Æneas answered that no prospect of further trials could appall him, for he
was prepared to endure the worst that could befall. But he now entreated,
since it was said that the entrance to the shades was near, that the Sibyl
should conduct him into those dark regions, in order that he might obtain
an interview with the spectre of his father. It was Anchises' self, he
added, who had bidden him make this request; and filial devotion would
enable him to perform a task which Orpheus had achieved out of love for
his wife Eurydice, and Pollux through his attachment to his brother
Castor.
"Æneas," replied the priestess, "easy is the descent into Hades: grim
Pluto's gate stands open night and day, but to retrace your steps and
escape to the upper regions will be a difficult task indeed, and one which
few have hitherto been able to accomplish. If, however, you are fixed in
the resolve to pursue so desperate an enterprise, learn what first is to
be done. There is in the dark woods which surround the Lake of Avernus a
certain tree, dense of foliage, on which grows a single bough of gold,
with leaves and twigs of the same precious metal, and no living mortal can
enter Hades unless he has first found and plucked this bough, which is
demanded by Proserpine, the consort of Pluto and queen of the infernal
realms, as her peculiar tribute. When the bough is torn off, another
always grows in its place. Therefore search for it diligently, and when
you have discovered it grasp it with your hand. If the Fates are
propitious to your enterprise, you will be able to pluck it easily; if
otherwise, your whole strength could not tear it from the tree, nor could
you ever sever it with your sword. In the mean time the body of one of
your friends lies lifeless, and demands the funeral rites. First bury him
with proper ceremonies, and then return to me with black cattle for the
sacrifices; and then you shall be able to visit the realms of Hades, to
which most living men are denied an entrance."
With sorrowful thoughts Æneas, closely followed by Achates, now withdrew
from the shrine, and took the way to the shore. Both were greatly
perplexed to know what was the corpse needing burial of which the Sibyl
had spoken. But while they were wondering they came to the beach, and
there, before them, they saw lying the body of Misenus, who had come to a
lamentable end. Misenus was the most skilled among all the Trojans in the
art of blowing the trumpet. He had been, besides, a famous warrior, and
during the siege of Troy was accustomed to be the companion of Hector in
the field, and to fight by his side. When Hector fell, he attached himself
to Æneas, scorning to follow any less illustrious chief, and so had formed
one of the band which the hero was conducting to Latium. But he was
inordinately vain of his skill with the trumpet, and believed himself
superior even to the Tritons, the sea-deities whose especial province it
was to lull the seas at the command of Neptune by blowing upon instruments
made of shells. These Tritons Misenus had challenged to a trial of skill,
and by way of defiance had blown so loud a note that the deities were
afraid to respond to his challenge; but being full of jealousy, they had
now contrived to lure him into the sea and drown him. The discovery of his
lifeless body filled all his comrades with sadness. They gathered about
him with loud lamentations, and then prepared to erect his funeral pyre,
hastening with axes into the thick surrounding woods, and cutting down
huge oaks and pines and ash-trees.
Æneas himself led the way in the performance of this task, and while he
was engaged in it he could not help exclaiming, as his glance surveyed the
wide forest, "Would that I could now perceive the golden bough which I
must find before entering Hades; for in this ample forest, how can I begin
to search for it?" Scarcely had he spoken when two pigeons suddenly
swooped down from the upper air and alighted at his feet. He guessed at
once that these doves, his mother's favorite birds, had been sent for his
guidance, and he entreated them to conduct him to the place where the
precious bough was growing. The doves, feeding and flying by turns,
advanced through the wood at such a speed that Æneas could easily keep
them in sight, and presently, having reached the very edge of Lake
Avernus, both rose at once into the air, and settled on a great tree of
very dense foliage. The hero hastened to the spot, and there indeed, on
one of the lower limbs of the tree, gleamed the bough, the rich yellow
lustre of its leaves and twigs contrasting vividly with the deep green of
the surrounding foliage. Æneas with delight grasped it, and plucked it
from its place, and, bearing it carefully in his hand, hastened to rejoin
his companions.
