by Virgil
Those strove to carry off the Queen from great Dis’ very bed.”
The Amphrysian prophet answering, few words unto him said:
“But here are no such guiles as this, so let thy wrath go by:
Our weapons bear no war; for us still shall the door-ward lie
And bark in den, and fright the ghosts, the bloodless, evermore:
Nor shall chaste Proserpine for us pass through her kinsman’s door:
Trojan Æneas, great in arms and great in godly grace,
Goes down through dark of Erebus to see his father’s face.
But if such guise of piety may move thine heart no whit,
At least this bough “ — (bared from her weed therewith she showeth it) —
“Know ye!”
Then in his swelling heart adown the anger sank,
Nor spake he more; but wondering at that gift a God might thank,
The fateful stem, now seen once more so long a time worn by,
He turned about his coal-blue keel and drew the bank anigh
The souls upon the long thwarts set therewith he thrusteth out,
And clears the gangway, and withal takes in his hollow boat
The huge Æneas, ‘neath whose weight the seamed boat groans and creaks,
And plenteous water of the mere lets in at many leaks.
At last the Hero and the Maid safe o’er the watery way
He leaveth on the ugly mire and sedge of sorry grey.
The three-mouthed bark of Cerberus here filleth all the place,
As huge he lieth in a den that hath them full in face:
But when the adders she beheld upon his crest upborne,
A sleepy morsel honey-steeped, and blent of wizards’ corn,
She cast him: then his threefold throat, all wild with hunger’s lack,
He opened wide, and caught at it, and sank his monstrous back,
And there he lay upon the earth enormous through the cave.
Æneas caught upon the pass the door-ward’s slumber gave,
And fled the bank of that sad stream no man may pass again.
And many sounds they heard therewith, a wailing vast and vain;
For weeping souls of speechless babes round the first threshold lay,
Whom, without share of life’s delight, snatched from the breast away,
The black day hurried off, and all in bitter ending hid.
And next were those condemned to die for deed they never did:
For neither doom nor judge nor house may any lack in death:
The seeker Minos shakes the urn, and ever summoneth
The hushed-ones’ court, and learns men’s lives and what against them stands.
The next place is of woeful ones, who sackless, with their hands
Compassed their death, and weary-sick of light without avail
Cast life away; but now how fain to bear the poor man’s bale
Beneath the heaven, the uttermost of weary toil to bear!
But law forbiddeth: the sad wave of that unlovely mere
Is changeless bond; and ninefold Styx compelleth to abide.
Nor far from thence behold the meads far spread on every side,
The Mourning Meads — in tale have they such very name and sign.
There those whom hard love ate away with cruel wasting pine
Are hidden in the lonely paths with myrtle-groves about,
Nor in the very death itself may wear their trouble out:
Phædra he saw, Procris he saw, and Eriphyle sad.
Baring that cruel offspring’s wound her loving body had:
Evadne and Pasiphaë, Laodamia there
He saw, and Cænis, once a youth and then a maiden fair,
And shifted by the deed of fate to his old shape again.
Midst whom Phoenician Dido now, fresh from the iron bane,
Went wandering in the mighty wood: and when the Trojan man
First dimly knew her standing by amid the glimmer wan
— E’en as in earliest of the month one sees the moon arise,
Or seems to see her at the least in cloudy drift of skies —
He spake, and let the tears fall down by all love’s sweetness stirred:
“Unhappy Dido, was it true, that bitter following word,
That thou wert dead, by sword hadst sought the utter end of all?
Was it thy very death I wrought? Ah! on the stars I call,
I call the Gods and whatso faith the nether earth may hold,
To witness that against my will I left thy field and fold!
But that same bidding of the Gods, whereby e’en now I wend
Through dark, through deserts rusty-rough, through night without an end,
Drave me with doom. Nor held my heart in anywise belief
That my departure from thy land might work thee such a grief.
O stay thy feet! nor tear thyself from my beholding thus.
Whom fleest thou? this word is all that Fate shall give to us.”
Such were the words Æneas spake to soothe her as she stood
With stern eyes flaming, while his heart swelled with the woeful flood:
But, turned away, her sick eyes still she fixed upon the earth;
Nor was her face moved any more by all his sad words’ birth
Than if Marpesian crag or flint had held her image so:
At last she flung herself away, and fled, his utter foe,
Unto the shady wood, where he, her husband of old days,
Gives grief for grief, and loving heart beside her loving lays.
Nor less Æneas, smitten sore by her unworthy woes,
With tears and pity followeth her as far away she goes.
But thence the meted way they wear, and reach the outer field,
Where dwell apart renownèd men, the mighty under shield:
There Tydeus meets him; there he sees the great fight-glorious man,
Parthenopæus; there withal Adrastus’ image wan;
And there the Dardans battle-slain, for whom the wailing went
To very heaven: their long array he saw with sad lament:
Glaucus and Medon there he saw, Thersilochus, the three
Antenor-sons, and Polyphoete, by Ceres’ mystery
Made holy, and Idæus still in car with armèd hand:
There on the right side and the left the straying spirits stand.
