Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

  Could wish to wreak on thee this dire revenge?

  Who ventured, unopposed, so vast a wrong?

  The rumor reached me how, that deadly night,

  Wearied with slaying Greeks, thyself didst fall

  Prone on a mingled heap of friends and foes.

  Then my own hands did for thy honor build

  An empty tomb upon the Trojan shore,

  And thrice with echoing voice I called thy shade.

  Thy name and arms are there. But, 0 my friend,

  Thee could I nowhere find, but launched away,

  Nor o’er thy bones their native earth could fling.”

  To him the son of Priam thus replied:

  “Nay, friend, no hallowed rite was left undone,

  But every debt to death and pity due

  The shades of thy Deiphobus received.

  My fate it was, and Helen’s murderous wrong,

  Wrought me this woe; of her these tokens tell.

  For how that last night in false hope we passed,

  Thou knowest, — ah, too well we both recall!

  When up the steep of Troy the fateful horse

  Came climbing, pregnant with fierce men-at-arms,

  ‘t was she, accurst, who led the Phrygian dames

  In choric dance and false bacchantic song,

  And, waving from the midst a lofty brand,

  Signalled the Greeks from Ilium’s central tower

  In that same hour on my sad couch I lay,

  Exhausted by long care and sunk in sleep,

  That sweet, deep sleep, so close to tranquil death.

  But my illustrious bride from all the house

  Had stolen all arms; from ‘neath my pillowed head

  She stealthily bore off my trusty sword;

  Then loud on Menelaus did she call,

  And with her own false hand unbarred the door;

  Such gift to her fond lord she fain would send

  To blot the memory of his ancient wrong!

  Why tell the tale, how on my couch they broke,

  While their accomplice, vile Aeolides,

  Counselled to many a crime. 0 heavenly Powers!

  Reward these Greeks their deeds of wickedness,

  If with clean lips upon your wrath I call!

  But, friend, what fortunes have thy life befallen?

  Tell point by point. Did waves of wandering seas

  Drive thee this way, or some divine command?

  What chastisement of fortune thrusts thee on

  Toward this forlorn abode of night and cloud?”

  While thus they talked, the crimsoned car of Morn

  Had wheeled beyond the midmost point of heaven,

  On her ethereal road. The princely pair

  Had wasted thus the whole brief gift of hours;

  But Sibyl spoke the warning: “Night speeds by,

  And we, Aeneas, lose it in lamenting.

  Here comes the place where cleaves our way in twain.

  Thy road, the right, toward Pluto’s dwelling goes,

  And leads us to Elysium. But the left

  Speeds sinful souls to doom, and is their path

  To Tartarus th’ accurst.” Deïphobus

  Cried out: “0 priestess, be not wroth with us!

  Back to the ranks with yonder ghosts I go.

  0 glory of my race, pass on! Thy lot

  Be happier than mine!” He spoke, and fled.

  Aeneas straightway by the leftward cliff

  Beheld a spreading rampart, high begirt

  With triple wall, and circling round it ran

  A raging river of swift floods of flame,

  Infernal Phlegethon, which whirls along

  Loud-thundering rocks. A mighty gate is there

  Columned in adamant; no human power,

  Nor even the gods, against this gate prevail.

  Tall tower of steel it has; and seated there

  Tisiphone, in blood-flecked pall arrayed,

  Sleepless forever, guards the entering way.

  Hence groans are heard, fierce cracks of lash and scourge,

  Loud-clanking iron links and trailing chains.

  Aeneas motionless with horror stood

  o’erwhelmed at such uproar. “0 virgin, say

  What shapes of guilt are these? What penal woe

  Harries them thus? What wailing smites the air?”

  To whom the Sibyl, “Far-famed prince of Troy,

  The feet of innocence may never pass

  Into this house of sin. But Hecate,

  When o’er th’ Avernian groves she gave me power,

  Taught me what penalties the gods decree,

  And showed me all. There Cretan Rhadamanth

  His kingdom keeps, and from unpitying throne

  Chastises and lays bare the secret sins

  Of mortals who, exulting in vain guile,

  Elude till death, their expiation due.

  There, armed forever with her vengeful scourge,

  Tisiphone, with menace and affront,

  The guilty swarm pursues; in her left hand

  She lifts her angered serpents, while she calls

  A troop of sister-furies fierce as she.

  Then, grating loud on hinge of sickening sound,

  Hell’s portals open wide. 0, dost thou see

  What sentinel upon that threshold sits,

  What shapes of fear keep guard upon that gloom?

  Far, far within the dragon Hydra broods

  With half a hundred mouths, gaping and black;

  And Tartarus slopes downward to the dark

  Twice the whole space that in the realms of light

  Th’ Olympian heaven above our earth aspires. —

  Here Earth’s first offspring, the Titanic brood,

  Roll lightning-blasted in the gulf profound;

  The twin Aloïdae, colossal shades,

  Came on my view; their hands made stroke at Heaven

  And strove to thrust Jove from his seat on high.

