

brows, and plucking from between their horns the hairs of

the crown, throws them into the hallowed flame, as the

firstfruits of worship, with loud cries on Hecate, queen in

heaven and Erebus both. Others put the knife to the 25

throat, and catch in chargers the steaming blood. With

his own sword Æneas strikes down a lamb of sable fleece,

for the Furies’[214] mother and her mighty sister, and a

barren heifer for thee, dread Proserpine. Then to the

Stygian monarch he rears altars, blazing through the 30

darkness, and piles on the flame the bulls’ carcases

entire, pouring fat oil on the entrails all aglow. When,

hark! as the sun began to glimmer and dawn, the ground

is bellowing under their feet, and the wood-crowned heights

are nodding, and the baying of dogs sounds through the 35

gloom, for the goddess is at hand. “Hence, hence with

your unhallowed feet!” clamours the prophetess, “and rid

the whole grove of your presence. And you—strike into

the road, and pluck your sword from his scabbard—now

is the hour for courage, Æneas, now for a stout heart.”

No more she said, but flung herself wildly into the cavern’s

mouth; and he, with no faltering step, keeps pace with his

guide. 5

Ye gods, whose empire is the shades—spirits of silence,

Chaos and Phlegethon, stretching wide in the stillness of

night, suffer me to tell what has reached my ears; grant

me your aid to reveal things buried underground, deep and

dark. 10

On they went, darkling in solitary night, far into the

gloom, through Pluto’s void halls and ghostly realms—like

a journey in a wood under the niggard beams of a

doubtful moon, when Jupiter has shrouded heaven in

shadow, and black Night has stolen the colour from 15

Nature’s face. There before the threshold, in the very

mouth of Hell, Agony and the fiends of Remorse have made

their lair: there dwell wan Diseases, and woful Age, and

Terror, and Hunger that prompts to Sin, and loathly

Want—shapes of hideous view—and Death, and Suffering; 20

then comes Sleep, Death’s blood-brother, and the

soul’s guilty joys, and deadly War couched in the gate,

and the Furies’ iron chambers, and frantic Strife, with

bloody fillets wreathed in her snaky hair.

In the midst there stands, with boughs and aged arms 25

outspread, a massive elm, of broad shade, the chosen

seat, so Rumour tells, of bodiless dreams, which cling

close to its every leaf. There, too, are a hundred monstrous

shapes of wild beasts of divers kinds, Centaurs

stalled in the entrance and two-formed Scyllas, and 30

Briareus,[215] the hundred-handed, and the portent of Lerna,[216]

hissing fearfully, and Chimæra[217] in her panoply of flames,

Gorgons,[218] and Harpies, and the semblance of the three-bodied

spectre. At once Æneas grasps his sword, in the

haste of sudden alarm, and meets their advance with its 35

drawn blade; and did not his companion warn him, of

her own knowledge, that they are but thin unbodied

spirits flitting in a hollow mask of substance, he would

be rushing among them, and slashing shadows asunder

with the steel’s unavailing blows.

Hence runs the road that leads to the waters of Tartarean

Acheron, whose gulfy stream, churning mud in its

monstrous depths, is all aglow, and disgorges into Cocytus 5

the whole of its sand. These waters are guarded by a

grisly ferryman, frightful and foul—Charon; his chin an

uncleared forest of hoary hair; his eyes a mass of flame;

while his uncleanly garb hangs from his shoulders, gathered

into a knot. With his own hand he pushes on the craft 10

with a pole, and trims the sails, and moves the dead

heavily along in his boat of iron-gray, himself already in

years; but a god’s old age is green and vigorous. Towards

him the whole crowd was pouring to the bank: matrons

and warriors, and bodies of mighty heroes discharged of 15

life, boys and unwedded maidens, and youths laid on the

pile of death in their parents’ eyes—many as are the

leaves that drop and fall in the woods in autumn’s early

cold, or many as are the birds that flock massed together

from the deep to the land, when the wintry year drives 20

them over sea to tenant a sunnier clime. There they

stood, each praying that he might be the first to cross,

with hands yearningly outstretched towards the further

shore; but the grim boatman takes on board now these,

now those, while others he drives away, and bars them 25

from the river’s brink. Æneas cries as a man perplexed

and startled by the tumult: “Tell me, dread maiden,

what means this concourse to the stream? Of what are

these spirits in quest? What choice decides that these

shall retire from the shore, while those are rowing through 30

that leaden pool?” To him in brief returned the aged

priestess: “Son of Anchises, Heaven’s undoubted offspring,

before you are Cocytus’ depths and the marshy

flood of Styx, that power by whose name the gods fear

to swear in vain. The whole multitude you see here is 35

helpless and tombless; Charon is the ferryman; those

who ride the wave are the buried. He may not ferry

them from the dreadful banks across that noisy current

till their bones have found a place of rest. A hundred

years they wander hovering about these shores; then at

last they embark, and see again the flood of their longing.”

