Cerberus,
[219] the monster, makes the whole realm ring
with his three barking throats, as he lies in giant length
fronting them in his den’s mouth. The priestess, seeing
the snakes already bristling on his neck, throws him a
morsel steeped in the slumber of honey and medicated 35
meal. He, in the frenzy of hunger, opens his triple jaws
to catch it as it comes, and stretches his enormous back at
length on the ground, till his huge bulk covers the den.
Æneas masters the approach while the warder sleeps, and
swiftly passes from the bank of the river without return.
At once there breaks on his ear a voice of mighty wailing,
infant spirits sobbing and crying on the threshold,
babes that, portionless of the sweets of life, were snatched 5
from the breast by the black death-day’s tyranny, and
whelmed in untimely night. Next to them are those
who were done to death by false accusation. Yet let
none think that the lot of award or the judge’s sentence
are wanting here. There sits Minos,
[220] the president, urn
10in hand: he summons an assembly of the speechless, and
takes cognizance of earthly lives and earthly sins.
Next to them comes the dwelling-place of the sons of
sorrow, who, though guiltless, procured their own death by
violence, and, for mere hatred of the sunshine, flung their 15
lives away. Oh, how gladly would they now, in the air
above, bear to the end the load of poverty and the full
extremity of toil! But Fate bars the way: the unlovely
pool swathes them round in her doleful waters, and Styx,
with her ninefold windings, keeps them fast. 20
Not far hence the traveller’s eye sees stretching on every
side the Mourning Fields: such the name they bear.
Here dwell those whom cruel Love’s consuming tooth
has eaten to the heart, in the privacy of hidden walks
and an enshrouding myrtle wood: their tender sorrows 25
quit them not even in death. In this region he sees
Phædra and Procris, and sad Eriphyle, pointing to the
wounds of her ruthless son, and Evadne, and Pasiphaë:
along with them moves Laodamia, and Cæneus, once a
man, now a woman, brought back by the turn of fate to 30
her former self. Among these was Phœnicia’s daughter,
Dido, fresh from her death-wound, wandering in that
mighty wood: soon as the Trojan hero stood at her side,
and knew her, looming dimly through the dusk—as a
man sees or thinks he sees through the clouds, when the 35
month is young, the rising moon—his tears broke forth,
and he addressed her tenderly and lovingly. “Unhappy
Dido! and was it then a true messenger that reached
me with the tale that you were dead: that the sword
had done its worst? Was it, alas, to a grave that I
brought you? By the stars of heaven I swear, by the
powers above, by all that is most sacred here underground,
against my will, fair queen, I quitted your coast. 5
No; it was the command of the gods; the same stern
force which compels me now to pass through this realm
of shade, this wilderness of squalor and abysmal night;
it was that which drove me by its uttered will: nor could
I have thought that my departure would bring on you 10
such violence of grief. Stay your step, and withdraw not
from the look I bend on you. Whom would you shun?
the last word which fate suffers me to address you is this.”
With words like these, Æneas kept soothing the soul that
blazed forth through those scowling eyes, and moving 15
himself to tears. She stood with averted head and eyes
on the ground, her features as little moved by the speech
he essayed as if she held the station of a stubborn flint,
or a crag of Marpessa.
[221] At length she flung herself
away, and, unforgiving still, fled into the shadow of the 20
wood, where her former lord, Sychæus, answers her sorrows
with his, and gives her full measure for her love.
Yet, none the less, Æneas, thrilled through and through
by her cruel fate, follows far on her track with tears, and
sends his pity along with her. 25
Thence he turns, to encounter the appointed way.
And now they were already in the furthest region, the
separate place tenanted by the great heroes of war.
Here there meets him Tydeus, here Parthenopæus, illustrious
in arms, and the spectre of pale Adrastus. Here 30
are chiefs of Dardan line, wailed long and loudly in the
upper air as they lay low in fight: as he saw them all in
long array, he groaned heavily. Glaucus and Medon, and
Thersilochus, the three sons of Antenor, and Polyphœtes,
Ceres’ priest, and Idæus, with his hand still on the car, 35
still on the armour. They surround him, right and left,
the ghostly crowd; one look is not sufficient: they would
fain linger on and on, and step side by side with him,
and learn the cause of his coming. But the nobles of the
Danaans, and the flower of Agamemnon’s bands, when
they saw the hero and his armour gleaming through the
shade, were smitten with strange alarm: some turn their
backs in flight, as erst they fled to the ships: others raise 5
a feeble war-shout. The cry they essay mocks their
straining throats.
