Aeneid

Hell's portals open wide. 0, dost thou see

What sentinel upon that threshold sits,

What shapes of fear keep guard upon that gloom?

Far, far within the dragon Hydra broods

With half a hundred mouths, gaping and black;

And Tartarus slopes downward to the dark

Twice the whole space that in the realms of light

Th' Olympian heaven above our earth aspires. —

Here Earth's first offspring, the Titanic brood,

Roll lightning-blasted in the gulf profound;

The twin Aloidae , colossal shades,

Came on my view; their hands made stroke at Heaven

And strove to thrust Jove from his seat on high.

I saw Salmoneus his dread stripes endure,

Who dared to counterfeit Olympian thunder

And Jove's own fire. In chariot of four steeds,

Brandishing torches, he triumphant rode

Through throngs of Greeks, o'er Elis' sacred way,

Demanding worship as a god. 0 fool!

To mock the storm's inimitable flash—

With crash of hoofs and roll of brazen wheel!

But mightiest Jove from rampart of thick cloud

Hurled his own shaft, no flickering, mortal flame,

And in vast whirl of tempest laid him low.

Next unto these, on Tityos I looked,

Child of old Earth, whose womb all creatures bears:

Stretched o'er nine roods he lies; a vulture huge

Tears with hooked beak at his immortal side,

Or deep in entrails ever rife with pain

Gropes for a feast, making his haunt and home

In the great Titan bosom; nor will give

To ever new-born flesh surcease of woe.

Why name Ixion and Pirithous,

The Lapithae, above whose impious brows

A crag of flint hangs quaking to its fall,

As if just toppling down, while couches proud,

Propped upon golden pillars, bid them feast

In royal glory: but beside them lies

The eldest of the Furies, whose dread hands

Thrust from the feast away, and wave aloft

A flashing firebrand, with shrieks of woe.

Here in a prison-house awaiting doom

Are men who hated, long as life endured,

Their brothers, or maltreated their gray sires,

Or tricked a humble friend; the men who grasped

At hoarded riches, with their kith and kin

Not sharing ever—an unnumbered throng;

Here slain adulterers be; and men who dared

To fight in unjust cause, and break all faith

With their own lawful lords. Seek not to know

What forms of woe they feel, what fateful shape

Of retribution hath o'erwhelmed them there.

Some roll huge boulders up; some hang on wheels,

Lashed to the whirling spokes; in his sad seat

Theseus is sitting, nevermore to rise;

Unhappy Phlegyas uplifts his voice

In warning through the darkness, calling loud,

‘0, ere too late, learn justice and fear God!’

Yon traitor sold his country, and for gold

Enchained her to a tyrant, trafficking

In laws, for bribes enacted or made void;

Another did incestuously take

His daughter for a wife in lawless bonds.

All ventured some unclean, prodigious crime;

And what they dared, achieved. I could not tell,

Not with a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,

Or iron voice, their divers shapes of sin,

Nor call by name the myriad pangs they bear.”

So spake Apollo's aged prophetess.

“Now up and on!” she cried. “Thy task fulfil!

We must make speed. Behold yon arching doors

Yon walls in furnace of the Cyclops forged!

'T is there we are commanded to lay down

Th' appointed offering.” So, side by side,

Swift through the intervening dark they strode,

And, drawing near the portal-arch, made pause.

Aeneas, taking station at the door,

Pure, lustral waters o'er his body threw,

And hung for garland there the Golden Bough.

Now, every rite fulfilled, and tribute due

Paid to the sovereign power of Proserpine,

At last within a land delectable

Their journey lay, through pleasurable bowers

Of groves where all is joy,—a blest abode!

An ampler sky its roseate light bestows

On that bright land, which sees the cloudless beam

Of suns and planets to our earth unknown.

On smooth green lawns, contending limb with limb,

Immortal athletes play, and wrestle long

'gainst mate or rival on the tawny sand;

With sounding footsteps and ecstatic song,

Some thread the dance divine: among them moves

The bard of Thrace, in flowing vesture clad,

Discoursing seven-noted melody,

Who sweeps the numbered strings with changeful hand,

Or smites with ivory point his golden lyre.

Here Trojans be of eldest, noblest race,

Great-hearted heroes, born in happier times,

Ilus, Assaracus, and Dardanus,

Illustrious builders of the Trojan town.