Anchises’ son stood and paused, musing deeply, and pitying

at his heart a lot so unkind. Yes, there he sees, sadly 5

wandering without death’s last tribute, Leucaspis and

Orontes, the captain of Lycia’s fleet: both had sailed

with him from Troy over the stormy water, and the south

wind whelmed them both, engulfing the vessel and its

crew. 10

Lo! he sees his pilot, Palinurus, moving along—Palinurus,

who but now, while voyaging from Libya, his eyes

bent on the stars, had fallen’ from the stern, flung out

into the wide waste of waters. So when he had at last

taken knowledge of his features, now saddened, in the 15

deep gloom, he thus accosts him first: “Who was it,

Palinurus, of all the gods, that tore you from us, and

whelmed you in the wide sea? Tell me who. Till now

I never found him false; but in this one response Apollo

has proved a cheat, foretelling that you would be unharmed 20

on the deep, and win your way to the Ausonian

frontier, and thus it is that he keeps his word!” “Nay,”

returned he, “my chief, Anchises’ son, Phœbus’ tripod has

told you no lie, nor did any god whelm me in the sea.

No, I chanced to fall, tearing away by main force the 25

rudder, to which I was clinging like sentry to his post,

as I guided your course, and dragging it with me in my

headlong whirl. Witness those cruel waters, I felt no

fear for my own life like that which seized me for your

ship, lest, disarmed and disabled, shaken loose from her 30

ruler’s hand, she should give way under the great sea that

was rising then. Three long nights of storm the south

wind swept me over the vast wilderness of convulsed

ocean. Hardly at last, at the fourth dawn, I looked out

aloft upon Italy from the crest of the wave. Stroke by 35

stroke I was swimming to shore; and now I was just

laying hold on safety, had not the savage natives come

on me, sword in hand, clogged as I was with my dripping

clothes, and clutching with talon fingers the steep mountain-top,

and deemed blindly they had found a prize.

Now the wave is my home, and the winds keep tossing

me on the beach. Oh, by heaven’s pleasant sunshine

and bright sky; by your father, I adjure you; by the 5

promise growing up with your Iulus, rescue me with that

unconquered arm from this cruel fate: be yourself, and

either spread earth upon me, for that you can surely do,

and put back to Velia’s haven; or, if any way there be,

any that your goddess mother can reveal—for well I 10

ween it is not without Heaven’s leave that you purpose

to stem these fearful tides and the reluctant pool of Styx—stretch

your hand to your poor friend, and take me

with you over the water, that at least I may find in death

a place of rest and peace.” So had he spoken, when thus 15

the priestess begins: “What demon, Palinurus, has set

on you so monstrous a desire? You, unburied, look on

the Stygian water, and the dread river of the furies?

You set foot on the bank unbidden? Cease to dream

that Heaven’s destiny can be swayed by prayer. Yet 20

hear and retain a word which may console your hard lot.

For know that the dwellers in that fatal border, goaded

far and wide through their cities by prodigies from heaven,

shall propitiate your dust: they shall erect a tomb, and

through that tomb send down your funeral dues, and the 25

spot shall bear forever the name of Palinurus.” These

words allayed his cares, and banished for a while grief

from that sad bosom: his heart leaps to the land that is

called by his name.

They accordingly continue their journey, and approach 30

the river. Soon as the boatman saw them, at the moment,

from the wave of Styx, moving through the stilly forest,

and turning their steps to the bank, he first bespeaks

them thus, and assails them unaccosted: “You, whoever

you are, that are making for these waters of ours in warlike 35

trim, speak your errand from the spot where you

are, and come no nearer. This is the place for the shadows,

for Sleep and slumberous Night. The bodies of the living

may not be ferried in my Stygian barque. Nay, it was

not to my joy that I gave Alcides a passage over the lake,

nor Theseus and Pirithous, born of gods though they

were, and of strength unsubdued. The one laid a jailer’s

hand on the warder of Tartarus, even at the foot of the 5

king’s own throne, and dragged him trembling along:

the others essayed to carry off the queen from Pluto’s

bridal chamber.” To which the Amphrysian priestess

replied in brief: “Here there are no stratagems like those;

be not discomposed; these weapons are not borne for 10

violence; the monstrous guardian of your gate is free to

terrify the bloodless spectres from his den with his unending

bark; Proserpine is free to keep her uncle’s home

as faithful wife should. This is Æneas of Troy, renowned

for piety and arms alike: it is to see his father that he 15

is going down to Erebus’ lowest depth of gloom. If thou

art moved in nought by the spectacle of piety so signal,

yet let this branch”—she uncovered the branch which

was concealed in her robe—‘claim recognition.’ At

once the angry swell subsides, and the breast is calm. 20

No further parley. Gazing in wonder at the sacred offering

of the fated bough, last seen so long ago, he turns to

them the sea-green boat, and draws near the bank.

Then he dislodges other ghostly passengers who were sitting

along the benches, and clears the gangways, while 25

he takes into the vessel’s hollow the mighty Æneas. The

sutures of the boat cracked beneath the weight, as through

its rents it drew in large draughts of marsh-water. At

length priestess and prince are safe across the flood, set

down amid featureless mud and blue-green rushes. 30