The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Sibyl foretells Æneas the adventures he should meet with in Italy. She attends him to hell; describing to him the various scenes of that place, and conducting him to his father Anchises, who instructs him in those sublime mysteries of the soul of the world, and the transmigration; and shows him that glorious race of heroes, which was to descend from him and his posterity.

He said, and wept; then spread his sails before
The winds, and reached at length the Cuman shore:
Their anchors dropped, his crew the vessels moor.
They turn their heads to sea, their sterns to land,
And greet with greedy joy the Italian strand.
Some strike from clashing flints their fiery seed;
Some gather sticks, the kindled flames to feed,
Or search for hollow trees, and fell the woods,
Or trace through valleys the discovered floods.
Thus while their several charges they fulfil,
The pious prince ascends the sacred hill
Where Phœbus is adored; and seeks the shade,
Which hides from sight his venerable maid.

400

Deep in a cave the Sibyl makes abode;
Thence full of Fate returns, and of the god.
Through Trivia's grove they walk; and now behold,
And enter now, the temple roofed with gold.
When Dædalus, to shun the Cretan shore,
His heavy limbs on jointed pinions bore
(The first who sailed in air), 'tis sung by Fame,
To the Cumæan coast at length he came,
And, here alighting, built this costly frame.
Inscribed to Phœbus, here he hung on high
The steerage of his wings, that cut the sky:
Then, o'er the lofty gate, his art embossed
Androgeos' death, and (offerings to his ghost)
Seven youths from Athens yearly sent, to meet
The fate appointed by revengeful Crete.
And next to these the dreadful urn was placed,
In which the destined names by lots were cast:
The mournful parents stand around in tears,
And rising Crete against their shore appears.
There too, in living sculpture, might be seen
The mad affection of the Cretan queen;
Then how she cheats her bellowing lover's eye;
The rushing leap, the doubtful progeny—
The lower part a beast, a man above—
The monument of their polluted love.
Nor far from thence he graved the wondrous maze,
A thousand doors, a thousand winding ways:
Here dwells the monster, hid from human view,
Not to be found, but by the faithful clew;
Till the kind artist, moved with pious grief,
Lent to the loving maid this last relief,
And all those erring paths described so well,
That Theseus conquered, and the monster fell.
Here hapless Icarus had found his part,
Had not the father's grief restrained his art.

401

He twice essayed to cast his son in gold;
Twice from his hands he dropped the forming mould.

All this with wondering eyes Æneas viewed:
Each varying object his delight renewed.
Eager to read the rest . . . Achates came,
And by his side the mad divining dame,
The priestess of the god, Deïphobe her name.
“Time suffers not,” she said, “to feed your eyes
With empty pleasures; haste the sacrifice.
Seven bullocks, yet unyoked, for Phœbus choose,
And for Diana seven unspotted ewes.”
This said, the servants urge the sacred rites,
While to the temple she the prince invites.
A spacious cave, within its farmost part,
Was hewed and fashioned by laborious art,
Through the hill's hollow sides: before the place,
A hundred doors a hundred entries grace:
As many voices issue, and the sound
Of Sibyl's words as many times rebound.
Now to the mouth they come. Aloud she cries,—
“This is the time! inquire your destinies!
He comes! behold the god!” Thus while she said,
(And shivering at the sacred entry stayed),
Her colour changed; her face was not the same,
And hollow groans from her deep spirit came.
Her hair stood up; convulsive rage possessed
Her trembling limbs, and heaved her labouring breast.
Greater than humankind she seemed to look,
And, with an accent more than mortal, spoke.
Her staring eyes with sparkling fury roll,
When all the god came rushing on her soul.

402

Swiftly she turned, and, foaming as she spoke,—
“Why this delay?” she cried—“the powers invoke.
Thy prayers alone can open this abode;
Else vain are my demands, and dumb the god.”
She said no more. The trembling Trojans hear,
O'erspread with a damp sweat, and holy fear.
The prince himself, with awful dread possessed,
His vows to great Apollo thus addressed:—
“Indulgent god! propitious power to Troy,
Swift to relieve, unwilling to destroy!
Directed by whose hand, the Dardan dart
Pierced the proud Grecian's only mortal part!
Thus far, by Fate's decrees and thy commands,
Through ambient seas and through devouring sands,
Our exiled crew has sought the Ausonian ground;
And now, at length, the flying coast is found.
Thus far the fate of Troy, from place to place,
With fury has pursued her wandering race.
Here cease, ye powers, and let your vengeance end:
Troy is no more, and can no more offend.
And thou, O sacred maid, inspired to see
The event of things in dark futurity!
Give me, what heaven has promised to my fate,
To conquer and command the Latian state;
To fix my wandering gods, and find a place
For the long exiles of the Trojan race.
Then shall my grateful hands a temple rear
To the twin gods, with vows and solemn prayer;
And annual rites, and festivals, and games,
Shall be performed to their auspicious names.
Nor shalt thou want thy honours in my land;
For there thy faithful oracles shall stand,
Preserved in shrines; and every sacred lay,
Which, by thy mouth, Apollo shall convey—

403

All shall be treasured by a chosen train
Of holy priests, and ever shall remain.
But, oh! commit not thy prophetic mind
To flitting leaves, the sport of every wind,
Lest they disperse in air our empty fate;
Write not, but, what the powers ordain, relate.”

Struggling in vain, impatient of her load,
And labouring underneath the ponderous god,
The more she strove to shake him from her breast,
With more and far superior force he pressed;
Commands his entrance, and, without control,
Usurps her organs, and inspires her soul.
Now, with a furious blast, the hundred doors
Ope of themselves; a rushing whirlwind roars
Within the cave, and Sibyl's voice restores:—
“Escaped the dangers of the watery reign,
Yet more and greater ills by land remain.
The coast, so long desired (nor doubt the event),
Thy troops shall reach, but, having reached, repent.
Wars, horrid wars, I view—a field of blood,
And Tiber rolling with a purple flood.
Simoïs nor Xanthus shall be wanting there:
A new Achilles shall in arms appear,
And he, too, goddess-born. Fierce Juno's hate,
Added to hostile force, shall urge thy fate.
To what strange nations shalt not thou resort,
Driven to solicit aid at every court!
The cause the same which Ilium once oppressed—
A foreign mistress, and a foreign guest.
But thou, secure of soul, unbent with woes,
The more thy fortune frowns, the more oppose.
The dawnings of thy safety shall be shown,
From, whence thou least shall hope, a Grecian town.”