  I saw Salmoneus his dread stripes endure,

  Who dared to counterfeit Olympian thunder

  And Jove’s own fire. In chariot of four steeds,

  Brandishing torches, he triumphant rode

  Through throngs of Greeks, o’er Elis’ sacred way,

  Demanding worship as a god. 0 fool!

  To mock the storm’s inimitable flash —

  With crash of hoofs and roll of brazen wheel!

  But mightiest Jove from rampart of thick cloud

  Hurled his own shaft, no flickering, mortal flame,

  And in vast whirl of tempest laid him low.

  Next unto these, on Tityos I looked,

  Child of old Earth, whose womb all creatures bears:

  Stretched o’er nine roods he lies; a vulture huge

  Tears with hooked beak at his immortal side,

  Or deep in entrails ever rife with pain

  Gropes for a feast, making his haunt and home

  In the great Titan bosom; nor will give

  To ever new-born flesh surcease of woe.

  Why name Ixion and Pirithous,

  The Lapithae, above whose impious brows

  A crag of flint hangs quaking to its fall,

  As if just toppling down, while couches proud,

  Propped upon golden pillars, bid them feast

  In royal glory: but beside them lies

  The eldest of the Furies, whose dread hands

  Thrust from the feast away, and wave aloft

  A flashing firebrand, with shrieks of woe.

  Here in a prison-house awaiting doom

  Are men who hated, long as life endured,

  Their brothers, or maltreated their gray sires,

  Or tricked a humble friend; the men who grasped

  At hoarded riches, with their kith and kin

  Not sharing ever — an unnumbered throng;

  Here slain adulterers be; and men who dared

  To fight in unjust cause, and
break all faith

  With their own lawful lords. Seek not to know

  What forms of woe they feel, what fateful shape

  Of retribution hath o’erwhelmed them there.

  Some roll huge boulders up; some hang on wheels,

  Lashed to the whirling spokes; in his sad seat

  Theseus is sitting, nevermore to rise;

  Unhappy Phlegyas uplifts his voice

  In warning through the darkness, calling loud,

  ‘0, ere too late, learn justice and fear God!’

  Yon traitor sold his country, and for gold

  Enchained her to a tyrant, trafficking

  In laws, for bribes enacted or made void;

  Another did incestuously take

  His daughter for a wife in lawless bonds.

  All ventured some unclean, prodigious crime;

  And what they dared, achieved. I could not tell,

  Not with a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,

  Or iron voice, their divers shapes of sin,

  Nor call by name the myriad pangs they bear.”

  So spake Apollo’s aged prophetess.

  “Now up and on!” she cried. “Thy task fulfil!

  We must make speed. Behold yon arching doors

  Yon walls in furnace of the Cyclops forged!

  ‘T is there we are commanded to lay down

  Th’ appointed offering.” So, side by side,

  Swift through the intervening dark they strode,

  And, drawing near the portal-arch, made pause.

  Aeneas, taking station at the door,

  Pure, lustral waters o’er his body threw,

  And hung for garland there the Golden Bough.

  Now, every rite fulfilled, and tribute due

  Paid to the sovereign power of Proserpine,

  At last within a land delectable

  Their journey lay, through pleasurable bowers

  Of groves where all is joy, — a blest abode!

  An ampler sky its roseate light bestows

  On that bright land, which sees the cloudless beam

  Of suns and planets to our earth unknown.

  On smooth green lawns, contending limb with limb,

  Immortal athletes play, and wrestle long

  ‘gainst mate or rival on the tawny sand;

  With sounding footsteps and ecstatic song,

  Some thread the dance divine: among them moves

  The bard of Thrace, in flowing vesture clad,

  Discoursing seven-noted melody,

  Who sweeps the numbered strings with changeful hand,

  Or smites with ivory point his golden lyre.

  Here Trojans be of eldest, noblest race,

  Great-hearted heroes, born in happier times,

  Ilus, Assaracus, and Dardanus,

  Illustrious builders of the Trojan town.

  Their arms and shadowy chariots he views,

  And lances fixed in earth, while through the fields

  Their steeds without a bridle graze at will.

  For if in life their darling passion ran

  To chariots, arms, or glossy-coated steeds,

  The self-same joy, though in their graves, they feel.

  Lo! on the left and right at feast reclined

  Are other blessed souls, whose chorus sings

  Victorious paeans on the fragrant air

  Of laurel groves; and hence to earth outpours

  Eridanus, through forests rolling free.

  Here dwell the brave who for their native land

  Fell wounded on the field; here holy priests

  Who kept them undefiled their mortal day;

  And poets, of whom the true-inspired song

  Deserved Apollo’s name; and all who found

  New arts, to make man’s life more blest or fair;

  Yea! here dwell all those dead whose deeds bequeath

  Deserved and grateful memory to their kind.

  And each bright brow a snow-white fillet wears.

  Unto this host the Sibyl turned, and hailed

  Musaeus, midmost of a numerous throng,

  Who towered o’er his peers a shoulder higher:

  “0 spirits blest! 0 venerable bard!

  Declare what dwelling or what region holds

  Anchises, for whose sake we twain essayed

  Yon passage over the wide streams of hell.”

