Story of Aeneas

by Michael Clarke

V. THE SIBYL OF CUMAE—THE GOLDEN BOUGH—IN THE REGIONS OF THE DEAD.

AEneas was now in Italy, but not in the part of it where the destined city was to be founded. The prophet, Helenus, as we have seen, had directed him that when he reached the Hesperian land he should visit the Cu-mae'an Sibyl, and learn from her what difficulties he was yet to encounter, and how to overcome them. Cumae, where the Sibyl dwelt, was on the coast of Cam-pa'ni-a, and to this place, therefore, AEneas directed his course after leaving Sicily. Having safely landed, the hero lost no time in making his way to the temple of Apollo, for in a cave adjoining this temple and communicating with it by a hundred doors and as many avenues or corridors, the Sibyl gave her answers.

There were many sibyls in ancient times. The most celebrated was the Sibyl of Cumae. She had several names, but the one adopted by Vergil is De-iph'o-be. Apollo once fell in love with this Sibyl and he promised to give her whatever she should ask if she would marry him. Deiphobe asked to live as many years as she had grains of sand in her hand at the time. She forgot, however, to ask for the continuance of health and youth, of which she was then in possession. Apollo granted her request but she refused to perform her part of the bargain, and soon afterwards she became aged and feeble. She had already lived seven hundred years when AEneas came into Italy, and she had three centuries more to live before her years would be as numerous as the grains of sand which she had held in her hand.

As AEneas with several of his companions approached the cave, they were met at the outer entrance by the Sibyl herself. Then the Trojan hero, after a prayer to Apollo, begged the good will of the prophetess that her answers might be favorable to him and his people.

"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."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

Nor did AEneas forget to beg the Sibyl, as Helenus had directed him, to give her revelations by word of mouth, and not on leaves of trees, as was her custom.

"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."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

The Sibyl graciously consented, and then the spirit of prophecy having moved her, she told AEneas of the dangers that yet lay before him, dangers far more formidable than any he had hitherto encountered.

"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."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

But AEneas was not discouraged by this terrible prophecy. He was ready, he said, to meet the worst that could come, and now he was about to undertake an enterprise more arduous than any the soothsayers had told him of. This was a descent into the regions of Pluto—the land of the dead—to visit the shade of his father, who in a dream had requested him to do so, telling him that the Cumaean Sibyl would be his guide, for the entrance to the Lower World was near Lake A-ver'nus, not far from the cave of the prophetess.

AEneas, therefore, entreated the Sibyl to consent to be his conductor that so he might comply with his father's wish. In reply to this request the prophetess warned the Trojan chief that the undertaking was one of great danger. The descent into the kingdom of Pluto, she said, was easy, but, to return to the upper world—that was a task difficult for mortals to accomplish. Few there were who had entered the gloomy realms of Dis, to whom it had been permitted ever to retrace their steps.

"The journey down to the abyss
Is prosperous and light;
The palace-gates of gloomy Dis
Stand open day and night;
But upward to retrace the way
And pass into the light of day,
There comes the stress of labor; this
May task a hero's might."
CONINGTON, AEneid, BOOK VI.

Nevertheless if AEneas were still determined on this perilous journey she was willing to aid him and be his guide. But one thing, she said, must first be done. In the woods around the cave was a tree on which grew a bough with leaves and twigs of gold.

No mortal could enter Hades without this bough to present to Pro-ser'pi-na, the queen of Pluto. When the bough was torn off, a second, also of gold, immediately sprung up. It had to be sought for diligently, and when discovered it had to be grasped firmly with the hand. If the fates should be favorable to the enterprise, the bough could be plucked easily; otherwise, the strength of man could not tear it from the tree, nor could it be lopped off even with the sharpest sword.

Here was a formidable difficulty. How was AEneas to find out the wonderful tree? The Sibyl told him only that it was in the woods, and the searching might be long and fruitless. But again his never-failing friend came to his aid. While he was searching the wood with some of his companions, two doves suddenly appeared, and alighted on the ground before them. AEneas knew that they had come from his goddess- mother, the dove being the favorite bird of Venus.

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."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

The branch was soon found, for the doves, fluttering away, yet keeping within view of AEneas, presently perched upon a tree, and from out the foliage of this tree, as the Trojan chief approached it, there flashed upon his eyes the gleam of the golden bough. Eagerly he plucked off the branch, and gladly bore it to the cave of the Sibyl.