404

Thus, from the dark recess, the Sibyl spoke,
And the resisting air the thunder broke;
The cave rebellowed, and the temple shook.
The ambiguous god, who ruled her labouring breast,
In these mysterious words his mind expressed;
Some truths revealed, in terms involved the rest.
At length her fury fell, her foaming ceased,
And, ebbing in her soul, the god decreased.
Then thus the chief:—“No terror to my view,
No frightful face of danger, can be new.
Inured to suffer, and resolved to dare,
The Fates, without my power, shall be without my care.
This let me crave—since near your grove the road
To hell lies open, and the dark abode,
Which Acheron surrounds, the innavigable flood—
Conduct me through the regions void of light,
And lead me longing to my father's sight.
For him, a thousand dangers I have sought,
And, rushing where the thickest Grecians fought,
Safe on my back the sacred burden brought.
He, for my sake, the raging ocean tried,
And wrath of heaven (my still auspicious guide),
And bore, beyond the strength decrepit age supplied.
Oft, since he breathed his last, in dead of night,
His reverend image stood before my sight;
Enjoined to seek, below, his holy shade—
Conducted there by your unerring aid.
But you, if pious minds by prayers are won,
Oblige the father, and protect the son.
Yours is the power; nor Proserpine in vain
Has made you priestess of her nightly reign.
If Orpheus, armed with his enchanting lyre,
The ruthless king with pity could inspire,

405

And from the shades below redeem his wife;
If Pollux, offering his alternate life,
Could free his brother, and can daily go
By turns aloft, by turns descend below;—
Why name I Theseus, or his greater friend,
Who trod the downward path, and upward could ascend?
Not less than theirs, from Jove my lineage came;
My mother greater, my descent the same.”
So prayed the Trojan prince, and, while he prayed,
His hand upon the holy altar laid.
Then thus replied the prophetess divine:—
“O goddess-born, of great Anchises' line!
The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But, to return, and view the cheerful skies—
In this the task and mighty labour lies.
To few great Jupiter imparts this grace,
And those of shining worth, and heavenly race.
Betwixt those regions and our upper light,
Deep forests and impenetrable night
Possess the middle space: the infernal bounds
Cocytus, with his sable waves, surrounds.
But, if so dire a love your soul invades,
As twice below to view the trembling shades;
If you so hard a toil will undertake,
As twice to pass the innavigable lake;
Receive my counsel. In the neighbouring grove
There stands a tree; the queen of Stygian Jove
Claims it her own; thick woods and gloomy night
Conceal the happy plant from human sight.
One bough it bears; but (wondrous to behold!)
The ductile rind and leaves of radiant gold:
This from the vulgar branches must be torn,
And to fair Proserpine the present borne,

406

Ere leave be given to tempt the nether skies.
The first thus rent, a second will arise,
And the same metal the same room supplies.
Look round the wood, with lifted eyes, to see
The lurking gold upon the fatal tree:
Then rend it off, as holy rites command;
The willing metal will obey thy hand,
Following with ease, if, favoured by thy fate,
Thou art foredoomed to view the Stygian state:
If not, no labour can the tree constrain;
And strength of stubborn arms, and steel, are vain.
Besides, you know not, while you here attend,
The unworthy fate of your unhappy friend:
Breathless he lies; and his unburied ghost,
Deprived of funeral rites, pollutes your host.
Pay first his pious dues; and, for the dead,
Two sable sheep around his hearse be led;
Then, living turfs upon his body lay:
This done, securely take the destined way,
To find the regions destitute of day.”
She said, and held her peace.—Æneas went
Sad from the cave, and full of discontent,
Unknowing whom the sacred Sibyl meant.
Achates, the companion of his breast,
Goes grieving by his side, with equal cares oppressed.
Walking, they talked, and fruitlessly divined,
What friend the priestess by those words designed.
But soon they found an object to deplore:
Misenus lay extended on the shore—
Son of the god of winds:—none so renowned,
The warrior trumpet in the field to sound,
With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms,
And rouse to dare their fate in honourable arms
He served great Hector, and was ever near,
Not with his trumpet only, but his spear.

407

But, by Pelides' arms when Hector fell,
He chose Æneas; and he chose as well.
Swoln with applause, and aiming still at more,
He now provokes the sea-gods from the shore.
With envy, Triton heard the martial sound,
And the bold champion, for his challenge, drowned;
Then cast his mangled carcase on the strand:—
The gazing crowd around the body stand.
All weep; but most Æneas mourns his fate,
And hastens to perform the funeral state.
In altar-wise, a stately pile they rear;
The basis broad below, and top advanced in air.
An ancient wood, fit for the work designed
(The shady covert of the savage kind),
The Trojans found: the sounding axe is plied;
Firs, pines, and pitch trees, and the towering pride
Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke,
And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak.
Huge trunks of trees, felled from the steepy crown
Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.
Armed like the rest the Trojan prince appears,
And, by his pious labour, urges theirs.
Thus while he wrought, revolving in his mind
The ways to compass what his wish designed,
He cast his eyes upon the gloomy grove,
And then with vows implored the queen of love:—
“O! may thy power, propitious still to me,
Conduct my steps to find the fatal tree,
In this deep forest; since the Sibyl's breath
Foretold, alas! too true, Misenus' death.”
Scarce had he said, when, full before his sight,
Two doves, descending from their airy flight,
Secure upon the grassy plain alight.

408

He knew his mother's birds; and thus he prayed:—
“Be you my guides, with your auspicious aid,
And lead my footsteps, till the branch be found,
Whose glittering shadow gilds the sacred ground.
And thou, great parent! with celestial care,
In this distress, be present to my prayer.”
Thus having said, he stopped, with watchful sight,
Observing still the motions of their flight,
What course they took, what happy signs they shew.
They fed, and, fluttering, by degrees withdrew
Still further from the place, but still in view:
Hopping and flying thus, they led him on
To the slow lake, whose baleful stench to shun,
They winged their flight aloft, then, stooping low,
Perched on the double tree, that bears the golden bough.
Through the green leaves the glittering shadows glow;
As, on the sacred oak, the wintry misletoe,
Where the proud mother views her precious brood,
And happier branches, which she never sowed.
Such was the glittering; such the ruddy rind,
And dancing leaves, that wantoned in the wind.
He seized the shining bough with griping hold,
And rent away, with ease, the lingering gold,
Then to the Sibyl's palace bore the prize.
Meantime, the Trojan troops, with weeping eyes,
To dead Misenus pay his obsequies.
First, from the ground, a lofty pile they rear,
Of pitch-trees, oaks, and pines, and unctuous fir:
The fabric's front with cypress twigs they strew,
And stick the sides with boughs of baleful yew.
The topmost part his glittering arms adorn;
Warm waters, then, in brazen caldrons borne.

409

Are poured to wash his body, joint by joint,
And fragrant oils the stiffened limbs anoint.
With groans and cries Misenus they deplore:
Then on a bier, with purple covered o'er,
The breathless body, thus bewailed, they lay,
And fire the pile, their faces turned away
(Such reverent rites their fathers used to pay).
Pure oil and incense on the fire they throw,
And fat of victims, which his friends bestow.
These gifts the greedy flames to dust devour;
Then, on the living coals, red wine they pour;
And, last, the relics by themselves dispose,
Which in a brazen urn the priests inclose.
Old Corynæus compassed thrice the crew,
And dipped an olive-branch in holy dew;
Which thrice he sprinkled round, and thrice aloud
Invoked the dead, and then dismissed the crowd.

But good Æneas ordered on the shore
A stately tomb, whose top a trumpet bore,
A soldier's falchion, and a seaman's oar.
Thus was his friend interred; and deathless fame
Still to the lofty cape consigns his name.

These rites performed, the prince, without delay,
Hastes, to the nether world, his destined way.
Deep was the cave; and, downward as it went
From the wide mouth, a rocky rough descent;
And here the access a gloomy grove defends,
And here the innavigable lake extends,
O'er whose unhappy waters, void of light,
No bird presumes to steer his airy flight;
Such deadly stenches from the depth arise,
And steaming sulphur, that infects the skies.
From hence the Grecian bards their legends make,
And give the name Avernus to the lake.