  And briefly thus the hero made reply:

  “No fixed abode is ours. In shadowy groves

  We make our home, or meadows fresh and fair,

  With streams whose flowery banks our couches be.

  But you, if thitherward your wishes turn,

  Climb yonder hill, where I your path may show.”

  So saying, he strode forth and led them on,

  Till from that vantage they had prospect fair

  Of a wide, shining land; thence wending down,

  They left the height they trod;for far below

  Father Anchises in a pleasant vale

  Stood pondering, while his eyes and thought surveyed

  A host of prisoned spirits, who there abode

  Awaiting entrance to terrestrial air.

  And musing he reviewed the legions bright

  Of his own progeny and offspring proud —

  Their fates and fortunes, virtues and great deeds.

  Soon he discerned Aeneas drawing nigh

  o’er the green slope, and, lifting both his hands

  In eager welcome, spread them swiftly forth.

  Tears from his eyelids rained, and thus he spoke:

  “Art here at last? Hath thy well-proven love

  Of me thy sire achieved yon arduous way?

  Will Heaven, beloved son, once more allow

  That eye to eye we look? and shall I hear

  Thy kindred accent mingling with my own?

  I cherished long this hope. My prophet-soul

  Numbered the lapse of days, nor did my thought

  Deceive. 0, o’er what lands and seas wast driven

  To this embrace! What perils manifold

  Assailed thee, 0 my son, on every side!

  How long I trembled, lest that Libyan throne

  Should work thee woe!”

  Aeneas thus replied:

  “Thine image, sire, thy melancholy shade,

  Came oft upon my vision, and impelled

  My journey hitherward. Our fleet of ships

  Lies safe at anchor in the Tuscan seas.

  Come, clasp my hand! Come, father, I implore,

  And heart to heart this fond embrace receive!”

  So speaking, all his eyes suffused with tears;

  Thrice would his arms in vain that shape enfold.

  Thrice from the touch of hand the vision fled,

  Like wafted winds or likest hovering dreams.

  After these things Aeneas was aware

  Of solemn groves in one deep, distant vale,

  Where trees were whispering, and forever flowed

  The river Lethe, through its land of calm.

  Nations unnumbered roved and haunted there:

  As when, upon a windless summer morn,

  The bees afield among the rainbow flowers

  Alight and sip, or round the lilies pure

  Pour forth in busy swarm, while far diffused

  Their murmured songs from all the meadows rise.

  Aeneas in amaze the wonder views,

  And fearfully inquires of whence and why;

  What yonder rivers be; what people press,

  Line after line, on those dim shores along.

  Said Sire Anchises: “Yonder thronging souls

  To reincarnate shape predestined move.

  Here, at the river Lethe’s wave, they quaff

  Care-quelling floods, and long oblivion.

  Of these I shall discourse, and to thy soul

  Make visible the number and array

  Of my posterity; so shall thy heart

  In Italy, thy new-found home,
rejoice.”

  “0 father,” said Aeneas, “must I deem

  That from this region souls exalted rise

  To upper air, and shall once more return

  To cumbering flesh? 0, wherefore do they feel,

  Unhappy ones, such fatal lust to live?”

  “I speak, my son, nor make thee longer doubt,”

  Anchises said, and thus the truth set forth,

  In ordered words from point to point unfolding:

  “Know first that heaven and earth and ocean’s plain,

  The moon’s bright orb, and stars of Titan birth

  Are nourished by one Life; one primal Mind,

  Immingled with the vast and general frame,

  Fills every part and stirs the mighty whole.

  Thence man and beast, thence creatures of the air,

  And all the swarming monsters that be found

  Beneath the level of the marbled sea;

  A fiery virtue, a celestial power,

  Their native seeds retain; but bodies vile,

  With limbs of clay and members born to die,

  Encumber and o’ercloud; whence also spring

  Terrors and passions, suffering and joy;

  For from deep darkness and captivity

  All gaze but blindly on the radiant world.

  Nor when to life’s last beam they bid farewell

  May sufferers cease from pain, nor quite be freed

  From all their fleshly plagues; but by fixed law,

  The strange, inveterate taint works deeply in.

  For this, the chastisement of evils past

  Is suffered here, and full requital paid.

  Some hang on high, outstretched to viewless winds;

  For some their sin’s contagion must be purged

  In vast ablution of deep-rolling seas,

  Or burned away in fire. Each man receives

  His ghostly portion in the world of dark;

  But thence to realms Elysian we go free,

  Where for a few these seats of bliss abide,

  Till time’s long lapse a perfect orb fulfils,

  And takes all taint away, restoring so

  The pure, ethereal soul’s first virgin fire.

  At last, when the millennial aeon strikes,

  God calls them forth to yon Lethaean stream,

  In numerous host, that thence, oblivious all,

  They may behold once more the vaulted sky,

  And willingly to shapes of flesh return.”

  So spoke Anchises; then led forth his son,

  The Sibyl with him, to the assembled shades

  (A voiceful throng), and on a lofty mound

  His station took, whence plainly could be seen

  The long procession, and each face descried.

  “Hark now! for of the glories I will tell

  That wait our Dardan blood; of our sons’ sons

  Begot upon the old Italian breed,