They now set out on their perilous journey. At the mouth of the gloomy cavern by the side of Lake Avernus, which was the opening to the road that led to Hades—the kingdom of the dead—they offered sacrifices to the gods. Then they plunged into the cave, the Sibyl going first, and AEneas following with sword drawn, as his guide had directed. Many strange and terrible sights they saw on the way.

Full in the midst an aged elm
Broods darkly o'er the shadowy realm;
There dream-land phantoms rest the wing,
Men say, and 'neath its foliage cling,
And many monstrous shapes beside.
There Centaurs, Scyllas, fish and maid,
There Briareus' hundred-handed shade.
CONINGTON, AEneid, BOOK VI.

AEneas was about to rush on these monsters with his sword, when the Sibyl informed him that they were no real beings but merely phantoms. Then they came to the Styx—the river of Hades, over which the ferryman Cha'ron, grim and long-bearded, conveyed the departed spirits, in his iron-colored boat, using a pole to steer with.

The watery passage Charon keeps
Sole warden of these murky deeps.
CONINGTON, AEneid, BOOK VI.

No living being was permitted to enter Charon's boat, or to cross the Stygian river without the passport of the golden bough. This could be obtained only by special favor of some powerful god, and few had been so favored. Even the dead, if their bodies had not received burial rites, were refused admission to the boat, until they had wandered on the shore for a hundred years. So the Sibyl told AEneas when he inquired why some were ferried over, while others were driven back, lamenting that they were not allowed to pass to their destined abode.

"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."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

One of these unhappy spirits AEneas recognised as that of his pilot Palinurus, who told the hero that he had not been drowned, or plunged into the sea by a god, for he did not know of the treachery of Somnus. He had fallen overboard, he said, and kept afloat for three days, clinging to the helm, which he had dragged away with him. On the fourth day he had swam ashore on the Italian coast, and would have been out of danger, had not the cruel natives there fallen upon him with their swords. His body he said was now tossing about in the waters of the harbor of Ve'li-a, and he begged AEneas to seek it out and give it burial, or, if this was impossible, to devise some means of helping him across the Stygian river. This latter proposal the Sibyl forbade as impious, saying that the decrees of the gods could not be thus altered. But she consoled Palinurus by predicting that the people of Velia should be punished by plagues from heaven until they erected a tomb to his memory, and that the place should forever bear his name. The modern name of the place is Capo di Palinuro—Cape of Palinurus.

[Illustration with caption: AENEAS CROSSING THE STYX. (Drawn by
Varian.)]

AEneas and his guide now approached the river. Charon at once seeing that they were mortal beings, roughly ordered them to advance no further.

"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."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

The Sibyl answered that her companion was the Trojan AEneas, illustrious for piety and valor, who desired to go down to the shades to see and converse with his father Anchises. Then from underneath her robe she produced the golden bough.

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.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

The two mortals were now received into the boat and soon ferried safely to the other side. There they saw the three-headed watchdog Cer'be-rus, who made the dreary region resound with his frightful barking. The Sibyl flung him a cake composed of honey and drugged grain, which he greedily swallowed. Then the monster fell into a deep sleep. The passage being thus free, they proceeded on their way. Soon they came to the place where the judge Mi'nos sat, examining into the lives and crimes of departed mortals.

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.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

In one of the outer regions of the shadowy world he had now entered, a region which the poet calls the "Mourning Fields," AEneas beheld the shade of the unhappy Carthaginian queen.

Whom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view,
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 rumor true, in your reported death,
And I, alas! the cause?—By Heaven, I vow,
And all the powers that rule the realms below,
Unwilling I forsook your friendly state,
Commanded by the gods, and forced by Fate."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

But the mournful shade made no answer to the Trojan hero's vows and regrets.

Disdainfully she looked; then turning round,
She 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 Sichaeus through the shady grove,
Who answered all her cares, and equalled all her love.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

They next came to the Field of Heroes, where AEneas saw the shades of many of his brave comrades of the Trojan war. The ghosts crowded round him, standing on the right hand and on the left. Nor were they satisfied with seeing him once. They wished to detain him a long time, to talk with him and learn the cause of his strange visit. But the Sibyl warned him that they must hasten forward, and presently they came to a place where the path divided itself into two. The right led by the walls of Pluto's palace to the happy Field of E-lys'ium, the land of the blessed. The left path led to Tar'ta-rus, the abode of the wicked. At this place AEneas saw a vast prison, inclosed by a triple wall, around which flowed the Phleg'e-thon, a river of fire. In front of it was a huge gate of solid adamant.