410

Four sable bullocks, in the yoke untaught,
For sacrifice the pious hero brought.
The priestess pours the wine betwixt their horns;
Then cuts the curling hair; that first oblation burns,
Invoking Hecat hither to repair—
A powerful name in hell and upper air.
The sacred priests, with ready knives, bereave
The beasts of life, and in full bowls receive
The streaming blood: a lamb to Hell and Night
(The sable wool without a streak of white)
Æneas offers; and, by Fate's decree,
A barren heifer, Proserpine, to thee.
With holocausts he Pluto's altar fills:
Seven brawny bulls with his own hand he kills:
Then, on the broiling entrails, oil he pours;
Which, ointed thus, the raging flame devours.
Late the nocturnal sacrifice begun,
Nor ended, till the next returning sun.
Then earth began to bellow, trees to dance,
And howling dogs in glimmering light advance,
Ere Hecat came.—“Far hence be souls profane!”
The Sibyl cried—“and from the grove abstain!
Now, Trojan, take the way thy fates afford;
Assume thy courage, and unsheathe thy sword.”
She said, and passed along the gloomy space;
The prince pursued her steps with equal pace.

Ye realms, yet unrevealed to human sight!
Ye Gods, who rule the regions of the night!
Ye gliding ghosts! permit me to relate
The mystic wonders of your silent state.

Obscure they went through dreary shades, that led
Along the waste dominions of the dead.

411

Thus wander travellers in woods by night,
By the moon's doubtful and malignant light,
When Jove in dusky clouds involves the skies,
And the faint crescent shoots by fits before their eyes.

Just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell,
Revengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell,
And pale Diseases, and repining Age,
Want, Fear, and Famine's unresisted rage;
Here Toils, and Death, and Death's half-brother, Sleep
(Forms terrible to view), their sentry keep;
With anxious Pleasures of a guilty mind,
Deep Frauds before, and open Force behind;
The Furies' iron beds; and Strife, that shakes
Her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes.
Full in the midst of this infernal road,
An elm displays her dusky arms abroad:
The god of sleep there hides his heavy head,
And empty dreams on every leaf are spread.
Of various forms unnumbered spectres more,
Centaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door.
Before the passage, horrid Hydra stands,
And Briareus with all his hundred hands;
Gorgons, Geryon with his triple frame;
And vain Chimæra vomits empty flame.
The chief unsheathed his shining steel, prepared,
Though seized with sudden fear, to force the guard,
Offering his brandished weapon at their face;
Had not the Sibyl stopped his eager pace,

412

And told him what those empty phantoms were—
Forms without bodies, and impassive air.
Hence to deep Acheron they take their way,
Whose troubled eddies, thick with ooze and clay,
Are whirled aloft, and in Cocytus lost:
There Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast—
A sordid god: down from his hoary chin
A length of beard descends, uncombed, unclean:
His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;
A girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.
He spreads his canvas; with his pole he steers;
The freights of flitting ghosts in his thin bottom bears.
He looked in years; yet, in his years, were seen
A youthful vigour, and autumnal green.
An airy crowd came rushing where he stood,
Which filled the margin of the fatal flood—
Husbands and wives, boys and unmarried maids,
And mighty heroes' more majestic shades,
And youths, entombed before their father's eyes,
With hollow groans, and shrieks, and feeble cries.
Thick as the leaves in autumn strow the woods,
Or fowls, by winter forced, forsake the floods,
And wing their hasty flight to happier lands—
Such, and so thick, the shivering army stands,
And press for passage with extended hands.

Now these, now those, the surly boatman bore:
The rest he drove to distance from the shore.
The hero, who beheld, with wondering eyes,
The tumult mixed with shrieks, laments, and cries,
Asked of his guide, what the rude concourse meant?
Why to the shore the thronging people bent?

413

What forms of law among the ghosts were used?
Why some were ferried o'er, and some refused?
“Son of Anchises! offspring of the gods!”
(The Sibyl said) “you see the Stygian floods,
The sacred streams, which heaven's imperial state
Attests in oaths, and fears to violate.
The ghosts rejected are the unhappy crew
Deprived of sepulchres and funeral due:
The boatman, Charon; those, the buried host,
He ferries over to the further coast;
Nor dares his transport vessel cross the waves
With such whose bones are not composed in graves.
A hundred years they wander on the shore;
At length, their penance done, are wafted o'er.”
The Trojan chief his forward pace repressed,
Revolving anxious thoughts within his breast.
He saw his friends, who, whelmed beneath the waves,
Their funeral honours claimed, and asked their quiet graves.
The lost Leucaspis in the crowd he knew,
And the brave leader of the Lycian crew,
Whom, on the Tyrrhene seas, the tempests met;
The sailors mastered, and the ship o'erset.
Amidst the spirits, Palinurus pressed,
Yet fresh from life, a new-admitted guest,
Who, while he steering viewed the stars, and bore
His course from Afric to the Latian shore,
Fell headlong down. The Trojan fixed his view,
And scarcely through the gloom the sullen shadow knew.
Then thus the prince:—“What envious power, O friend!
Brought your loved life to this disastrous end?
For Phœbus, ever true in all he said,
Has, in your fate alone, my faith betrayed.

414

The god foretold you should not die, before
You reached, secure from seas, the Italian shore.
Is this the unerring power?”—The ghost replied:
“Nor Phœbus flattered, nor his answers lied;
Nor envious gods have sent me to the deep:
But, while the stars and course of heaven I keep,
My wearied eyes were seized with fatal sleep.
I fell; and, with my weight, the helm constrained
Was drawn along, which yet my grip retained.
Now by the winds and raging waves I swear,
Your safety, more than mine, was then my care;
Lest, of the guide bereft, the rudder lost,
Your ship should run against the rocky coast.
Three blustering nights, borne by the southern blast,
I floated, and discovered land at last:
High on a mounting wave my head I bore,
Forcing my strength, and gathering to the shore.
Panting, but past the danger, now I seized
The craggy cliffs, and my tired members eased.
While, cumbered with my dropping clothes, I lay,
The cruel nation, covetous of prey,
Stained with my blood the unhospitable coast;
And now, by winds and waves, my lifeless limbs are tossed:
Which, O! avert, by yon ethereal light,
Which I have lost for this eternal night:
Or, if by dearer ties you may be won,
By your dead sire, and by your living son,
Redeem from this reproach my wandering ghost.
Or with your navy seek the Velin coast,
And in a peaceful grave my corpse compose;
Or, if a nearer way your mother shows,
(Without whose aid, you durst not undertake
This frightful passage o'er the Stygian lake),
Lend to this wretch your hand, and waft him o'er
To the sweet banks of yon forbidden shore.”

415

Scarce had he said, the prophetess began:—
“What hopes delude thee, miserable man?
Think'st thou, thus unintombed, to cross the floods,
To view the Furies and infernal gods,
And visit, without leave, the dark abodes?
Attend the term of long revolving years;
Fate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.
This comfort of thy dire misfortune take—
The wrath of heaven, inflicted for thy sake,
With vengeance shall pursue the inhuman coast,
Till they propitiate thy offended ghost,
And raise a tomb, with vows and solemn prayer;
And Palinurus' name the place shall bear.”
This calmed his cares; soothed with his future fame,
And pleased to hear his propagated name.