They, in the mean time, had reared on the shore a vast pile of logs of
pine and oak, the sides of which they had interlaced with smaller boughs.
After having carefully washed and purified the body of Misenus, they first
made a couch upon the pyre, with the apparel of the dead man, and then,
with renewed cries of grief, placed the body upon it. His arms, too, they
laid beside him, and having poured incense and oil abundantly upon the
pile, they set it on fire. When only smouldering embers were left, these
were quenched with wine, and the ashes of the dead were carefully
collected and placed in a brazen urn. This urn was afterwards deposited in
a lofty tomb which Æneas erected on a promontory that henceforth bore the
name of Misenus.
The funeral ceremonies having thus duly been performed, the hero proceeded
to the cave of the Sibyl, and called upon her to fulfill her promise, and
accompany him to the kingdom of the dead. She led him to the mouth of the
black cavern at the side of Lake Avernus, and there offered up sacrifices
of black cattle and sheep, uttering various invocations. Presently the
ground began to rumble beneath their feet; upon which the Sibyl ordered
those of Æneas's followers who had attended him to withdraw from the spot,
and exhorted the chief himself, drawing his sword from its sheath, to
march firmly forward. So saying she plunged into the cave, nor did he
hesitate to follow.
At first they moved along through a region that was utterly waste, void,
and covered with an intense gloom, deep as that of a winter's night when
the moon is obscured by clouds. But this desolate tract was not wholly
untenanted, for Æneas saw flitting about certain hideous shadowy forms.
The spirits of Grief and Revenge and pale Disease, Fear and Famine and
deformed Indigence, had their abode in this vestibule of Hades; and so,
too, Death and Toil, and murderous War, and frantic Discord, her head
crowned with curling vipers and bound by a blood-dyed fillet. Here, also,
were the iron chambers in which dwelt the terrible Furies. In the midst
rose a gloomy elm, which was the haunt of vain Dreams, who dwelt under
every leaf. Beyond this tree were many huge and misshapen
monsters,--Centaurs, and double-formed Scyllas, and the great dragon of
the Lernæan lake, which, when it plagued the upper earth, was slain by
Hercules. Here, also, was the huge Chimæra, with its three heads vomiting
flames; Gorgons, Harpies, and other ghastly forms flitted about. At so
fearful a sight. Æneas was seized with sudden fear; he drew his sword, and
would have struck at the monsters, if the Sibyl had not restrained his
hand and reminded him that they were but disembodied shadows.
The path now led them to a place where the three infernal rivers, Acheron,
Cocytus, and Styx, met in one deep, black, and boiling flood. Here there
kept guard the grim ferryman Charon, an infernal deity of fearful aspect.
A long gray beard fell all tangled and neglected from his chin; his filthy
and ragged garments were knotted over his shoulders; his eyes glittered
with baleful light. He sat on a great black barge, which he pushed to and
fro across the river with a pole. An immense crowd of shades was
incessantly pouring to the banks,--young and old, matrons and virgins,
warriors who had endured the toils of a long life and tender boys who had
died while yet under the care of their parents. All were eager to cross
the stream, and stretched their hands in earnest entreaty to Charon to
admit them into his boat. But the sullen ferryman only consented to
receive some; others he drove back with his pole, and would on no account
permit them to cross.
Æneas was amazed at this scene, and asked the Sibyl to explain to him its
meaning. "You see before you," she replied, "the deep pools of Cocytus,
and the Stygian lake, by which the Gods are accustomed to swear when they
take an oath which they dare not violate. All that crowd which Charon will
not ferry across is composed of persons who after death received not the
rites of burial; those only are permitted to enter the boat who have been
interred with proper ceremonies. As for the others, they wander unquiet
about these shores for a hundred years before they are allowed to cross to
the regions beyond."