Here it is that he sees Priam’s son, mangled all over,
Deiphobus, his face cruelly marred—face and both
hands—his temples despoiled of his ears, and his nose 10
lopped by unseemly carnage. Scarce, in truth, he recognized
him, trembling as he was, and trying to hide the
terrible vengeance wreaked on him: unaccosted, he addresses
him in the tones he knew of old: “Deiphobus,
mighty warrior, scion of Teucer’s illustrious stock, who 15
has had the ambition to avenge himself so cruelly? who
has had his will of you thus? For me, Rumour told me
on that fatal night that you had sunk down, tired with
the work of slaughtering the Greeks, on a heap of undistinguished
carnage. Then with my own hand, I set up 20
an empty tomb on the Rhœtean shore, and thrice with a
loud voice invoked your spirit. There are your name and
your arms to keep the spot in memory: your self, dear
friend, I could not see, so as to give you repose in the
fatherland I was leaving.” To whom the son of Priam: 25
“Dear friend, you have failed in nought: all that Deiphobus
could claim has been paid by you to him and to his
shade. No; it was my own destiny and the deadly
wickedness of the Spartan woman that plunged me thus
deep in ill: these tokens are of her leaving. How we 30
spent that fatal night in treacherous joyance you know
well: too good cause is there to bear it in mind. When
the fateful horse at one bound surmounted the height of
Pergamus, and brought a mailclad infantry in its laden
womb, she feigned a solemn dance, and led round the 35
city Phrygian dames in Bacchic ecstasy; herself in their
midst raising a mighty torch aloft, and calling to the
Danaans from the top of the citadel. That hour I, spent
with care and overborne with sleep, was in the hold of
our ill-starred bridal chamber, weighed down as I lay, by
slumber sweet and sound, the very image of the deep
calm of death. Meantime, my peerless helpmate removes
from the house arms of every sort: yes, my trusty sword 5
she had withdrawn from my pillow, and now she calls
Menelaus to come in, and throws wide the door, hoping,
I doubt not, that the greatness of the boon would soften
her lover’s heart, and that the memory of her crime of
old could thus be wiped from men’s minds. Why make 10
the story long? They burst into the chamber, along with
them that child of Æolus,
[222] then as ever the counsellor
of evil. Recompense, ye gods, the Greeks in kind, if
these lips, that ask for retribution, are pure and loyal.
But you; what chance has brought you here in your lifetime, 15
let me ask in turn? Are you come under the spell
of ocean-wandering, or by the command of heaven? or
what tyranny of fortune constrains you to visit these
sad, sunless dwellings, the abode of confusion?”
In this interchange of talk, the Dawn-goddess in her 20
flushing car, careering through the sky, had well passed
the summit of the arch; and perchance they had spent
all their allotted time in converse like this, had not the
Sibyl warned her companion with brief address: “Night
is hastening, Æneas; and we, as we weep, are making 25
hours pass. This is the spot where the road parts in
twain. The right, which goes under the palace-wall of
mighty Dis—there lies our way to Elysium; the left
puts in motion the tortures of the wicked, and sends
them to Tartarus, the home of crime.” Deiphobus replied: 30
“Frown not, dread priestess; I depart, to make
the ghostly number complete, and plunge again in darkness.