Now nearer to the Stygian lake they draw:
Whom, from the shore, the surly boatman saw;
Observed their passage through the shady wood,
And marked their near approaches to the flood:
Then thus he called aloud, inflamed with wrath:—
“Mortal, whate'er, who this forbidden path
In arms presum'st to tread! I charge thee, stand,
And tell thy name, and business in the land.
Know, this the realm of night—the Stygian shore:
My boat conveys no living bodies o'er;

416

Nor was I pleased great Theseus once to bear
(Who forced a passage with his pointed spear),
Nor strong Alcides—men of mighty fame,
And from the immortal gods their lineage came.
In fetters one the barking porter tied,
And took him trembling from his sovereign's side:
Two sought by force to seize his beauteous bride.”
To whom the Sibyl thus:—“Compose thy mind;
Nor frauds are here contrived, nor force designed.
Still may the dog the wandering troops constrain
Of airy ghosts, and vex the guilty train,
And with her grisly lord his lovely queen remain.
The Trojan chief, whose lineage is from Jove,
Much famed for arms, and more for filial love,
Is sent to seek his sire in your Elysian grove.
If neither piety, nor heaven's command,
Can gain his passage to the Stygian strand,
This fatal present shall prevail, at least.”—
Then showed the shining bough, concealed within her vest.
No more was needful: for the gloomy god
Stood mute with awe, to see the golden rod;
Admired the destined offering to his queen—
A venerable gift, so rarely seen.
His fury thus appeased, he puts to land;
The ghosts forsake their seats at his command:
He clears the deck, receives the mighty freight;
The leaky vessel groans beneath the weight.
Slowly she sails, and scarcely stems the tides;
The pressing water pours within her sides.
His passengers at length are wafted o'er,
Exposed, in muddy weeds, upon the miry shore.
No sooner landed, in his den they found
The triple porter of the Stygian sound,
Grim Cerberus, who soon began to rear
His crested snakes, and armed his bristling hair.

417

The prudent Sibyl had before prepared
A sop, in honey steeped, to charm the guard;
Which, mixed with powerful drugs, she cast before
His greedy grinning jaws, just oped to roar.
With three enormous mouths he gapes; and straight,
With hunger pressed, devours the pleasing bait.
Long draughts of sleep his monstrous limbs enslave;
He reels, and, falling, fills the spacious cave.
The keeper charmed, the chief without delay
Passed on, and took the irremeable way.
Before the gates, the cries of babes new born,
Whom Fate had from their tender mothers torn,
Assault his ears: then those, whom form of laws,
Condemned to die, when traitors judged their cause.
Nor want they lots, nor judges to review
The wrongful sentence, and award a new.
Minos, the strict inquisitor, appears;
And lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears.
Round, in his urn, the blended balls he rolls,
Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.
The next, in place and punishment, are they
Who prodigally throw their souls away—

418

Fools, who, repining at their wretched state,
And loathing anxious life, suborned their fate.
With late repentance, now they would retrieve
The bodies they forsook, and wish to live;
Their pains and poverty desire to bear,
To view the light of heaven, and breathe the vital air:
But Fate forbids; the Stygian floods oppose,
And, with nine circling streams, the captive souls inclose.

Not far from thence, the Mournful Fields appear,
So called from lovers that inhabit there.
The souls, whom that unhappy flame invades,
In secret solitude and myrtle shades
Make endless moans, and, pining with desire,
Lament too late their unextinguished fire.
Here Procris, Eriphyle here he found
Baring her breast, yet bleeding with the wound
Made by her son. He saw Pasiphaë there,
With Phædra's ghost, a foul incestuous pair.
Their Laodamia, with Evadne, moves—
Unhappy both, but loyal in their loves:
Cæneus, a woman once, and once a man,
But ending in the sex she first began.
Not far from these Phœnician Dido stood,
Fresh from her wound, her bosom bathed in blood;
Whom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view
(Doubtful as he who sees, through dusky night,
Or thinks he sees, the moon's uncertain light),
With tears he first approached the sullen shade;
And, as his love inspired him, thus he said;—
“Unhappy queen! then is the common breath
Of rumour true, in your reported death,
And I, alas! the cause?—By heaven, I vow,
And all the powers that rule the realms below,

419

Unwilling I forsook your friendly state,
Commanded by the gods, and forced by Fate—
Those gods, that Fate, whose unresisted might
Have sent me to these regions void of light
Through the vast empire of eternal night.
Nor dared I to presume, that, pressed with grief,
My flight should urge you to this dire relief.
Stay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows!
'Tis the last interview that Fate allows!”
In vain he thus attempts her mind to move
With tears and prayers, and late-repenting love.
Disdainfully she looked; then turning round,
But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground,
And, what he says and swears, regards no more,
Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;
But whirled away, to shun his hateful sight,
Hid in the forest, and the shades of night;
Then sought Sichæus through the shady grove,
Who answered all her cares, and equalled all her love.
Some pious tears the pitying hero paid,
And followed with his eyes the flitting shade,
Then took the forward way, by Fate ordained,
And, with his guide, the further fields attained,
Where, severed from the rest, the warrior souls remained.
Tydeus he met, with Meleager's race,
The pride of armies, and the soldiers' grace;
And pale Adrastus with his ghastly face.
Of Trojan chiefs he viewed a numerous train,
All much lamented, all in battle slain—
Glaucus and Medon, high above the rest,
Antenor's sons, and Ceres' sacred priest.
And proud Idæus, Priam's charioteer,
Who shakes his empty reins, and aims his airy spear.

420

The gladsome ghosts, in circling troops, attend,
And with unwearied eyes behold their friend;
Delight to hover near, and long to know
What business brought him to the realms below.

But Argive chiefs, and Agamemnon's train,
When his refulgent arms flashed through the shady plain,
Fled from his well-known face, with wonted fear,
As when his thundering sword and pointed spear
Drove headlong to their ships, and gleaned the routed rear.
They raised a feeble cry, with trembling notes;
But the weak voice deceived their gasping throats.
Here Priam's son, Deïphobus, he found,
Whose face and limbs were one continued wound.
Dishonest, with lopped arms, the youth appears,
Spoiled of his nose, and shortened of his ears.
He scarcely knew him, striving to disown
His blotted form, and blushing to be known;
And therefore first began:—“O Teucer's race!
Who durst thy faultless figure thus deface?
What heart could wish, what hand inflict, this dire disgrace?
'Twas famed, that, in our last and fatal night,
Your single prowess long sustained the fight,
Till, tired, not forced, a glorious fate you chose,
And fell upon a heap of slaughtered foes.
But, in remembrance of so brave a deed,
A tomb and funeral honours I decreed;
Thrice called your manes on the Trojan plains:
The place your armour and your name retains.
Your body too I sought, and, had I found,
Designed for burial in your native ground.”

The ghost replied:—“Your piety has paid
All needful rites, to rest my wandering shade:
But cruel Fate, and my more cruel wife,
To Grecian swords betrayed my sleeping life.