There rolls swift Plegethon, with thund'ring sound,
His broken rocks, and whirls his surges round.
On mighty columns rais'd sublime are hung
The massy gates impenetrably strong.
In vain would men, in vain would gods essay,
To hew the beams of adamant away.
PITT, AEneid, BOOK VI.

Deep groans and the grating of iron and the clanking of chains were heard from out these walls. None except the lost souls the Sibyl said, were allowed to pass the threshold of Tartarus, and the punishments there, and the crimes for which the wicked suffered, were such that she could not tell them though she had a hundred tongues.

"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 punishment those crimes have met."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

Some were punished by being tied to perpetually revolving wheels of fire. This was the fate of a king named Ix-i'on. Others, like the robber Sis'y-phus, were condemned to roll huge stones up a hill, and just on reaching the summit, the stones would slip from their grasp and roll to the foot of the hill, and the unhappy beings had to roll them up again, and so on forever. Others were tortured like Pi-rith'o-us, who stood under a great hanging rock, which threatened every moment to tumble down upon him, keeping him in constant terror.

The Sibyl told AEneas of these and many other punishments appointed by the gods for bad men. Then they hastened to Pluto's palace, and the hero fixed the golden bough on the door, after which, proceeding on their way, they soon came to the Elysian Fields—the abode of those who while on earth had led good and useful lives. Here were delightful green fields and shady groves; the sky was bright, the air pure and balmy. The happy spirits were engaged in sports, such as had been their pleasure when in the world above. Some were wrestling on the grassy plain, others exercising with spear and bow, others singing and dancing.

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.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

On the bank of a beautiful river—the E-rid'a-nus—flowing over sands of gold, was a band of spirits whose heads were crowned with white garlands. These were the spirits of patriots who had fought for their country, poets who had sung the praises of the gods, and men who had improved life by the invention of useful arts. In this band was Mu-sae'us, the most ancient of poets. Approaching him the Sibyl inquired where Anchises might be found. "None of us here," answered Musaeus, "has a fixed abode. We dwell in shady groves, or lie on the banks of crystal streams. But come over this eminence and I will direct you to him you seek."

Musaeus then led them to a spot from which they could view the bright Elysian fields around, and pointed to a green dale where at last they beheld Anchises. The hero hastened to approach his father, eager to embrace him, and thrice did he attempt to throw his arms about his neck, but thrice did the form escape his hold, for it was nothing but thin air.

Thrice, around his neck, his arms he threw
And thrice the flitting shadow slipped away,
Like winds, or empty dreams, that fly the day.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

Anchises told his son much about the dwellers in Elysium. On the banks of the river Lethe—the river of forgetfulness—was a countless multitude of spirits which, he said, were yet to live in earthly bodies. They were the souls of unborn generations of men. Amongst them, he pointed out to AEneas, the spirits of many of those who were to be his own descendants in the kingdom he was to establish in Italy.

The father-spirit leads
The priestess and his son through swarms of shades,
And takes a rising ground, from thence to see
The long procession of his progeny.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.

From this rising ground AEneas saw the shadowy forms of future heroes of Rome—of Rom'u-lus, who was to found the city—of Brutus, Ca-mil'lus, Fa'bi-us, and of the mighty Caesars.

"Lo! Caesar there and all his seed,
Iulus' progeny decreed
To pass 'neath heaven's high dome.
This, this is he, so oft the theme
Of your prophetic fancy's dream,
Augustus Caesar, Jove's own strain."
CONINGTON, AEneid, BOOK VI.

Anchises next told AEneas of the wars he should have to wage, and instructed him how to avoid or overcome every difficulty. Then he conducted his visitors to the gates of Sleep, through which the gods of Hades sent dreams to the upper world—true dreams through the gate of horn, and false dreams through the gate of ivory. Here Anchises left them. Then departing by the ivory gate from the kingdom of the dead, they returned to the Cumaean cave, and AEneas forthwith proceeded to his ships.

Sleep gives his name to portals twain;
One all of horn, they say,
Through which authentic spectres gain
Quick exit into day,
And one which bright with ivory gleams,
Whence Pluto sends delusive dreams.
Conversing still, the sire attends
The travellers on their road,
And through the ivory portal sends
From forth the unseen abode.
The chief betakes him to the fleet,
Well pleased again his crew to meet.
CONINGTON, AEneid, BOOK VI.