Go on your way, our nation’s glory, go: may your
experience of fate be more blest.” He said, and, while
yet speaking, turned away. 35
Suddenly, Æneas looks back, and, under a rock on the
left, sees a broad stronghold, girt by a triple wall; a fierce
stream surrounds it with surges of fire, Tartarean Phlegethon,
and tosses craggy fragments in thunder. Full in
front is a vast gate, its pillars of solid adamant. No force
of man, not even the embattled powers of heaven, could
break it down. Rising in air is a turret of iron, and Tisiphone,
with a gory robe girt round her, sits at the vestibule 5
with sleepless vigilance night and day. Hence
sounds of wailing meet the ear, and the crack of remorseless
whips; the clank of steel follows, and the trailing of
the chain. Æneas stood still, riveted by the terror of
the noise. “What shapes is guilt wearing now? tell me, 10
dread maiden. What are the torments that lie on it so
hard? what mean these loud upsoaring shrieks?” The
priestess returned: “Noble leader of the Teucrians, no
innocent foot may tread that guilty threshold; but the
day when Hecate set me over the groves of Avernus, she 15
taught me from her own lips the punishments of Heaven,
and led me through from end to end. Here rules Gnosian
Rhadamanthus, a reign of iron—avenger, at once, and
judge of cowering guilt, he compels a confession of what
crimes soever men in upper air, blindly rejoicing in the 20
cheat, have kept secret till the hour of death, to be expiated
then. In a moment, Tisiphone the torturer, with
uplifted scourge, lashes from side to side the spurned
and guilty soul; and brandishing in her left hand knots
of serpents, summons her unpitying sisterhood. Then at 25
last, grating on their dread-sounding hinge, the awful
gates are opened. See you what manner of sentry is
seated at the entrance? what a presence is guarding the
threshold? Know that a Hydra fiercer yet with fifty
monstrous throats, each a yawning pit, holds her seat 30
within. Then there is the abyss of Tartarus in sheer
descent, extending under the shades, twice as far as
man’s skyward gaze from earth to the heaven of Olympus.
Here are earth’s ancient progeny, the Titan brood,
hurled down by the thunderbolt to wallow in the depths 35
of the gulf. Here too saw I the twin sons of Aloeus,
frames of giant bulk, who essayed by force of hand to
pluck down the mighty heavens, and dislodge Jove from
his realm in the sky. I saw too Salmoneus, smitten with
cruel vengeance, while mimicking the fires of Jove and
the rumblings of Olympus. Borne in a four-horse car, a
flaring torch in hand, he was making his triumphal progress 5
through the tribes of Greece, and the midst of Elis’
city, and bidding men accord him a god’s homage. Madman!
to counterfeit the storm-cloud and the unrivalled
thunderbolt with the rattle of brass and the beat of
horses’ horny hoofs. But the almighty sire from the
depth of his cloudy dwelling hurled his weapon—no 10
futile firebrand his, no pinewood’s smoky glare—and
dashed him headlong down with that tremendous blast.
Tityos, too, the foster-child of Earth’s common breast, it
was mine to see: his body lies extended over nine whole
acres, and there is a monstrous vulture with hooked beak 15
shearing away his imperishable liver, and reaping a harvest
of suffering from his vitals, as it digs deep for its meal,
and burrows in the cavern of his breast, nor gives the
new-growing filaments rest or respite. What need to tell
of the Lapithæ, of Ixion
[223] and Pirithous—men who live
20under a black crag, ever falling, and just in act to drop?
The lofty couch is spread for the banquet, and the pillar
of gold gleams underneath: the feast is before them,
served in kingly luxury; but the eldest of the Furies is
couched at their side: she will not let them stretch a hand 25
to the board: she starts up with torch uplifted and
thunder in her tones. Here are they who lived in hatred
with their brethren while life yet was; who smote a
parent or wove for a client the web of fraud; who gained
a treasure and brooded over it alone, and never shared it 30
with their kin—a mighty number these—adulterers,
who were slain for their crime; citizens who followed
the standard of treason; slaves who shrunk not from
breaking their troth to their lords: all in prison awaiting
their doom. Ask not what doom is theirs, what 35
phase, what fate has whelmed them so deep. Others roll
the huge stone up the hill, or hang dispread from the
spokes of the wheel: there sits, as he will sit for evermore,
unhappy Theseus: and Phlegyas, from the depth
of his agony, keeps warning all, and proclaiming with a
voice of terror through the shades: ‘Learn hereby to be
righteous, and not to scorn the gods.’ This sold his country
for gold, and saddled her with a tyrant; for gain he 5
made and unmade laws: this assailed his daughter’s bed,
and essayed a forbidden union: all dared some monstrous
crime, and enjoyed their daring. No; had I even a hundred
tongues, and a hundred mouths, and lungs of iron,
not then could I embrace all the types of crime, or rehearse 10
the whole muster-roll of vengeance.”