421

These are the monuments of Helen's love—
The shame I bear below, the marks I bore above.
You know in what deluding joys we past
The night, that was by heaven decreed our last.
For, when the fatal horse, descending down,
Pregnant with arms, o'erwhelmed the unhappy town,
She feigned nocturnal orgies; left my bed,
And, mixed with Trojan dames, the dances led;
Then, waving high her torch, the signal made,
Which roused the Grecians from their ambuscade.
With watching overworn, with cares oppressed,
Unhappy I had laid me down to rest,
And heavy sleep my weary limbs possessed.
Meantime my worthy wife our arms mislaid,
And, from beneath my head, my sword conveyed;
The door unlatched, and, with repeated calls,
Invites her former lord within my walls.
Thus in her crime her confidence she placed,
And with new treasons would redeem the past.
What need I more? Into the room they ran,
And meanly murdered a defenceless man.
Ulysses, basely born, first led the way.—
Avenging powers! with justice if I pray,
That fortune be their own another day!—
But answer you; and in your turn relate,
What brought you, living, to the Stygian state.
Driven by the winds and errors of the sea,
Or did you heaven's superior doom obey?
Or tell what other chance conducts your way,
To view, with mortal eyes, our dark retreats,
Tumults and torments of the infernal seats.”

While thus, in talk, the flying hours they pass,
The sun had finished more than half his race:
And they, perhaps, in words and tears had spent
The little time of stay which heaven had lent:

422

But thus the Sibyl chides their long delay:—
“Night rushes down, and headlong drives the day:
'Tis here, in different paths, the way divides;
The right to Pluto's golden palace guides;
The left to that unhappy region tends,
Which to the depth of Tartarus descends—
The seat of night profound, and punished fiends.”
Then thus Deïphobus:—“O sacred maid!
Forbear to chide, and be your will obeyed.
Lo! to the secret shadows I retire,
To pay my penance till my years expire.
Proceed, auspicious prince, with glory crowned,
And born to better fates than I have found.”
He said; and, while he said, his steps he turned
To secret shadows, and in silence mourned.
The hero, looking on the left, espied
A lofty tower, and strong on every side

423

With treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds,
Whose fiery flood the burning empire bounds;
And, pressed betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise resounds.
Wide is the fronting gate, and, raised on high
With adamantine columns, threats the sky.
Vain is the force of man, and heaven's as vain,
To crush the pillars which the pile sustain.
Sublime on these a tower of steel is reared;
And dire Tisiphone there keeps the ward,
Girt in her sanguine gown, by night and day,
Observant of the souls that pass the downward way.
From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains
Of sounding lashes, and of dragging chains.
The Trojan stood astonished at their cries,
And asked his guide, from whence those yells arise;
And what the crimes, and what the tortures were,
And loud laments, that rent the liquid air.
She thus replied:—“The chaste and holy race
Are all forbidden this polluted place.
But Hecat, when she gave to rule the woods,
Then led me trembling through these dire abodes,
And taught the tortures of the avenging gods.
These are the realms of unrelenting Fate;
And awful Rhadamanthus rules the state.
He hears and judges each committed crime;
Inquires into the manner, place, and time.
The conscious wretch must all his acts reveal
(Loth to confess, unable to conceal),
From the first moment of his vital breath,
To his last hour of unrepenting death.
Straight, o'er the guilty ghost, the Fury shakes
The sounding whip, and brandishes her snakes,
And the pale sinner, with her sisters, takes.

424

Then, of itself unfolds the eternal door;
With dreadful sounds the brazen hinges roar.
You see before the gate, what stalking ghost
Commands the guard, what sentries keep the post.
More formidable Hydra stands within,
Whose jaws with iron teeth severely grin.
The gaping gulf low to the centre lies,
And twice as deep as earth is distant from the skies.
The rivals of the gods, the Titan race,
Here, singed with lightning, roll within the unfathomed space.
Here lie the Aloëan twins (I saw them both),
Enormous bodies, of gigantic growth,
Who dared in fight the Thunderer to defy,
Affect his heaven, and force him from the sky.
Salmoneus, suffering cruel pains, I found,
For emulating Jove with rattling sound
Of mimic thunder, and the glittering blaze
Of pointed lightnings, and their forky rays.
Through Elis, and the Grecian towns, he flew:
The audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew:
He waved a torch aloft, and, madly vain,
Sought god-like worship from a servile train.
Ambitious fool! with horny hoofs to pass
O'er hollow arches of resounding brass,
To rival thunder in its rapid course,
And imitate inimitable force!
But he, the king of heaven, obscure on high,
Bared his red arm, and, launching from the sky
His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke,
Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon struck.
There Tityus was to see, who took his birth
From heaven, his nursing from the foodful earth.
Here his gigantic limbs, with large embrace,
Infold nine acres of infernal space.

425

A ravenous vulture, in his opened side,
Her crooked beak and cruel talons tried;
Still for the growing liver digged his breast;
The growing liver still supplied the feast;
Still are his entrails fruitful to their pains:
The immortal hunger lasts, the immortal food remains.
Ixion and Pirithoüs I could name,
And more Thessalian chiefs of mighty fame.
High o'er their heads a mouldering rock is placed,
That promises a fall, and shakes at every blast.
They lie below, on golden beds displayed;
And genial feasts with regal pomp are made.
The queen of Furies by their sides is set,
And snatches from their mouths the untasted meat,
Which if they touch, her hissing snakes she rears,
Tossing her torch, and thundering in their ears.
Then they, who brothers' better claim disown,
Expel their parents, and usurp the throne;
Defraud their clients, and, to lucre sold,
Sit brooding on unprofitable gold—
Who dare not give, and even refuse to lend,
To their poor kindred, or a wanting friend—
Vast is the throng of these; nor less the train
Of lustful youths, for foul adultery slain—
Hosts of deserters, who their honour sold,
And basely broke their faith for bribes of gold.
All these within the dungeon's depth remain,
Despairing pardon, and expecting pain.
Ask not what pains; nor further seek to know
Their process, or the forms of law below.
Some roll a mighty stone; some, laid along,
And bound with burning wires, on spokes of wheels are hung.
Unhappy Theseus, doomed for ever there,
Is fixed by Fate on his eternal chair:

426

And wretched Phlegyas warns the world with cries
(Could warning make the world more just or wise),
“Learn righteousness, and dread the avenging deities.”
To tyrants others have their country sold,
Imposing foreign lords, for foreign gold:
Some have old laws repealed, new statutes made,
Not as the people pleased, but as they paid.
With incest some their daughters' bed profaned.
All dared the worst of ills, and, what they dared, attained.
Had I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,
And throats of brass, inspired with iron lungs,
I could not half those horrid crimes repeat,
Nor half the punishments those crimes have met.
But let us haste our voyage to pursue:
The walls of Pluto's palace are in view;
The gate, and iron arch above it, stands,
On anvils laboured by the Cyclops' hands.
Before our further way the Fates allow,
Here must we fix on high the golden bough.”
She said: and through the gloomy shades they past,
And chose the middle path.—Arrived at last,
The prince, with living water, sprinkled o'er
His limbs and body; then approached the door,
Possessed the porch, and on the front above
He fixed the fatal bough, required by Pluto's love.
These holy rites performed, they took their way,
Where long extended plains of pleasure lay;
The verdant fields with those of heaven may vie,
With ether vested, and a purple sky—
The blissful seats of happy souls below:
Stars of their own, and their own suns, they know:

427

Their airy limbs in sports they exercise,
And, on the green, contend the wrestler's prize.
Some, in heroic verse, divinely sing;
Others in artful measures lead the ring.
The Thracian bard, surrounded by the rest,
There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest.
His flying fingers, and harmonious quill,
Strike seven distinguished notes, and seven at once they fill.
Here found they Teucer's old heroic race,
Born better times and happier years to grace.
Assaracus and Ilus here enjoy
Perpetual fame, with him who founded Troy.
The chief beheld their chariots from afar,
Their shining arms, and coursers trained to war.
Their lances fixed in earth, their steeds around,
Free from their harness, graze the flowery ground.
The love of horses which they had, alive,
And care of chariots, after death survive.
Some cheerful souls were feasting on the plain;
Some did the song, and some the choir, maintain,
Beneath a laurel shade, where mighty Po
Mounts up to woods above, and hides his head below.
Here patriots live, who, for their country's good,
In fighting-fields, were prodigal of blood:
Priests of unblemished lives here make abode,
And poets worthy their inspiring god;
And searching wits, of more mechanic parts,
Who graced their age with new invented arts:
Those, who to worth their bounty did extend,
And those who knew that bounty to commend.
The heads of these with holy fillets bound,
And all their temples were with garlands crowned.

To these the Sibyl thus her speech addressed,
And first to him surrounded by the rest—
Towering his height, and ample was his breast:—

428

“Say, happy souls! divine Musæus! say,
Where lives Anchises, and where lies our way
To find the hero, for whose only sake
We sought the dark abodes, and crossed the bitter lake?”
To this the sacred poet thus replied:—
“In no fixed place the happy souls reside.
In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,
By crystal streams, that murmur through the meads:
But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;
The path conducts you to your journey's end.”
This said, he led them up the mountain's brow,
And shows them all the shining fields below.
They wind the hill, and through the blissful meadows go.
But old Anchises, in a flowery vale,
Reviewed his mustered race, and took the tale—
Those happy spirits, which, ordained by Fate,
For future being and new bodies wait—
With studious thought observed the illustrious throng,
In Nature's order as they passed along—
Their names, their fates, their conduct, and their care,
In peaceful senates, and successful war.
He, when Æneas on the plain appears,
Meets him with open arms, and falling tears.—
“Welcome,” he said, “the gods' undoubted race!
O long expected to my dear embrace!
Once more 'tis given me to behold your face!
The love and pious duty which you pay,
Have passed the perils of so hard a way.
'Tis true, computing times, I now believed
The happy day approached; nor are my hopes deceived.

429

What length of lands, what oceans have you passed,
What storms sustained, and on what shores been cast?
How have I feared your fate! but feared it most,
When love assailed you on the Libyan coast.”
To this, the filial duty thus replies:—
“Your sacred ghost, before my sleeping eyes,
Appeared, and often urged this painful enterprise.
After long tossing on the Tyrrhene sea,
My navy rides at anchor in the bay.
But reach your hand, oh parent shade! nor shun
The dear embraces of your longing son!”
He said; and falling tears his face bedew:
Then thrice around his neck his arms he threw;
And thrice the flitting shadow slipped away,
Like winds, or empty dreams, that fly the day.
Now, in a secret vale, the Trojan sees
A separate grove, through which a gentle breeze
Plays with a passing breath, and whispers through the trees:
And, just before the confines of the wood,
The gliding Lethe leads her silent flood.
About the boughs an airy nation flew,
Thick as the humming bees, that hunt the golden dew
In summer's heat; on tops of lilies feed,
And creep within their bells, to suck the balmy seed:
The winged army roams the field around;
The rivers and the rocks remurmur to the sound.
Æneas wondering stood, then asked the cause,
Which to the stream the crowding people draws.
Then thus the sire:—“The souls that throng the flood
Are those, to whom, by Fate, are other bodies owed:

430

In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste,
Of future life secure, forgetful of the past.
Long has my soul desired this time and place,
To set before your sight your glorious race,
That this presaging joy may fire your mind,
To seek the shores by destiny designed.”—
“O father! can it be, that souls sublime
Return to visit our terrestrial clime,
And that the generous mind, released by death,
Can covet lazy limbs, and mortal breath?”
Anchises then, in order, thus begun
To clear those wonders to his godlike son:—
“Know, first, that heaven, and earth's compacted frame,
And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
And both the radiant lights, one common soul
Inspires and feeds, and animates the whole.
This active mind, infused through all the space,
Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.
Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
And birds of air, and monsters of the main.

431

The ethereal vigour is in all the same,
And every soul is filled with equal flame—
As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay
Of mortal members subject to decay,
Blunt not the beams of heaven and edge of day.
From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,
Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts,
And grief, and joy; nor can the grovelling mind,
In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,
Assert the native skies, or own its heavenly kind:
Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;
But long-contracted filth even in the soul remains.
The relics of inveterate vice they wear,
And spots of sin obscene in every face appear.
For this are various penances enjoined;
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,
Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires,
Till all the dregs are drained, and all the rust expires.
All have their manes, and those manes bear:
The few, so cleansed, to these abodes repair,
And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.
Then are they happy, when by length of time
The scurf is worn away, of each committed crime;
No speck is left of their habitual stains,
But the pure ether of the soul remains.
But, when a thousand rolling years are past
(So long their punishments and penance last),
Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god,
Compelled to drink the deep Lethæan flood,
In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares
Of their past labours, and their irksome years,
That, unremembering of its former pain,
The soul may suffer mortal flesh again.”
Thus having said, the father spirit leads
The priestess and his son through swarms of shades,

432

And takes a rising ground, from thence to see
The long procession of his progeny.—
“Survey” (pursued the sire) “this airy throng,
As, offered to thy view, they pass along.
These are the Italian names, which Fate will join
With ours, and graff upon the Trojan line.
Observe the youth who first appears in sight,
And holds the nearest station to the light,
Already seems to snuff the vital air,
And leans just forward on a shining spear:
Silvius is he, thy last-begotten race,
But first in order sent, to fill thy place—
An Alban name, but mixed with Dardan blood;
Born in the covert of a shady wood,
Him fair Lavinia, thy surviving wife,
Shall breed in groves, to lead a solitary life.
In Alba he shall fix his royal seat,
And, born a king, a race of kings beget;—
Then Procas, honour of the Trojan name,
Capys, and Numitor, of endless fame.
A second Silvius after these appears;
Silvius Æneas, for thy name he bears;
For arms and justice equally renowned,
Who, late restored, in Alba shall be crowned.
How great they look! how vigorously they wield
Their weighty lances, and sustain the shield!
But they, who crowned with oaken wreaths appear,
Shall Gabian walls and strong Fidena rear;
Nomentum, Bola, with Pometia, found;
And raise Collatian towers on rocky ground.
All these shall then be towns of mighty fame,
Though now they lie obscure, and lands without a name.
See Romulus the great, born to restore
The crown that once his injured grandsire wore.

