Ye gods! who rule the spirits of the dead!Ye voiceless shades and silent lands of night!0 Phlegethon! 0 Chaos! let my song,If it be lawful, in fit words declareWhat I have heard; and by your help divineUnfold what hidden things enshrouded lieIn that dark underworld of sightless gloom.

They walked exploring the unpeopled night,Through Pluto's vacuous realms, and regions void,As when one's path in dreary woodlands windsBeneath a misty moon's deceiving ray,When Jove has mantled all his heaven in shade,And night seals up the beauty of the world.In the first courts and entrances of HellSorrows and vengeful Cares on couches lie :There sad Old Age abides, Diseases pale,And Fear, and Hunger, temptress to all crime;Want, base and vile, and, two dread shapes to see,Bondage and Death : then Sleep, Death's next of kin;And dreams of guilty joy. Death-dealing WarIs ever at the doors, and hard therebyThe Furies' beds of steel, where wild-eyed StrifeHer snaky hair with blood-stained fillet binds.

There in the middle court a shadowy elmIts ancient branches spreads, and in its leavesDeluding visions ever haunt and cling.Then come strange prodigies of bestial kind :Centaurs are stabled there, and double shapesLike Scylla, or the dragon Lerna bred,With hideous scream; Briareus clutching farHis hundred hands, Chimaera girt with flame,A crowd of Gorgons, Harpies of foul wing,And giant Geryon's triple-monstered shade.Aeneas, shuddering with sudden fear,Drew sword and fronted them with naked steel;And, save his sage conductress bade him knowThese were but shapes and shadows sweeping by,His stroke had cloven in vain the vacant air.

Hence the way leads to that Tartarean streamOf Acheron, whose torrent fierce and foulDisgorges in Cocytus all its sands.A ferryman of gruesome guise keeps wardUpon these waters,—Charon, foully garbed,With unkempt, thick gray beard upon his chin,And staring eyes of flame; a mantle coarse,All stained and knotted, from his shoulder falls,As with a pole he guides his craft, tends sail,And in the black boat ferries o'er his dead;—Old, but a god's old age looks fresh and strong.To those dim shores the multitude streams on—Husbands and wives, and pale, unbreathing formsOf high-souled heroes, boys and virgins fair,And strong youth at whose graves fond parents mourned.As numberless the throng as leaves that fallWhen autumn's early frost is on the grove;Or like vast flocks of birds by winter's chillSent flying o'er wide seas to lands of flowers.All stood beseeching to begin their voyageAcross that river, and reached out pale hands,In passionate yearning for its distant shore.But the grim boatman takes now these, now those,Or thrusts unpitying from the stream away.Aeneas, moved to wonder and deep awe,Beheld the tumult; “Virgin seer!” he cried, .“Why move the thronging ghosts toward yonder stream?What seek they there? Or what election holdsThat these unwilling linger, while their peersSweep forward yonder o'er the leaden waves?”To him, in few, the aged Sibyl spoke :“Son of Anchises, offspring of the gods,Yon are Cocytus and the Stygian stream,By whose dread power the gods themselves do fearTo take an oath in vain. Here far and wideThou seest the hapless throng that hath no grave.That boatman Charon bears across the deepSuch as be sepulchred with holy care.But over that loud flood and dreadful shoreNo trav'ler may be borne, until in peaceHis gathered ashes rest. A hundred yearsRound this dark borderland some haunt and roam,Then win late passage o'er the longed-for wave.”Aeneas lingered for a little space,Revolving in his soul with pitying prayerFate's partial way. But presently he seesLeucaspis and the Lycian navy's lord,Orontes; both of melancholy brow,Both hapless and unhonored after death,Whom, while from Troy they crossed the wind-swept seas,A whirling tempest wrecked with ship and crew.

There, too, the helmsman Palinurus strayed :Who, as he whilom watched the Libyan stars,Had fallen, plunging from his lofty seatInto the billowy deep. Aeneas nowDiscerned his sad face through the blinding gloom,And hailed him thus : “0 Palinurus, tellWhat god was he who ravished thee awayFrom me and mine, beneath the o'crwhelming wave?Speak on! for he who ne'er had spoke untrue,Apollo's self, did mock my listening mind,And chanted me a faithful oracleThat thou shouldst ride the seas unharmed, and touchAusonian shores. Is this the pledge divine?”Then he, “0 chieftain of Anchises' race,Apollo's tripod told thee not untrue.No god did thrust me down beneath the wave,For that strong rudder unto which I clung,My charge and duty, and my ship's sole guide,Wrenched from its place, dropped with me as I fell.Not for myself—by the rude seas I swear—Did I have terror, but lest thy good ship,Stripped of her gear, and her poor pilot lost,Should fail and founder in that rising flood.Three wintry nights across the boundless mainThe south wind buffeted and bore me on;At the fourth daybreak, lifted from the surge,I looked at last on Italy, and swamWith weary stroke on stroke unto the land.Safe was I then. Alas! but as I climbedWith garments wet and heavy, my clenched handGrasping the steep rock, came a cruel hordeUpon me with drawn blades, accounting me—So blind they were!—a wrecker's prize and spoil.Now are the waves my tomb; and wandering windsToss me along the coast. 0, I implore,By heaven's sweet light, by yonder upper air,By thy lost father, by Iulus dear,Thy rising hope and joy, that from these woes,Unconquered chieftain, thou wilt set me free!Give me a grave where Velia's haven lies,For thou hast power! Or if some path there be,If thy celestial mother guide thee here(For not, I ween, without the grace of godsWilt cross yon rivers vast, you Stygian pool)Reach me a hand! and bear with thee along!Until (least gift!) death bring me peace and calm.”Such words he spoke: the priestess thus replied:“Why, Palinurus, these unblest desires?Wouldst thou, unsepulchred, behold the waveOf Styx, stern river of th' Eumenides?Wouldst thou, unbidden, tread its fearful strand?Hope not by prayer to change the laws of Heaven!But heed my words, and in thy memoryCherish and keep, to cheer this evil time.Lo, far and wide, led on by signs from Heaven,Thy countrymen from many a templed townShall consecrate thy dust, and build thy tomb,A tomb with annual feasts and votive flowers,To Palinurus a perpetual fame!”Thus was his anguish stayed, from his sad heartGrief ebbed awhile, and even to this day,Our land is glad such noble name to wear.