So spoke Apollo’s aged priestess; and then resuming:
“But come,” she cries, “speed on your way, and fulfil
the duty you have essayed: quicken we our pace. I see
the walls which the Cyclopian forge raised in air, and the 15
arched gates confronting us, where sacred rule bids us
set down our offering.” As she spoke, they step side by
side through the dusky ways, despatch the interval of
distance, and draw near the gate. Æneas masters the
approach, sprinkles his body with pure spring water, and 20
fixes the branch on the portal’s front.
And now these things done at length, and the offering
to the goddess accomplished, they have reached the
regions of bliss, green pleasaunces of happy groves, and the
abodes of the blest. Here ether clothes the plains with 25
an ampler plenitude and a dazzling lustre; and the eye
beholds a sun and stars of its own. There are some,
plying their limbs on the grassy wrestling-ground, conflicting
in sport, and grappling each other on the yellow
sand: some are beating their feet in the dance, and chanting 30
songs. There, too, is the Thracian priest
[224] in his flowing
robe, singing the seven notes in unison with the
dancer’s measure, and striking them now with his fingers,
now with the quill of ivory. Here are the old race of
Teucer, a goodly family, heroes of lofty soul, born in 35
earth’s better days, Ilus and Assaracus, and Dardanus,
founder of Troy. From afar he gazes wonderingly on
their warrior arms and their ghostly chariots. Their spears
stand rooted in the ground, and their unyoked steeds
graze dispersedly over the meadow. All the delight they
took when alive in chariots and armour, all their pride in
grooming and feeding their horses, goes with them underground,
and animates them there. See, too, his eye rests 5
on others regaling on either hand upon the grass, and
singing in chorus a joyous pæan, all in a fragrant grove
of bay, the source whence, welling forth into the upper
world, Eridanus
[225] flows in broad current between his
wooded banks. Here is a noble company who braved 10
wounds in fight for fatherland; all the priests who kept
their purity while life was; all the poets whose hearts
were clean, and their songs worthy Phœbus’ ear; all who
by cunning inventions gave a grace to life, and whose
worthy deeds made their fellows think of them with love: 15
each has his brow cinctured with a snow-white fillet.
Looking on the multitude as it streamed around, the
Sibyl bespoke them thus—Musæus before all; for he
stands the centre of that vast crowd, which looks up to
him, as with rising shoulders he towers above them: 20
“Tell us, happy spirits, and you, best of bards, which is
Anchises’ haunt? which his home? for it is to see him
that we have come hither, and won our way over the
mighty river of Erebus.” Instant the hero replied in brief:
“Here there are no fixed abodes: our dwellings are in 25
shadowy groves: our settlements on the velvet slope of
banks and meadows fresh with running streams. But
come, if you will, climb this hill with me, and I will set
your feet at once on a road that will lead you.” So saying,
he moves on before, and from the top of the ridge 30
points to broad fields of light, while they descend from
the summit.
But father Anchises, down in the depth of the green
dell, was surveying with fond observance the spirits now
confined there, but hereafter to pass into the light of day, 35
and scanning, as chance would have it, the whole multitude
of his people, even his loved posterity, their destinies,
their warrior deeds, their ways and their works.
Soon as he saw Æneas advancing through the grass to
meet him, he stretched out both his hands with eager
movement, tears gushed over his cheeks, and words escaped
his lips: “And are you come at last? has love fulfilled
a father’s hopes and surmounted the perils of the 5
way? is it mine to look on your face, my son, and listen
and reply as we talked of old? Yes; I was even thinking
so in my own mind. I was reckoning that it would
be, counting over the days. Nor has my longing played
me false. Oh, the lands and the mighty seas from which 10
you have come to my presence! the dangers, my son,
that have tossed and smitten you! Oh, how I have feared
lest you should come to harm in that realm of Libya!”
The son replied: “Your shade it was, father, your melancholy
shade, that, coming to me oft and oft, constrained 15
me to knock at these doors: here, in the Tyrrhene deep
my ships are riding at anchor. Let us grasp hand in
hand: let us, my father! Oh, withdraw not from my
embrace!” As he spoke, the streaming tears rolled down
his face. Thrice, as he stood, he essayed to fling his 20
arms round that dear neck: thrice the phantom escaped
the hands that caught at it in vain, impalpable as the
wind, fleeting as the wings of sleep.
Meanwhile Æneas sees in the retired vale a secluded
grove with brakes and rustling woods, and the river of 25
Lethe,
[226] which floats along by those abodes of peace.
Round it were flying races and tribes untold: even as
in the meadows when bees in calm summer-tide settle on
flower after flower, and stream over the milk-white lilies,
the humming fills the plain. Startled at the sudden 30
sight, Æneas wonderingly inquires what it means, what
are those waters in the distance, or who the men that are
thronging the banks in crowds so vast. To him his father
Anchises: “They are spirits to whom Destiny has promised
new bodies, there at the side of Lethe’s water, drinking 35
the wave of carelessness, and the long draught of oblivion.
In truth I have long wished to tell you of them and show
them before you, to recount the long line of my kindred,
that you may rejoice with me now that Italy is found.”
“Oh, my father! and must we think that there are souls
that fly hence aloft into the upper air, and thus return
to the sluggish fellowship of the body? can their longing
for light be so mad, as this?” “I will tell you, my son, 5
nor hold you longer in doubt.” So replies Anchises, and
unfolds the story in order.
“Know, first, that heaven and earth, and the watery
plains, and the Moon’s lucid ball, and Titan’s starry fires
are kept alive by a spirit within: a mind pervading each 10
limb stirs the whole frame and mingles with the mighty
mass. Hence spring the races of men and beasts, and
living things with wings, and the strange forms that
Ocean carries beneath his marble surface. These particles
have a fiery glow, a heavenly nature, struggling against 15
the clogs of corrupting flesh, the dulness of limbs of clay
and bodies ready to die. Hence come their fears and
lusts, their joys and griefs: nor can they discern the
heavenly light, prisoned as they are in night and blind
dungeon walls. Nay, when life’s last ray has faded from 20
them, not even, then, poor wretches, are they wholly freed
from ill, freed from every plague of the flesh: those many
taints must needs be ingrained strangely in the being, so
long as they have grown with it. So they are schooled
with punishment, and pay in suffering for ancient ill: 25
some are hung up and dispread to the piercing winds:
others have the stain of wickedness washed out under the
whelming gulf, or burnt out with fire: each is chastised
in his own spirit: then we are sped through the breadth
of Elysium, while some few remain to inhabit these happy 30
plains, till the lapse of ages, when time’s cycle is complete,
has cleansed the ingrained blot and left a pure
residue of heavenly intelligence, the flame of essential
ether. All of these, when they have rounded the circle
of a thousand years, Heaven summons to the stream of 35
Lethe, a mighty concourse, to the end that with memory
effaced they may return to the vault of the sky, and learn
to wish for a new union with the body.”
Anchises ended: he draws his son and the Sibyl with
him into the midst of the assemblage, the heart of that
buzzing crowd, and mounts an eminence, whence he
might see face to face the whole of the long procession,
and learn each comer’s looks. 5
“Now, then, for the glories of the Dardan race from
this time onward, the posterity reserved for you in the
Italian line, noble spirits, the ordained heirs of our proud
name: of these I will tell you, and inform you of your
destiny. 10
“He whom you see there, the youth leaning on the
pointless spear, his lot is to fill the next place in light:
he will be first to rise to upper day, born from the admixture
of Italian blood, Silvius, that great Alban name,
your latest offspring, whom in your old age at set of life 15
your spouse Lavinia will bear you in the woods, himself
a king and the father of kings to be: from him it is that
our race shall rule over Alba the Long. Next comes
mighty Procas, the pride of the people of Troy, and
Capys, and Numitor, and a second bearer of your name, 20
Silvius Æneas, himself renowned alike for piety and for
valour, if ever he should come to the throne of Alba.
What glorious youths! look what strength they carry in
their port, while their brows are shaded by the civic oak!
These shall uprear for you, high on the mountains, Nomentum, 25
and Gabii, and Fidenæ’s town, and the towers
of Collatia, Pometii and Inuus’ camp, and Bola, and
Cora; names which shall one day be named: now they
are mere nameless lands. Romulus, too, the child of
Mars, shall come along with his grandsire. Romulus, 30
whom a mother, bearing Ilium’s name, shall produce
from the blood of Assaracus. See you the two plumes
standing on his crest, how his sire marks him even now
for the upper world by his own token of honour? Yes,
my son, it is by his auspices that our glorious Rome shall 35
extend her empire to earth’s end, her ambition to the
skies, and embrace seven hills with the wall of a single
city, blest parent of a warrior brood: even as the mighty
Berecyntian
[227] mother rides tower-crowned through the
towns of Phrygia, proud of the gods that have sprung
from her, a hundred grand-children at her knee, all dwellers
in heaven, all lords of the lofty sky. Hither now turn
your two rays of vision: look at this family, at Romans 5
of your own. Here is Cæsar: here the whole progeny of
Iulus, as it will pass one day under heaven’s mighty cope.
