Here, first of all, four black-skinned steers the priestess sets in line,
And on the foreheads of all these out-pours the bowl of wine.
Then 'twixt the horns she culleth out the topmost of the hair,
And lays it on the holy fire, the first-fruits offered there,
And cries aloud on Hecaté, of might in heaven and hell;
While others lay the knife to throat and catch the blood that fell
Warm in the bowls: Æneas then an ewe-lamb black of fleece
Smites down with sword to her that bore the dread Eumenides,250
And her great sister; and a cow yet barren slays aright
To thee, O Proserpine, and rears the altars of the night
Unto the Stygian King, and lays whole bulls upon the flame,
Pouring rich oil upon the flesh that rush of fire o'ercame.
But now, when sunrise is at hand, and dawning of the day,
The earth falls moaning 'neath their feet, the wooded ridges sway,
And dogs seem howling through the dusk as now she drew anear
The Goddess. "O be far away, ye unclean!" cries the seer.
"Be far away! ah, get ye gone from all the holy wood!
But thou, Æneas, draw thy steel and take thee to the road;260
Now needeth all thine hardihood and steadfast heart and brave."
She spake, and wildly cast herself amidst the hollow cave,
But close upon her fearless feet Æneas followeth.
O Gods, who rule the ghosts of men, O silent shades of death,
Chaos and Phlegethon, hushed lands that lie beneath the night!
Let me speak now, for I have heard: O aid me with your might
To open things deep sunk in earth, and mid the darkness blent.
All dim amid the lonely night on through the dusk they went,
On through the empty house of Dis, the land of nought at all.
E'en as beneath the doubtful moon, when niggard light doth fall270
Upon some way amid the woods, when God hath hidden heaven,
And black night from the things of earth the colours dear hath driven.
Lo, in the first of Orcus' jaws, close to the doorway side,
The Sorrows and Avenging Griefs have set their beds to bide;
There the pale kin of Sickness dwells, and Eld, the woeful thing,
And Fear, and squalid-fashioned Lack, and witless Hungering,
Shapes terrible to see with eye; and Toil of Men, and Death,
And Sleep, Death's brother, and the Lust of Soul that sickeneth:
And War, the death-bearer, was set full in the threshold's way,
And those Well-willers' iron beds: there heartless Discord lay,280
Whose viper-breeding hair about was bloody-filleted.
But in the midst a mighty elm, dusk as the night, outspread
Its immemorial boughs and limbs, where lying dreams there lurk,
As tells the tale, still clinging close 'neath every leaf-side mirk.
Withal most wondrous, many-shaped are all the wood-beasts there;
The Centaurs stable by the porch, and twi-shaped Scyllas fare,
And hundred-folded Briareus, and Lerna's Worm of dread
Fell hissing; and Chimæra's length and fire-behelmèd head,
Gorgons and Harpies, and the shape of that three-bodied Shade.
Then smitten by a sudden fear Æneas caught his blade,290
And turned the naked point and edge against their drawing nigh;
And but for her wise word that these were thin lives flitting by
All bodiless, and wrapped about in hollow shape and vain,
With idle sword had he set on to cleave the ghosts atwain.
To Acheron of Tartarus from hence the road doth go,
That mire-bemingled, whirling wild, rolls on his desert flow,
And all amid Cocytus' flood casteth his world of sand.
This flood and river's ferrying doth Charon take in hand,
Dread in his squalor: on his chin untrimmed the hoar hair lies
Most plenteous; and unchanging flame bides in his staring eyes:300
Down from his shoulders hangs his gear in filthy knot upknit;
And he himself poles on his ship, and tends the sails of it,
And crawls with load of bodies lost in bark all iron-grey,
Grown old by now: but fresh and green is godhead's latter day.
Down thither rushed a mighty crowd, unto the flood-side borne;
Mothers and men, and bodies there with all the life outworn
Of great-souled heroes; many a boy and never-wedded maid,
And youths before their fathers' eyes upon the death-bale laid:
As many as the leaves fall down in first of autumn cold;
As many as the gathered fowl press on to field and fold,310
From off the weltering ocean-flood, when the late year and chill
Hath driven them across the sea the sunny lands to fill.
There stood the first and prayed him hard to waft their bodies o'er,
With hands stretched out for utter love of that far-lying shore.
But that grim sailor now takes these, now those from out the band,
While all the others far away he thrusteth from the sand.