In the midst there stands, with boughs and aged arms 25

outspread, a massive elm, of broad shade, the chosen

seat, so Rumour tells, of bodiless dreams, which cling

close to its every leaf. There, too, are a hundred monstrous

shapes of wild beasts of divers kinds, Centaurs

stalled in the entrance and two-formed Scyllas, and 30

Briareus,[215] the hundred-handed, and the portent of Lerna,[216]

hissing fearfully, and Chimæra[217] in her panoply of flames,

Gorgons,[218] and Harpies, and the semblance of the three-bodied

spectre. At once Æneas grasps his sword, in the