This, this is he, the man promised to you so often, Augustus
Cæsar, true child of a god, who shall establish again
for Latium a golden age in that very region where Saturn 10
once reigned, while he stretches his sway alike beyond
Garamantian and Indian. See, the land is lying outside
the stars, outside the sun’s yearly path, where heaven-carrier
Atlas turns round on his shoulder the pole, studded
with burning constellations. In view of his approach, a 15
shiver runs already by oracular warning through Caspian
realms and Mæotian land, and there is stir and confusion
at the mouths of seven-fold Nile. Nay, even Alcides
traversed no such length of earth, though he stalked the
brazen-footed deer, or tamed Erymanthus’ savage wilds, 20
and appalled Lerna with his arrows: no, nor he who
guides his triumphal car with reins of ivy-leaf, Bacchus,
driving his tigers down from Nysa’s lofty top. And do
we still hesitate to let prowess give scope to power, or
does fear prevent our setting foot on Ausonian soil? 25
But who is he in the distance, conspicuous with a wreath
of olive, with sacred vessels in his hand? Ah! I know
the hoary hair and beard of the king of Rome, who shall
give the infant city the support of law, sent from his
homely Cures and a land of poverty into a mighty empire. 30
Next shall come one doomed to break his country’s peace,
and stir up with the war-cry of his name, Tullus, warriors
rusting in ease and squadrons that have forgotten their
triumphs. Ancus follows, a greater boaster, even now
too ready to catch the breath of a popular cheer. Would 35
you look too at the kings of Tarquin’s house, at the
haughty spirit of Brutus the avenger, and the fasces
[228] retrieved?
He shall be the first to take the consul’s power
and the axes of doom: the father will bring his rebel sons
to death, all for fair freedom’s sake. Unhappy man! let
after ages speak of that deed as they will, strong over all
will be patriot passion and unmeasured thirst of praise.
with his unpitying axe, and Camillus
[232] the restorer of the
standards. But those whom you see there, dressed alike
in gleaming armour—spirits at harmony now and so
long as they are confined in darkness—alas! how vast
a war will they wage, each with each, if they shall attain 10
the light of day, what arraying of hosts, what carnage
will there be! Father-in-law and son-in-law,
[233] the one
coming down from Alpine ramparts and the stronghold
of Monœcus: the other drawn up against him with the
forces of the east. Do not, do not, my children, make 15
wars like these familiar to your spirits: turn not your
country’s valour against your country’s vitals: and you,
restrain yourself the first: you, whose lineage is from
heaven, drop the steel from your grasp, heir of Anchises’
blood. See here, a conqueror who shall drive to the lofty 20
Capitol the car of triumph over Corinth, glorious from
Achæan slaughter: here one who shall lay Argos in dust,
and Agamemnon’s own Mycenæ, ay, and the heir of Æacus,
with Achilles’ martial blood in his veins: a Roman’s
vengeance for his Trojan grandsires, and for Pallas’ insulted 25
fame. What tongue would leave you unpraised,
great Cato, or Cossus, you? or the race of the Gracchi,
or those twin thunderbolts of war, the Scipios, Libya’s
ruin, or Fabricius, princely in his poverty, or you, Serranus,
sowing your own ploughed fields? When, ye Fabii,
[234] 30will panting praise overtake you? You are in truth our
greatest, the single saviour of our state by delay. Others,
I doubt not, will mould the breathing brass to more flesh-like
softness, and spread over marble the look of life.
Others will plead better at the bar, will trace with the 35
rod the courses of heaven, and foretell the risings of the
stars. Yours, Roman, be the lesson to govern the nations
as their lord: this is your destined culture, to impose the
settled rule of peace, to spare the humbled, and to crush
the proud.”