Nor is one sight of him enough; it joyeth them to stay
And pace beside, asking for why he wendeth such a way.
But when the lords of Danaan folk, and Agamemnon’s hosts,
Behold the man and gleaming arms amid the dusky ghosts,
They fall a-quaking full of fear: some turn their back to fly
As erst they ran unto the ships; some raise a quavering cry,
But never from their gaping vain will swell the shout begun.
And now Deïphobus he sees, the glorious Priam’s son;
But all his body mangled sore, his face all evilly hacked,
His face and hands; yea, and his head, laid waste, the ear-lobes lacked,
And nostrils cropped unto the root by wicked wound and grim.
Scarcely he knew the trembling man, who strove to hide from him
Those torments dire, but thus at last he spake in voice well known:
“O great in arms, Deïphobus, from Teucer’s blood come down,
Who had the heart to work on thee such bitter wicked bale?
Who had the might to deal thee this? Indeed I heard the tale,
That, tired with slaying of the Greeks on that last night of all,
Upon a heap of mingled death thou didst to slumber fall:
And I myself an empty tomb on that Rhoetean coast
Set up to thee, and thrice aloud cried blessing on thy ghost:
Thy name and arms still keep the place; but thee I found not, friend,
To set thee in thy fathers’ earth ere I too needs must wend.”
To him the child of P
riam spake: “Friend, nought thou left’st undone;
All things thou gav’st Deïphobus, and this dead shadowy one:
My Fates and that Laconian Bane, the Woman wicked-fair,
Have drowned me in this sea of ills: she set these tokens here.
How midst a lying happiness we wore the last night by
‘Thou know’st: yea; overwell belike thou hold’st that memory
Now when the baneful Horse of Fate high Pergamus leapt o’er,
With womb come nigh unto the birth of weaponed men of war,
She, feigning hallowed dance, led on a holy-shouting band
Of Phrygian maids, and midst of them, the bale-fire in her hand,
Called on the Danaan men to come, high on the castle’s steep:
But me, outworn with many cares and weighed adown with sleep,
The hapless bride-bed held meanwhile, and on me did there press
Deep rest and sweet, most like indeed to death’s own quietness.
Therewith my glorious wife all arms from out the house withdrew,
And stole away from o’er my head the sword whose faith I knew,
Called Menelaüs to the house and opened him the door,
Thinking, forsooth, great gift to give to him who loved so sore,
To quench therewith the tale gone by of how she did amiss.
Why linger? They break in on me, and he their fellow is,
Ulysses, preacher of all guilt. — O Gods, will ye not pay
The Greeks for all? belike with mouth not godless do I pray.
— But tell me, thou, what tidings new have brought thee here alive?
Is it blind strayings o’er the sea that hither doth thee drive,
Or bidding of the Gods? Wherein hath Fortune worn thee so,
That thou, midst sunless houses sad, confused lands, must go?”
But as they gave and took in talk, Aurora at the last
In rosy wain the topmost crown of upper heaven had passed,
And all the fated time perchance in suchwise had they spent;
But warning of few words enow the Sibyl toward him sent:
“Night falls, Æneas, weeping here we wear the hours in vain;
And hard upon us is the place where cleaves the road atwain;
On by the walls of mighty Dis the right-hand highway goes,
Our way to that Elysium: the left drags on to woes
Ill-doers’ souls, and bringeth them to godless Tartarus.”
Then spake Deïphobus: “Great seer, be not o’erwroth with us:
I will depart and fill the tale, and unto dusk turn back:
Go forth, our glory, go and gain the better fate I lack!”
And even with that latest word his feet he tore away.
But suddenly Æneas turned, and lo, a city lay
Wide-spread ‘neath crags upon the left, girt with a wall threefold;
And round about in hurrying flood a flaming river rolled,
E’en Phlegethon of Tartarus, with rattling, stony roar:
In face with adamantine posts was wrought the mighty door,
Such as no force of men nor might of heaven-abiders high
May cleave with steel; an iron tower thence riseth to the sky:
And there is set Tisiphone, with girded blood-stained gown,
Who, sleepless, holdeth night and day the doorway of the town.
Great wail and cruel sound of stripes that city sendeth out,
And iron clanking therewithal of fetters dragged about.
Then fearfully Æneas stayed, and drank the tumult in:
“O tell me, Maiden, what is there? What images of sin?
What torments bear they? What the wail yon city casts abroad?”
Then so began the seer to speak: “O glorious Teucrian lord,
On wicked threshold of the place no righteous foot may stand:
But when great Hecate made me Queen of that Avernus land,
She taught me of God’s punishments and led me down the path.
— There Gnosian Rhadamanthus now most heavy lordship hath,
And heareth lies, and punisheth, and maketh men confess
Their deeds of earth, whereof made glad by foolish wickedness,
They thrust the late repentance off till death drew nigh to grip:
Those guilty drives Tisiphone, armed with avenging whip,
And mocks their writhings, casting forth her other dreadful hand
Filled with the snakes, and crying on her cruel sister’s band.