When Æneas heard this he was filled with sadness, for among the spectres
of the unburied who crowded on the bank he saw many of his own comrades
who had perished during the storms he had had to encounter during his long
voyages. As he looked, there advanced, slow and mournful, the pilot
Palinurus, who had been thrown overboard by Somnus during the recent
voyage from Sicily. The hero accosted him, and asked him what god had torn
him from his post and overwhelmed him in the midst of the ocean. The
oracle of Apollo, he said, had assured him that Palinurus would be safe on
the sea, and would arrive on the Italian coast; and yet it would seem that
the oracle had been falsified. The shade of Palinurus, knowing nothing of
the enchantment which had been wrought on him by Somnus, replied that no
god had destroyed him, and that the oracle had spoken truly. He had fallen
into the sea through being overcome by slumber, and having kept afloat for
three days and nights, had on the fourth day reached the Italian shore
alive, but had been cruelly murdered by the savage people while clambering
up the cliffs. Now his body was tossing on the waves, sometimes thrown on
the shore and then washed off again. But he passionately entreated Æneas
either to find his corpse and inter it with proper solemnities, or else to
contrive some means of taking him as his companion across the black waters
of Styx, unburied as he was, that at last his soul might find rest. The
Sibyl, however, rebuked him for expressing so impious a desire, and for
hoping that the fixed decrees of the Gods could be violated for the
benefit of one insignificant mortal. But by way of consolation she
informed him that the people of the country where he had met with his
death, compelled by terrible plagues sent by Jupiter, would offer solemn
atonement to his remains, erect a tomb to his memory, and give his name to
the place where it stood.
Æneas and the Sibyl now advanced toward the river; but when Charon saw
them approaching, he called out, "Whoever thou mayest be that art now
coming armed and in life to our rivers, say quickly on what errand thou
art coming. This is the region of ghosts and death; to waft over the
bodies of the living in my boat is not permitted. Nor was it joyful to me
to receive Hercules when he came, nor Theseus and Pirithous, though they
were descendants of the Gods and unconquerable in war. Hercules dared to
bind in chains Cerberus himself, the keeper of the gate of Tartarus, and
dragged him trembling from the very throne of Pluto. The others attempted
a feat scarcely less perilous, for they sought to carry off our queen
Proserpine."
"Be not disturbed," answered the Sibyl; "we at least meditate no such
plots, nor does this mortal bring with him his arms for any purpose of
violence. He is Æneas of Troy, illustrious for piety and skill in arms,
and he penetrates these gloomy abodes to have converse with his father
Anchises. If your compassion is not moved by his filial devotion, at least
pay regard to this branch." And so saying, she produced the golden bough.
The surly ferryman, though filled with rage at being forced to obey, was
at once silenced. He brought his boat to the bank, and silently received
into it Æneas and his companion, driving back the ghosts that at the same
time eagerly strove to enter the vessel. It was old and leaky, and sank
deep in the black flood under the unaccustomed weight of living mortals;
but Charon ferried them safely across, and landed them on the farther
side, where, in a huge den at the gate of the infernal regions, lay
Cerberus, the terrible three-headed dog which was the guardian of the
place--a ferocious brute which only Hercules among living men had been
able to subdue. When Æneas approached he opened his huge jaws and made all
Hades resound with his barking; but the Sibyl threw to him a medicated
cake, which he at once devoured, and was thereby lulled into profound
sleep. The way was now safe; the Trojan chief and his companion passed
quickly through the open gate, and entered the dread region where Minos
and his fellow judges pronounced on the fate of each ghost that came
before them.
The first place within the gate was assigned to the shades of infants, cut
off in the very beginning of life, who filled their allotted region with
loud wailings and weeping. Beyond these were placed persons who had been
put to death in consequence of false accusations. Not even the unjust
suffering which such persons had endured on earth could at once procure
for them a place among those happy spirits declared free of guilt. Here
they were doomed to wait till the inexorable Minos examined each case and
gave his award. Immediately adjoining was the place allotted to those who,
though unstained by crime, had become weary of life and had committed
self-destruction. Gladly, indeed, would they have now returned to the
upper world they had despised, but no such return was possible to them.
