As he spoke, he led them to a spot where they could survey all the shining plains around, and pointed to where Anchises, reclined in a secluded vale, was surveying the souls of his descendants who were destined in future times to visit the earth, and were enacting beforehand the achievements they were fated to accomplish during life. As soon as he saw Æneas advancing toward him, he rose with hands stretched out and joyful tears pouring down his face.
“Are you indeed,” he exclaimed, “come to me at last, my son? Am I permitted once more to see your face, and to listen to the tones of your dear voice? Now indeed the hopes which I cherished are fulfilled. By how many dangers have you been threatened since we parted! I was filled with dread lest you should be prevented from accomplishing your task by the temptations which beset you at Carthage.”
“Thy apparition, beloved father,” answered Æneas, “continually appearing to me in dreams, urged me forward even to these regions. Permit me now to clasp thee in my arms, and do not withdraw from my embrace.” Thrice did he attempt to throw his arms about the shade, which being only composed of thin air, was not perceptible to his touch. While the two conversed together, Æneas observed at no great distance from them a stream, at which prodigious numbers of ghosts were incessantly crowding to drink, swarming like bees round their hive. Astonished at this spectacle, the hero inquired of his father what that stream was, and why those spectres were so eager to drink of it. “These,” answered Anchises, “are souls destined by fate to occupy other bodies in the upper world; and the stream is Lethe, one draught of which is sufficient to destroy all recollection of their former condition.”
“But surely,” said Æneas, “it is not to be believed that any souls which have tasted the delights of this abode will be desirous to return again to the life of earth, with its uncertainties and its miseries. How comes it that this impulse possesses them?”
In reply to this question, Anchises entered into a long explanation, the substance of which was that all the spirits of the departed had to endure in the regions below a process of expiation for their earthly sins, longer or shorter according to the nature of their transgressions. Those that were not consigned to the pains of Tartarus entered the Elysian Fields, where, after they had remained a thousand years, they were summoned to drink of the waters of Lethe, and thus lose all recollection of their former lives; after which, being purified from all stain, they were fitted to return to the upper world and inhabit new bodies. Anchises added that he would show to his son the forms of his own descendants in the Italian kingdom he was destined to establish, and would trace for him their achievements. Leading Æneas and the Sibyl onto a rising ground, in the midst of the souls which were crowding about the magic stream of Lethe, he pointed out to him a long array of future kings of Latium,—Silvius, who was to be the son of Æneas’s old age by his consort Lavinia; Procas, Capys, and Numitor, destined to be monarchs of Alba Longa; and Romulus, the future founder of the great city of Rome, which would extend over seven hills, and would spread her dominion over the whole earth. Not far from these were the souls of Romulus’s successors in the’ early days of Rome,—Numa Pompilius, who first would give his country laws, and encourage the arts of peace; Tullus Hostilius, who would wage victorious wars, and extend the territories of Rome; Ancus Martius, not less successful in the field; and Tarquin, destined to lose the throne through his oppressive reign. Anchises proceeded to indicate to his wondering son many of the patriots and generals who in future years were to contribute to the glory and power of the Roman State,—more especially the great Julius Caesar, the lineal descendant of Æneas himself; and Augustus, who would once more establish the golden age in Latium, and whose empire would extend to countries as yet unknown. The venerable shade concluded his forecast of the future with a splendid description of the part which Rome was destined to play in the world’s history:—
“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; describes the skies,
And when the stars descend, and when they rise: