Æneas wondered at the press, and moved thereby he spoke:
"Say, Maid, what means this river-side, and gathering of the folk?
What seek the souls, and why must some depart the river's rim,
While others with the sweep of oars the leaden waters skim?"320

Thereon the ancient Maid of Days in few words answered thus:
"Anchises' seed, thou very child of Godhead glorious,
Thou seest the deep Cocytus' pools, thou seest the Stygian mere,
By whose might Gods will take the oath, and all forswearing fear:
But all the wretched crowd thou seest are they that lack a grave,
And Charon is the ferryman: those borne across the wave
Are buried: none may ever cross the awful roaring road
Until their bones are laid at rest within their last abode.
An hundred years they stray about and wander round the shore,
Then they at last have grace to gain the pools desired so sore."330

There tarried then Anchises' child and stayed awhile his feet,
Mid many thoughts, and sore at heart, for such a doom unmeet:
And there he saw all sorrowful, without the death-dues dead,
Leucaspis, and Orontes, he that Lycian ship-host led;
Whom, borne from Troy o'er windy plain, the South wind utterly
O'erwhelming, sank him, ships and men, in swallow of the sea.
And lo ye now, where Palinure the helmsman draweth nigh,
Who lately on the Libyan sea, noting the starry sky,
Fell from the high poop headlong down mid wavy waters cast.
His sad face through the plenteous dusk Æneas knew at last,340
And spake:
"What God, O Palinure, did snatch thee so away
From us thy friends and drown thee dead amidst the watery way?
Speak out! for Seer Apollo, found no guileful prophet erst,
By this one answer in my soul a lying hope hath nursed;
Who sang of thee safe from the deep and gaining field and fold
Of fair Ausonia: suchwise he his plighted word doth hold!"

The other spake: "Apollo's shrine in nowise lied to thee,
King of Anchises, and no God hath drowned me in the sea:
But while I clung unto the helm, its guard ordained of right,
And steered thee on, I chanced to fall, and so by very might350
Seaward I dragged it down with me. By the rough seas I swear
My heart, for any hap of mine, had no so great a fear
As for thy ship; lest, rudderless, its master from it torn,
Amid so great o'ertoppling seas it yet might fail forlorn.
Three nights of storm I drifted on, 'neath wind and water's might,
Over the sea-plain measureless; but with the fourth day's light
There saw I Italy rise up from welter of the wave.
And striving with my hookèd hands hold on the rocks to get:360
Then slow I swam unto the land, that me well-nigh did save,
But fell the cruel folk on me, heavy with raiment wet,
The fools, they took me for a prey, and steel against me bore.
Now the waves have me, and the winds on sea-beach roll me o'er.
But by the breath of heaven above, by daylight's joyous ways,
By thine own father, by the hope of young Iulus' days,
Snatch me, O dauntless, from these woes, and o'er me cast the earth!
As well thou may'st when thou once more hast gained the Veline firth.
Or if a way there be, if way thy Goddess-mother show,—
For not without the will of Gods meseemeth wouldst thou go
O'er so great floods, or have a mind to swim the Stygian mere,—
Then give thine hand, and o'er the wave me woeful with thee bear,370
That I at least in quiet place may rest when I am dead."

So spake he, but the priestess straight such word unto him said:
"O Palinure, what godless mind hath gotten hold of thee,
That thou the grim Well-willers' stream and Stygian flood wouldst see
Unburied, and unbidden still the brim wilt draw anear?
Hope not the Fates of very God to change by any prayer.
But take this memory of my words to soothe thy wretched case:
Through all their cities far and wide the people of the place,
Driven by mighty signs from heaven, thy bones shall expiate
And raise thee tomb, and year by year with worship on thee wait;380
And there the name of Palinure shall dwell eternally."

So at that word his trouble lulled, his grief of heart passed by,
A little while he joyed to think of land that bore his name.

So forth upon their way they went and toward the river came;
But when from Stygian wave their path the shipman's gaze did meet,
As through the dead hush of the grove shoreward they turned their feet,
He fell upon them first with words and unbid chided them:

"Whoe'er ye be who come in arms unto our river's hem,
Say what ye be! yea, speak from thence and stay your steps forthright!
This is the very place of shades, and sleep, and sleepful night;390
And living bodies am I banned in Stygian keel to bear.
Nor soothly did I gain a joy, giving Alcides fare,
Or ferrying of Pirithoüs and Theseus time agone,
Though come of God they were and matched in valiancy of none:
He sought the guard of Tartarus chains on his limbs to lay,
And from the King's own seat he dragged the quaking beast away:
Those strove to carry off the Queen from great Dis' very bed."

The Amphrysian prophet answering, few words unto him said:
"But here are no such guiles as this, so let thy wrath go by:
Our weapons bear no war; for us still shall the door-ward lie400
And bark in den, and fright the ghosts, the bloodless, evermore:
Nor shall chaste Proserpine for us pass through her kinsman's door:
Trojan Æneas, great in arms and great in godly grace,
Goes down through dark of Erebus to see his father's face.
But if such guise of piety may move thine heart no whit,
At least this bough "—(bared from her weed therewith she showeth it)—
"Know ye!"
Then in his swelling heart adown the anger sank,
Nor spake he more; but wondering at that gift a God might thank,
The fateful stem, now seen once more so long a time worn by,
He turned about his coal-blue keel and drew the bank anigh410
The souls upon the long thwarts set therewith he thrusteth out,
And clears the gangway, and withal takes in his hollow boat
The huge Æneas, 'neath whose weight the seamed boat groans and creaks,
And plenteous water of the mere lets in at many leaks.
At last the Hero and the Maid safe o'er the watery way
He leaveth on the ugly mire and sedge of sorry grey.

The three-mouthed bark of Cerberus here filleth all the place,
As huge he lieth in a den that hath them full in face:
But when the adders she beheld upon his crest upborne,
A sleepy morsel honey-steeped, and blent of wizards' corn,420
She cast him: then his threefold throat, all wild with hunger's lack,
He opened wide, and caught at it, and sank his monstrous back,
And there he lay upon the earth enormous through the cave.
Æneas caught upon the pass the door-ward's slumber gave,
And fled the bank of that sad stream no man may pass again.
And many sounds they heard therewith, a wailing vast and vain;
For weeping souls of speechless babes round the first threshold lay,
Whom, without share of life's delight, snatched from the breast away,
The black day hurried off, and all in bitter ending hid.
And next were those condemned to die for deed they never did:430
For neither doom nor judge nor house may any lack in death:
The seeker Minos shakes the urn, and ever summoneth
The hushed-ones' court, and learns men's lives and what against them stands.