Æneas and his companion next viewed a region named the Fields of
Mourning,--a wide tract, with shady paths and thick myrtle groves,
dedicated to those who had died through unrequited love, and were held to
have been emancipated by the miseries they had endured on earth from
suffering any punishment below. Here were to be seen, wandering
disconsolately, many women of whom Æneas had heard in old legends of
Greece and Troy. Among them he beheld, with sorrow and pity, the
ill-starred Queen of Carthage, the wound she had herself inflicted yet
gaping in her fair bosom. "Dido!" he exclaimed with tears, "was it then a
true rumor that reached me of your having died after my departure, and by
your own hand? If I have been the cause of your death, I am indeed
unhappy. By all I hold sacred, fair queen, I swear to you that it was
against my own will I quitted Carthage. The will of the Gods, which now
has brought me, while yet living, into these melancholy realms, drove me
from you; but I dreamt not that our separation would bring upon you such
extreme suffering. Why will you not speak to me? Why do you fly from me?
Never again will the Fates permit us to meet together." But all his
entreaties and his tears were vain. The spectre gazed upon him awhile with
eyes of inexorable hate, and then turned away, with a gesture of
unrelenting aversion, to a shady recess near by, where she was joined by
the ghost of her first lord, Sichæus, who by the compassion of Pluto had
been permitted to bear her company. Æneas resumed his journey, pondering
sadly over the fate of the woman who but a little since had loved him so
ardently and to whom he had unwillingly brought such misfortunes. He and
his guide now came to a place dedicated to the shades of renowned
warriors. Here he saw numbers of those brave Trojans, once his companions
in arms, who had fallen before Troy. They eagerly crowded around him,
pressed his hands, and questioned him as to the circumstances which had
brought him, while yet alive, amongst them. There, too, were many Greeks
who had perished during the Trojan war; but when they beheld the hero in
the flesh, and wearing his gleaming armor, they fled from him in dismay.
As he passed on, after exchanging affectionate words with many of his old
comrades, he met Deïphobus, that son of Priam who, after the death of
Paris, became the husband of Helen. The spectre of the prince was cruelly
mutilated,--so that Æneas scarcely knew him. "Who, O Deïphobus," he
exclaimed, "could have inflicted such shameful wounds upon you? After I
had escaped from Troy a story was brought to me that you had indeed
perished, but honorably and in fair fight, having slain many of the enemy.
Then I erected in your honor an empty tomb on the shore under Mount Ida,
and offered proper funeral rites, for your body I was unable to find."
"You, my friend," answered Deïphobus, "omitted no duty towards my corpse
that you could perform. But I owe my death and these infamous wounds to
the wickedness of Helen; they are the marks of her love. On the night
after the fatal horse was brought into Troy, I was lying asleep in my
chamber, enjoying needful repose. Then my faithless wife removed all the
arms from my palace, and even took away my sword from the side of my
couch. That done, she threw open the gates, and herself summoned her
former husband, Menelaus, and he and Ulysses burst into my apartment and
inflicted on me these wounds, for which I pray the Gods that they may be
requited."
Æneas would have spent yet more time in conversing with the shades of his
former comrades; but the Sibyl reminded him that the hour was approaching
when he must return to the upper world. "Here," she said, "the path is
divided. To the right, past the palace of Pluto, lies our way to the
Elysian Fields; on the left is the way to Tartarus, the place of
punishment for the wicked."