433

This prince a priestess of our blood shall bear,
And like his sire in arms he shall appear.
Two rising crests his royal head adorn;
Born from a god, himself to godhead born,
His sire already signs him for the skies,
And marks his seat amidst the deities.
Auspicious chief! thy race, in times to come,
Shall spread the conquests of imperial Rome—
Rome, whose ascending towers shall heaven invade,
Involving earth and ocean in her shade;
High as the mother of the gods in place,
And proud, like her, of an immortal race.
Then, when in pomp she makes the Phrygian round,
With golden turrets on her temples crowned;
A hundred gods her sweeping train supply,
Her offspring all, and all command the sky.
Now fix your sight, and stand intent, to see
Your Roman race, and Julian progeny.
The mighty Cæsar waits his vital hour,
Impatient for the world, and grasps his promised power.
But next behold the youth of form divine—
Cæsar himself, exalted in his line—
Augustus, promised oft, and long foretold,
Sent to the realm that Saturn ruled of old;
Born to restore a better age of gold.
Afric and India shall his power obey;
He shall extend his propagated sway
Beyond the solar year, without the starry way,
Where Atlas turns the rolling heavens around,
And his broad shoulders with their lights are crowned.
At his foreseen approach, already quake
The Caspian kingdoms and Mæotian lake.

434

Their seers behold the tempest from afar;
And threatening oracles denounce the war.
Nile hears him knocking at his sevenfold gates,
And seeks his hidden spring, and fears his nephew's fates.
Nor Hercules more lands or labours knew,
Not though the brazen-footed hind he slew,
Freed Erymanthus from the foaming boar,
And dipped his arrows in Lernæan gore;
Nor Bacchus, turning from his Indian war,
By tigers drawn triumphant in his car,
From Nysa's top descending on the plains,
With curling vines around his purple reins.
And doubt we yet through dangers to pursue
The paths of honour, and a crown in view?
But what's the man, who from afar appears,
His head with olive crowned, his hand a censer bears?
His hoary beard and holy vestments bring
His lost idea back: I know the Roman king.
He shall to peaceful Rome new laws ordain,
Called from his mean abode, a sceptre to sustain.
Him Tullus next in dignity succeeds,
An active prince, and prone to martial deeds.
He shall his troops for fighting-fields prepare,
Disused to toils, and triumphs of the war.
By dint of sword his crown he shall increase,
And scour his armour from the rust of peace.
Whom Ancus follows, with a fawning air,
But vain within, and proudly popular.
Next view the Tarquin kings, the avenging sword
Of Brutus, justly drawn, and Rome restored.
He first renews the rods and axe severe,
And gives the consuls royal robes to wear.
His sons, who seek the tyrant to sustain,
And long for arbitrary lords again,

435

With ignominy scourged in open sight,
He dooms to death deserved, asserting public right.
Unhappy man! to break the pious laws
Of nature, pleading in his children's cause!
Howe'er the doubtful fact is understood,
'Tis love of honour, and his country's good:
The consul, not the father, sheds the blood.
Behold Torquatus the same track pursue;
And, next, the two devoted Decii view—
The Drusian line, Camillus loaded home
With standards well redeemed, and foreign foes o'ercome.
The pair you see in equal armour shine,
Now, friends below, in close embraces join;
But, when they leave the shady realms of night,
And, clothed in bodies, breathe your upper light,
With mortal hate each other shall pursue;
What wars, what wounds, what slaughter shall ensue!
From Alpine heights the father first descends;
His daughter's husband in the plain attends:
His daughter's husband arms his eastern friends.
Embrace again, my sons! be foes no more;
Nor stain your country with her children's gore!
And thou, the first, lay down thy lawless claim,
Thou, of my blood, who bear'st the Julian name!

436

Another comes, who shall in triumph ride,
And to the Capitol his chariot guide,
From conquered Corinth, rich with Grecian spoils.
And yet another, famed for warlike toils,
On Argos shall impose the Roman laws,
And, on the Greeks, revenge the Trojan cause;
Shall drag in chains their Achillean race;
Shall vindicate his ancestors' disgrace,
And Pallas, for her violated place.
Great Cato there, for gravity renowned,
And conquering Cossus goes with laurels crowned.
Who can omit the Gracchi? who declare
The Scipios' worth, those thunderbolts of war,
The double bane of Carthage? Who can see,
Without esteem for virtuous poverty,
Severe Fabricius, or can cease to admire
The ploughman consul in his coarse attire?
Tired as I am, my praise the Fabii claim;
And thou, great hero, greatest of thy name,
Ordained in war to save the sinking state,
And, by delays, to put a stop to fate!

437

Let others better mould the running mass
Of metals, and inform the breathing brass,
And soften into flesh a marble face;
Plead better at the bar; describe the skies,
And when the stars descend, and when they rise.
But, Rome! 'tis thine alone, with awful sway,
To rule mankind, and make the world obey,
Disposing peace and war thy own majestic way;
To tame the proud, the fettered slave to free:—
These are imperial arts, and worthy thee.”
He paused—and, while with wondering eyes they viewed
The passing spirits, thus his speech renewed:—
“See great Marcellus! how, untired in toils,
He moves with manly grace, how rich with regal spoils!
He, when his country (threatened with alarms)
Requires his courage and his conquering arms,
Shall more than once the Punic bands affright;
Shall kill the Gaulish king in single fight;

438

Then to the Capitol in triumph move,
And the third spoils shall grace Feretrian Jove.”
Æneas here beheld, of form divine,
A godlike youth in glittering armour shine,
With great Marcellus keeping equal pace;
But gloomy were his eyes, dejected was his face.
He saw, and, wondering, asked his airy guide,
What and of whence was he, who pressed the hero's side?
“His son, or one of his illustrious name?
How like the former, and almost the same!
Observe the crowds that compass him around;
All gaze, and all admire, and raise a shouting sound:
But hovering mists around his brows are spread,
And night, with sable shades, involves his head.”
“Seek not to know” (the ghost replied with tears)
“The sorrows of thy sons in future years.
This youth (the blissful vision of a day)
Shall just be shown on earth, and snatched away.
The gods too high had raised the Roman state,
Were but their gifts as permanent as great.
What groans of men shall fill the Martian field!
How fierce a blaze his flaming pile shall yield!
What funeral pomp shall floating Tiber see,
When, rising from his bed, he views the sad solemnity!
No youth shall equal hopes of glory give,
No youth afford so great a cause to grieve.
The Trojan honour, and the Roman boast,
Admired when living, and adored when lost!
Mirror of ancient faith in early youth!
Undaunted worth, inviolable truth!
No foe, unpunished, in the fighting-field
Shall dare thee, foot to foot, with sword and shield.

439

Much less in arms oppose thy matchless force,
When thy sharp spurs shall urge thy foaming horse.
Ah! couldst thou break through Fate's severe decree,
A new Marcellus shall arise in thee!

440

Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring,
Mixed with the purple roses of the spring;
Let me with funeral flowers his body strow;
This gift which parents to their children owe,
This unavailing gift, at least, I may bestow!”
Thus having said, he led the hero round
The confines of the blest Elysian ground;
Which when Anchises to his son had shown,
And fired his mind to mount the promised throne,
He tells the future wars, ordained by Fate;
The strength and customs of the Latian state;
The prince, and people; and fore-arms his care
With rules, to push his fortune, or to bear.

Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn;
Of polished ivory this, that of transparent horn;
True visions through transparent horn arise;
Through polished ivory pass deluding lies.
Of various things discoursing as he passed,
Anchises hither bends his steps at last.

441

Then, through the gate of ivory, he dismissed
His valiant offspring, and divining guest.
Straight to the ships Æneas took his way,
Embarked his men, and skimmed along the sea,
Still coasting, till he gained Caieta's bay.
At length on oozy ground his galleys moor;
Their heads are turned to sea, their sterns to shore.

Proxima sorte tenent mœsti loca, qui sibi letum
Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi,
Projecere animas, etc.

This was taken, amongst many other things, from the tenth book of Plato de Republicâ: no commentator, besides Fabrini, has taken notice of it. Self-murder was accounted a great crime by that divine philosopher; but the instances which he brings are too many to be inserted in these short notes. Sir Robert Howard, in his translation of this Æneïd, which was printed with his poems in the year 1660, has given us the most learned and the most judicious observations on this book which are extant in our language.

These two verses in English seem very different from the Latin—

Discedam; explebo numerum, reddarque tenebris.

Yet they are the sense of Virgil ; at least, according to the common interpretation of this place—“I will withdraw from your company, retire to the shades, and perform my penance of a thousand years.” But I must confess, the interpretation of those two words, explebo numerum, is somewhat violent, if it be thus understood, minuam numerum; that is, I will lessen your company by my departure: for Deïphobus, being a ghost, can hardly be said to be of their number. Perhaps the poet means by explebo numerum, absolvam sententiam; as if Deïphobus replied to the Sibyl, who was angry at his long visit, “I will only take my last leave of Æneas, my kinsman and my friend, with one hearty good wish for his health and welfare, and then leave you to prosecute your voyage.” That wish is expressed in the words immediately following, I, decus, i, nostrum, etc., which contain a direct answer to what the Sibyl said before, when she upbraided their long discourse, nos flendo ducimus horas. This conjecture is new, and therefore left to the discretion of the reader.

Principio cœlum, et terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum lunæ, Titaniaque astra, etc.

Here the sun is not expressed, but the moon only, though a less, and also a less radiant, light. Perhaps the copies of Virgil are all false, and that, instead of Titaniaque astra, he writ, Titanaque, et astra; and according to these words I have made my translation. It is most certain, that the sun ought not to be omitted; for he is frequently called the life and soul of the world: and nothing bids so fair for a visible divinity to those who know no better, than that glorious luminary. The Platonists call God the archetypal sun, and the sun the visible deity, the inward vital spirit in the centre of the universe, or that body to which that spirit is united, and by which it exerts itself most powerfully. Now it was the received hypothesis amongst the Pythagoreans, that the sun was situate in the centre of the world. Plato had it from them, and was himself of the same opinion, as appears by a passage in the Timœus; from which noble dialogue is this part of Virgil's poem taken.

This note, which is out of its proper place, I deferred on purpose, to place it here, because it discovers the principles of our poet more plainly than any of the rest.

Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo:
Projice tela manu, sanguis meus!

Anchises here speaks to Julius Cæsar, and commands him first to lay down his arms; which is a plain condemnation of his cause. Yet observe our poet's incomparable address; for, though he shows himself sufficiently to be a commonwealth's man, yet, in respect to Augustus, who was his patron, he uses the authority of a parent, in the person of Anchises, who had more right to lay this injunction on Cæsar than on Pompey, because the latter was not of his blood. Thus our author cautiously veils his own opinion, and takes sanctuary under Anchises; as if that ghost would have laid the same command on Pompey also, had he been lineally descended from him. What could be more judiciously contrived, when this was the Æneïd which he chose to read before his master?

Quis te, magne Cato, etc.—There is no question but Virgil here means Cato Major, or the censor. But the name of Cato being also mentioned in the Eighth Æneïd, I doubt whether he means the same man in both places. I have said in the preface, that our poet was of republican principles; and have given this for one reason of my opinion that he praised Cato in that line,

Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem—

and accordingly placed him in the Elysian fields. Montaigne thinks this was Cato the Utican, the great enemy of arbitrary power, and a professed foe to Julius Cæsar. Ruæus would persuade us that Virgil meant the censor. But why should the poet name Cato twice, if he intended the same person? Our author is too frugal of his words and sense, to commit tautologies in either. His memory was not likely to betray him into such an error. Nevertheless I continue in the same opinion concerning the principles of our poet. He declares them sufficiently in this book, where he praises the first Brutus for expelling the Tarquins, giving liberty to Rome, and putting to death his own children, who conspired to restore tyranny. He calls him only an unhappy man, for being forced to that severe action—

Infelix! utcunque ferent ea facta minores,
Vincet amor patriæ laudumque immensa cupido.

Let the reader weigh these two verses, and he must be convinced that I am in the right, and that I have not much injured my master in my translation of them.

In Virgil thus—

Tu Marcellus eris.

How unpoetically and badly had this been translated, “Thou shalt Marcellus be!” Yet some of my friends were of opinion that I mistook the sense of Virgil in my translation. The French interpreter observes nothing on this place, but that it appears by it the mourning of Octavia was yet fresh for the loss of her son Marcellus, whom she had by her first husband, and who died in the year ab urbe conditâ 731; and collects from thence that Virgil , reading this Æneïd before her in the same year, had just finished it; that, from this time to that of the poet's death, was little more than four years; so that, supposing him to have written the whole Æneïs in eleven years, the first six books must have taken up seven of those years; on which account the six last must of necessity be less correct.

Now, for the false judgment of my friends, there is but this little to be said for them; the words of Virgil , in the verse preceding, are these—

— Siquâ fata aspera rumpas—

as if the poet had meant, “If you break through your hard destiny, so as to be born, you shall be called Marcellus:” but this cannot be the sense; for, though Marcellus was born, yet he broke not through those hard decrees which doomed him to so immature a death. Much less can Virgil mean, “You shall be the same Marcellus by the transmigration of his soul:” for, according to the system of our author, a thousand years must be first elapsed before the soul can return into a human body: but the first Marcellus was slain in the second Punic war; and how many hundred years were yet wanting to the accomplishing his penance may with ease be gathered by computing the time betwixt Scipio and Augustus. By which it is plain, that Virgil cannot mean the same Marcellus; but one of his descendants, whom I call a new Marcellus, who so much resembled his ancestor, perhaps in his features and his person, but certainly in his military virtues, that Virgil cries out, quantum instar in ipso est! which I have translated,

How like the former, and almost the same!

Virgil borrowed this imagination from Homer, Odyssey xix. line 562. The translation gives the reason why true prophetic dreams are said to pass through the gate of horn, by adding the epithet transparent, which is not in Virgil , whose words are only these:

Sunt geminæ Somni portæ quarum altera fertur
Cornea —

What is pervious to the sight is clear; and (alluding to this property) the poet infers such dreams are of divine revelation. Such as pass through the ivory gate are of the contrary nature—polished lies. But there is a better reason to be given; for the ivory alludes to the teeth, the horn to the eyes. What we see is more credible than what we only hear; that is, words that pass through the portal of the mouth, or “hedge of the teeth;” which is Homer's expression for speaking.