Now, Trojan, take the way thy fates afford;

Assume thy courage, and unsheathe thy sword."
She said, and pass'd along the gloomy space;

The princepursued her steps with equal pace.
Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight,

Ye gods who rule the regions of the night,
Ye gliding ghosts, permit me to relate

The mystic wonders of your silent state!
Obscure they went thro' dreary shades, that led

Along the waste dominions of the dead.
Thus wander travelers in woods by night,

By the moon's doubtful and malignant light,
When Jove in dusky clouds involves the skies,

And the faint crescent shoots by fits before their eyes.
Just in the gate and in the jaws of hell,

Revengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell,
And pale Diseases, and repining Age,

Want, Fear, and Famine's unresisted rage;
Here Toils, and Death, and Death's half-brother, Sleep,

Forms terrible to view, their sentry keep;
With anxious Pleasures of a guilty mind,

Deep Frauds before, and open Force behind;
The Furies' iron beds; and Strife, that shakes

Her hissing tresses and unfolds her snakes.
Full in the midst of this infernal road,

An elm displays her dusky arms abroad:
The God of Sleep there hides his heavy head,

And empty dreams on ev'ry leaf are spread.
Of various forms unnumber'd specters more,

Centaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door.
Before the passage, horrid Hydra stands,

And Briareus with all his hundred hands;
Gorgons, Geryon with his triple frame;

And vain Chimaera vomits empty flame.
The chief unsheath'd his shining steel, prepar'd,

Tho' seiz'd with sudden fear, to force the guard,
Off'ring his brandish'd weapon at their face;

Had not the Sibyl stopp'd his eager pace,
And told him what those empty phantoms were:

Forms without bodies, and impassive air.
Hence to deep Acheron they take their way,

Whose troubled eddies, thick with ooze and clay,
Are whirl'd aloft, and in Cocytus lost.

There Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast-
A sordid god: down from his hoary chin

A length of beard descends, uncomb'd, unclean;
His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;

A girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.
He spreads his canvas; with his pole he steers;

The freights of flitting ghosts in his thin bottom bears.
He look'd in years; yet in his years were seen

A youthful vigor and autumnal green.
An airy crowd came rushing where he stood,

Which fill'd the margin of the fatal flood:
Husbands and wives, boys and unmarried maids,

And mighty heroes' more majestic shades,
And youths, intomb'd before their fathers' eyes,

With hollow groans, and shrieks, and feeble cries.
Thick as the leaves in autumn strow the woods,

Or fowls, by winter forc'd, forsake the floods,
And wing their hasty flight to happier lands;

Such, and so thick, the shiv'ring army stands,
And press for passage with extended hands.

Now these, now those, the surly boatman bore:
The rest he drove to distance from the shore.

The hero, who beheld with wond'ring eyes
The tumult mix'd with shrieks, laments, and cries,

Ask'd of his guide, what the rude concourse meant;
Why to the shore the thronging people bent;

What forms of law among the ghosts were us'd;
Why some were ferried o'er, and some refus'd.

"Son of Anchises, offspring of the gods,"
The Sibyl said, "you see the Stygian floods,

The sacredstream which heav'n's imperial state
Attests in oaths, and fears to violate.

The ghosts rejected are th' unhappy crew
Depriv'd of sepulchers and fun'ral due:

The boatman, Charon; those, the buried host,
He ferries over to the farther coast;

Nor dares his transportvessel cross the waves
With such whose bones are not compos'd in graves.

A hundred years they wander on the shore;
At length, their penance done, are wafted o'er."

The Trojan chief his forward pace repress'd,
Revolving anxious thoughts within his breast,

He saw his friends, who, whelm'd beneath the waves,
Their fun'ral honors claim'd, and ask'd their quiet graves.

The lost Leucaspis in the crowd he knew,
And the brave leader of the Lycian crew,

Whom, on the Tyrrhene seas, the tempests met;
The sailors master'd, and the ship o'erset.

Amidst the spirits, Palinurus press'd,
Yet fresh from life, a new-admitted guest,

Who, while he steering view'd the stars, and bore
His course from Afric to the Latian shore,

Fell headlong down. The Trojan fix'd his view,
And scarcely thro' the gloom the sullen shadow knew.

Then thus the prince: "What envious pow'r, O friend,
Brought your lov'd life to this disastrous end?

For Phoebus, ever true in all he said,
Has in your fate alone my faith betray'd.

The god foretold you should not die, before
You reach'd, secure from seas, th' Italian shore.

Is this th' unerring pow'r?" The ghost replied;
"Nor Phoebus flatter'd, nor his answers lied;

Nor envious gods have sent me to the deep:
But, while the stars and course of heav'n I keep,

My wearied eyes were seiz'd with fatal sleep.
I fell; and, with my weight, the helm constrain'd

Was drawn along, which yet my gripe retain'd.
Now by the winds and raging waves I swear,

Your safety, more than mine, was then my care;
Lest, of the guide bereft, the rudder lost,

Your ship should run against the rocky coast.
Three blust'ring nights, borne by the southern blast,

I floated, and discover'd land at last:
High on a mounting wave my head I bore,

Forcing my strength, and gath'ring to the shore.
Panting, but past the danger, now I seiz'd

The craggy cliffs, and my tir'd members eas'd.
While, cumber'd with my dropping clothes, I lay,

The cruel nation, covetous of prey,
Stain'd with my blood th' unhospitable coast;

And now, by winds and waves, my lifeless limbs are toss'd:
Which O avert, by yon ethereal light,

Which I have lost for this eternal night!
Or, if by dearer ties you may be won,