As they proceeded toward Elysium, Æneas looked around him, and beheld to
the left a vast prison, enclosed by mighty walls, at the foot of which ran
Phlegethon, the river of fire, whirling along great rocks in its furious
current. Across the stream, just opposite to where he was standing, was a
lofty gate, with columns of solid adamant. In an iron tower adjoining sat
Tisiphone, the eldest of the Furies, watching the gate. From within sounds
were heard--groans of pain, the sound of cruel lashes, and the clanking of
chains. Æneas asked his companion what punishments were being inflicted
within, and who were the sufferers. "This," replied the Sibyl, "is
Tartarus, whereinto no righteous person can enter. Here Rhadamanthus
presides: he searches into the deeds of all who are sent hither, obliges
them to confess all the crimes they have committed in the upper world, and
awards the punishment. As soon as the sentence is pronounced, Tisiphone
scourges the doomed one with a whip of scorpions, and then consigns him to
the fierce attendants of her sister Furies. Immediately the gates,
creaking on their hinges, fly open. Within, the entrance is guarded by a
hideous Hydra, with fifty black and gaping mouths. In the pit of Tartarus
beyond, the giants who waged war against the ruler of the Gods lie
prostrated by his thunderbolts. Beside them, enduring terrible tortures,
is Salmoneus. He was a king of Elis in Greece, and was so puffed up by
pride that he rode through his city on a high chariot drawn by four
prancing horses, waving in his hand a torch, and pretending to be Jupiter
himself, wielding his thunderbolts. The Almighty Sire punished his impiety
by hurling from Olympus a real thunderbolt, which deprived him of life;
and now he pays the penalty of his mad pride by eternal sufferings in
Tartarus. There also lies Tityus, the huge giant who, having insulted the
goddess Latona, was slain by the darts of her children, Apollo and Diana,
and whose writhing body now lies extended over nine acres of ground, while
insatiable vultures perpetually prey on his vitals, that are renewed as
fast as they are devoured. Beyond him is Ixion, bound to a wheel that
never ceases to revolve, while he is scourged by attendant Furies. He it
was who, being admitted to Olympus by the generosity of Jupiter himself,
dared to seek the love of the queen of the Gods. Not less dreadful is the
punishment allotted to Pirithous, who, along with Theseus, endeavored to
carry off the Queen of Hades, Proserpine, from the side of Pluto. Over his
head hangs a huge rock, which every moment seems about to fall and crush
him, but yet never actually descends; moreover, he is plagued with a
gnawing hunger, and a rich banquet is always before him, which yet he is
never able to reach. Myriads of other unhappy shades, whose course on
earth has been stained by detestable crime, here expiate the evil they
have done; but had I a hundred mouths and a hundred tongues, I could not
recount all their offenses and the varieties of their punishment. It is
necessary that we should go forward, since yonder stands the palace of
Pluto, where thou, O Æneas, must deposit the bough which has gained thee
admission here."
Obedient to his guide, Æneas advanced to the vast portals of the palace
where Pluto, the brother of Jupiter and monarch of the infernal kingdom,
had his abode with his lovely queen Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres,
whom ages before he had carried off from the upper world. There he made
due reverence before the goddess, and deposited the golden bough at her
feet. Advancing beyond, Æneas and the Sibyl came at last to the Elysian
Fields,--the abode of joy assigned to those who during life had been
distinguished for piety, virtue, and heroic actions. Here were lovely
green fields and pleasant groves; the air was pure and balmy, the sky was
blue, and all was glowing-in the light of the blessed sun. Some of the
happy spirits who dwelt in this region were amusing themselves by
wrestling on the greensward, and other sports in which they had delighted
on earth, such as chariot-racing, exercises with the spear and the bow.
Others were dancing and singing to the delicious notes which Orpheus, the
most skillful of musicians, produced from his lyre. On the bank of the
river Eridanus, which pours its clear waters through Elysium over sands of
gold, were gathered a band whose heads were adorned with snow-white
fillets. These were priests who had kept unstained the purity and sanctity
of their office; poets who had sung the praises of the Gods in immortal
verse; and those who had made human life more happy by the invention of
useful arts. Among them the Sibyl sought out Musseus, the father of the
poets, and besought him to reveal in what retreat they should find
Anchises, on whose account she and her companion had traversed all the
regions of the shades.
"None of us," answered the venerable shade, "have here any fixed abode. We
wander at our will among the shady groves and by the pleasant banks of the
river. But if you mount with me this little eminence, I will show you him
whom you seek."
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."