Aeneid

His face and bloody hands, his wounded head

Of ears and nostrils infamously shorn.

Scarce could Aeneas know the shuddering shade

That strove to hide its face and shameful scar;

But, speaking first, he said, in their own tongue:

“Deiphobus, strong warrior, nobly born

Of Teucer's royal stem, what ruthless foe

Could wish to wreak on thee this dire revenge?

Who ventured, unopposed, so vast a wrong?

The rumor reached me how, that deadly night,

Wearied with slaying Greeks, thyself didst fall

Prone on a mingled heap of friends and foes.

Then my own hands did for thy honor build

An empty tomb upon the Trojan shore,

And thrice with echoing voice I called thy shade.

Thy name and arms are there. But, 0 my friend,

Thee could I nowhere find, but launched away,

Nor o'er thy bones their native earth could fling.”

To him the son of Priam thus replied:

“Nay, friend, no hallowed rite was left undone,

But every debt to death and pity due

The shades of thy Deiphobus received.

My fate it was, and Helen's murderous wrong,

Wrought me this woe; of her these tokens tell.

For how that last night in false hope we passed,

Thou knowest,—ah, too well we both recall!

When up the steep of Troy the fateful horse

Came climbing, pregnant with fierce men-at-arms,

't was she, accurst, who led the Phrygian dames

In choric dance and false bacchantic song,

And, waving from the midst a lofty brand,

Signalled the Greeks from Ilium's central tower

In that same hour on my sad couch I lay,

Exhausted by long care and sunk in sleep,

That sweet, deep sleep, so close to tranquil death.

But my illustrious bride from all the house

Had stolen all arms; from 'neath my pillowed head

She stealthily bore off my trusty sword;

Then loud on Menelaus did she call,

And with her own false hand unbarred the door;

Such gift to her fond lord she fain would send

To blot the memory of his ancient wrong!

Why tell the tale, how on my couch they broke,

While their accomplice, vile Aeolides,

Counselled to many a crime. 0 heavenly Powers!

Reward these Greeks their deeds of wickedness,

If with clean lips upon your wrath I call!

But, friend, what fortunes have thy life befallen?

Tell point by point. Did waves of wandering seas

Drive thee this way, or some divine command?

What chastisement of fortune thrusts thee on

Toward this forlorn abode of night and cloud?”

While thus they talked, the crimsoned car of Morn

Had wheeled beyond the midmost point of heaven,

On her ethereal road. The princely pair

Had wasted thus the whole brief gift of hours;

But Sibyl spoke the warning: “Night speeds by,

And we, Aeneas, lose it in lamenting.

Here comes the place where cleaves our way in twain.

Thy road, the right, toward Pluto's dwelling goes,

And leads us to Elysium. But the left

Speeds sinful souls to doom, and is their path

To Tartarus th' accurst.” Deiphobus

Cried out: “0 priestess, be not wroth with us!

Back to the ranks with yonder ghosts I go.

0 glory of my race, pass on! Thy lot

Be happier than mine!” He spoke, and fled.

Aeneas straightway by the leftward cliff

Beheld a spreading rampart, high begirt

With triple wall, and circling round it ran

A raging river of swift floods of flame,

Infernal Phlegethon, which whirls along

Loud-thundering rocks. A mighty gate is there

Columned in adamant; no human power,

Nor even the gods, against this gate prevail.

Tall tower of steel it has; and seated there

Tisiphone, in blood-flecked pall arrayed,

Sleepless forever, guards the entering way.

Hence groans are heard, fierce cracks of lash and scourge,

Loud-clanking iron links and trailing chains.

Aeneas motionless with horror stood

o'erwhelmed at such uproar. “0 virgin, say

What shapes of guilt are these? What penal woe

Harries them thus? What wailing smites the air?”

To whom the Sibyl, “Far-famed prince of Troy,

The feet of innocence may never pass

Into this house of sin. But Hecate,

When o'er th' Avernian groves she gave me power,

Taught me what penalties the gods decree,

And showed me all. There Cretan Rhadamanth

His kingdom keeps, and from unpitying throne

Chastises and lays bare the secret sins

Of mortals who, exulting in vain guile,

Elude till death, their expiation due.

There, armed forever with her vengeful scourge,

Tisiphone, with menace and affront,

The guilty swarm pursues; in her left hand

She lifts her angered serpents, while she calls

A troop of sister-furies fierce as she.

Then, grating loud on hinge of sickening sound,