And then at last on awful hinge loud-clanging opens wide
The Door of Doom: — and lo, behold what door-ward doth abide
Within the porch, what thing it is the city gate doth hold!
More dreadful yet the Water-worm, with black mouth fiftyfold,
Hath dwelling in the inner parts. Then Tartarus aright
Gapes sheer adown; and twice so far it thrusteth under night
As up unto the roof of heaven Olympus lifteth high:
And there the ancient race of Earth, the Titan children, lie,
Cast down by thunder, wallowing in bottomless abode.
There of the twin Aloidæ the monstrous bodies’ load
I saw; who fell on mighty heaven to cleave it with their hands,
That they might pluck the Father Jove from out his glorious lands;
And Salmoneus I saw withal, paying the cruel pain
That fire of Jove and heaven’s own voice on earth he needs must feign:
He, drawn by fourfold rush of steeds, and shaking torches’ glare,
Amidmost of the Grecian folks, amidst of Elis fair,
Went glorying, and the name of God and utter worship sought.
O fool! the glory of the storm, and lightning like to nought,
He feigned with rattling copper things and beat of horny hoof.
Him the Almighty Father smote from cloudy rack aloof,
But never brand nor pitchy flame of smoky pine-tree cast,
As headlong there he drave him down amid the whirling blast.
And Tityon, too, the child of Earth, great Mother of all things,
There may ye see: nine acres’ space his mighty frame he flings;
His deathless liver still is cropped by that huge vulture’s beak
That evermore his daily meat doth mid his inwards seek,
Fruitful of woe, and hath his home beneath his mighty breast:
Whose heart-strings eaten, and new-born shall never know of rest.
Of Lapithæ, Pirithoüs, Ixion, what a tale!
O’er whom the black crag hangs, that slips, and slips, and ne’er shall fail
To seem to fall. The golden feet of feast beds glitter bright,
And there in manner of the kings is glorious banquet dight.
But lo, the Furies’ eldest-born is crouched beside it there,
And banneth one and all of them hand on the board to bear,
And riseth up with tossing torch, and crieth, thundering loud.
Here they that hated brethren sore while yet their life abode,
The father-smiters, they that drew the client-catching net,
The brooders over treasure found in earth, who never yet
Would share one penny with their friends — and crowded thick these are —
Those slain within another’s bed; the followers up of war
Unrighteous; they no whit ashamed their masters’ hand to fail,
Here prisoned bide the penalty: seek not to know their tale
Of punishment; what fate it is o’erwhelmeth such a folk.
Some roll huge stones; some hang adown, fast bound to tire or spoke
Of mighty wheels. There sitteth now, and shall sit evermore
Theseus undone: wretch Phlegyas is crying o’er and o’er
His warning, and in mighty voice through dim night testifies:
‘Be warned, and learn of righteousness, nor holy Gods despise.’
This sold his fatherland for gold; this tyrant
on it laid;
This for a price made laws for men, for price the laws unmade:
This broke into his daughter’s bed and wedding-tide accursed:
All dared to think of monstrous deed, and did the deed they durst.
Nor, had I now an hundred mouths, an hundred tongues at need,
An iron voice, might I tell o’er all guise of evil deed,
Or run adown the names of woe those evil deeds are worth.”
So when Apollo’s ancient seer such words had given forth:
“Now to the road! fulfil the gift that we so far have brought!
Haste on!” she saith, “I see the walls in Cyclops’ furnace wrought;
And now the opening of the gates is lying full in face,
Where we are bidden lay adown the gift that brings us grace.”
She spake, and through the dusk of ways on side by side they wend,
And wear the space betwixt, and reach the doorway in the end.
Æneas at the entering in bedews his body o’er
With water fresh, and sets the bough in threshold of the door.
So, all being done, the Goddess’ gift well paid in manner meet,
They come into a joyous land, and green-sward fair and sweet
Amid the happiness of groves, the blessèd dwelling-place.
Therein a more abundant heaven clothes all the meadows’ face
With purple light, and their own sun and their own stars they have.
Here some in games upon the grass their bodies breathing gave;
Or on the yellow face of sand they strive and play the play;
Some beat the earth with dancing foot, and some, the song they say:
And there withal the Thracian man in flowing raiment sings
Unto the measure of the dance on seven-folded strings;
And now he smites with finger-touch, and now with ivory reed.
And here is Teucer’s race of old, most lovely sons indeed;
High-hearted heroes born on earth in better days of joy:
Ilus was there, Assaracus, and he who builded Troy,
E’en Dardanus. Far off are seen their empty wains of war
And war-weed: stand the spears in earth, unyoked the horses are,
And graze the meadows all about; for even as they loved
Chariot and weapons, yet alive, and e’en as they were moved
To feed sleek horses, under earth doth e’en such joy abide.
Others he saw to right and left about the meadows wide
Feasting; or joining merry mouths to sing the battle won
Amidst the scented laurel grove, whence earthward rolleth on
The full flood that Eridanus athwart the wood doth pour.
