Authors: Virgil
And so they carried on to the end of the road on which they
had started, and at last came near the river. When the boatman,
now in mid-stream, looked ashore from the waves of the Styx
and saw them coming through the silent wood towards the
bank, he called out and challenged them: ‘You there, whoever
you are, making for our river with a sword by your side, come
tell us why you are here. Speak to us from where you stand.
390 Take not another step. This place belongs to the shades, to Sleep
and to Night, the bringer of Sleep. Living bodies may not be
carried on the boat that plies the Styx. It gave me little enough
pleasure to take even Hercules aboard when he came, or
Theseus, or Pirithous, although they said they were born of gods
and their strength was irresistible. It was Hercules whose hand
put chains on the watchdog of Tartarus and dragged him shivering
from the very throne of our king. The others had taken it
upon themselves to steal the queen, my mistress, from the
chamber of Dis.’ The answer of the Amphrysian Sibyl was brief:
‘Here there are no such designs. You have no need for alarm.
400 These weapons of his bring no violence. The monstrous keeper
of the gate can bark in his cave and frighten the bloodless shades
till the end of time and Proserpina can stay chaste behind her
uncle’s doors. Trojan Aeneas, famous for his devotion and his
feats of arms, is going down to his father in the darkest depths
of Erebus. If the sight of such devotion does not move you, then
look at this branch,’ she said, showing the branch that had been
hidden in her robes, ‘and realize what it is.’ At this the swelling
anger subsided in his heart. No more words were needed. Seeing
it again after a long age, and marvelling at the fateful branch,
410 the holy offering, he turned his dark boat and steered towards
the bank. He then drove off the souls who were on board with
him sitting all along the cross benches, and cleared the gangways.
In the same moment he took the huge Aeneas into the hull of
his little boat. Being only sewn together, it groaned under his
weight, shipping great volumes of stagnant water through the
seams, but in the end it carried priestess and hero safely over
and landed them on the foul slime among the grey-green reeds.
The kingdom on this side resounded with barking from the
three throats of the huge monster Cerberus lying in a cave in
front of them. When the priestess was close enough to see the
420 snakes writhing on his neck, she threw him a honey cake steeped
in soporific drugs. He opened his three jaws, each of them rabid
with hunger, and snapped it up where it fell. The massive back
relaxed and he sprawled full length on the ground, filling his
cave. The sentry now sunk in sleep, Aeneas leapt to take command
of the entrance and was soon free of the bank of that river
which no man may recross.
In that instant they heard voices, a great weeping and wailing
of the souls of infants who had lost their share of the sweetness
of life on its very threshold, torn from the breast on some black
430 day and drowned in the bitterness of death. Next to them were
those who had been condemned to death on false charges, but
they did not receive their places without the casting of lots and
the appointment of juries. Minos, the president of the court,
shakes the lots in the urn, summoning the silent dead to act as
jurymen, and holds inquiry into the lives of the accused and the
charges against them. Next to them were those unhappy people
who had raised their innocent hands against themselves, who
had so loathed the light that they had thrown away their own
lives. But now how they would wish to be under high heaven,
enduring poverty and drudgery, however hard! That cannot be,
for they are bound in the coils of the hateful swamp of the
waters of death, trapped in the ninefold windings of the river
440 Styx. Not far from here could be seen what they call the Mourning
Plains, stretching away in every direction. Here are the
victims of unhappy love, consumed by that cruel wasting sickness,
hidden in the lonely byways of an encircling wood of
myrtle trees, and their suffering does not leave them even in
death. Here Aeneas saw Phaedra, and Procris, and Eriphyle in
tears as she displayed the wounds her cruel son had given her.
Here he saw Evadne and Pasiphae with Laodamia walking by
their side, and Caeneus, once a young man, but now a woman
restored by destiny to her former shape.
450 Wandering among them in that great wood was Phoenician
Dido with her wound still fresh. When the Trojan hero stopped
beside her, recognizing her dim form in the darkness, like a man
who sees or thinks he has seen the new moon rising through the
clouds at the beginning of the month, in that instant he wept
and spoke sweet words of love to her: ‘So the news they brought
me was true, unhappy Dido? They told me you were dead and
had ended your life with the sword. Alas! Alas! Was I the cause
of your dying? I swear by the stars, by the gods above, by
460 whatever there is to swear by in the depths of the earth, it was
against my will, O queen, that I left your shore. It was the stern
authority of the commands of the gods that drove me on, as it
drives me now through the shades of this dark night in this foul
and mouldering place. I could not have believed that my leaving
would cause you such sorrow. Do not move away. Do not leave
my sight. Who are you running from? Fate has decreed that I
shall not speak to you again.’ With these words Aeneas, shedding
tears, tried to comfort that burning spirit, but grim-faced
470 she kept her eyes upon the ground and did not look at him. Her
features moved no more when he began to speak than if she had
been a block of flint or Parian marble quarried on Mount
Marpessus. Then at last she rushed away, hating him, into
the shadows of the wood where Sychaeus, who had been her
husband, answered her grief with grief and her love with love.
Aeneas was no less stricken by the injustice of her fate and long
did he gaze after her with tears, pitying her as she went.
From here they continued on their appointed road and they
were soon on the most distant of these fields, the place set
480 apart for brave warriors. Here Tydeus came to meet him, and
Parthenopaeus, famous for his feats of arms, and the pale phantom
of Adrastus. Here he saw and groaned to see standing in
their long ranks all the sons of Dardanus who had fallen in
battle and been bitterly lamented in the upper world, Glaucus,
Medon and Thersilochus, the three sons of Antenor, and
Polyboetes, the consecrated priest of Ceres, and Idaeus still
keeping hold of Priam’s chariot, still keeping hold of his armour.
The shades crowded round him on the right and on the left and
it was not enough just to see him, they wished to delay him, to
walk with him, to learn the reasons for his coming. But when the
Greek leaders and the soldiers of Agamemnon in their phalanxes
490 saw the hero and his armour gleaming through the shadows, a
wild panic seized them. Some turned and ran as they had run
once before to get back to their ships, while others lifted up
their voices and raised a tiny cry, which started as a shout from
mouth wide open, but no shout came.
Here too he saw Deiphobus, son of Priam, his whole body
mutilated and his face cruelly torn. The face and both hands
were in shreds. The ears had been ripped from the head. He was
noseless and hideous. Aeneas, barely recognizing him as he tried
frantically to hide the fearsome punishment he had received,
went up to him and spoke in the voice he knew so well:
500 ‘Deiphobus, mighty warrior, descended from the noble blood
of Teucer, who could have wished to inflict such a punishment
upon you? And who was able to do this? I was told that on that
last night you wore yourself out killing the enemy and fell on a
huge pile of Greek and Trojan dead. At that time I did all I
could do, raising an empty tomb for you on the shore of Cape
Rhoeteum and lifting up my voice to call three times upon your
shade. Your name and your arms mark the place but you I could
not find, my friend, to bury your body in our native land as I
was leaving it.’
To this the son of Priam answered: ‘You, my friend, have left
510 nothing undone. You have paid all that is owed to Deiphobus
and to his dead shade. It is my own destiny and the crimes of
the murderess from Sparta that have brought me to this. These
are reminders of Helen. You know how we spent that last night
in false joy. It is our lot to remember it only too well. When the
horse that was the instrument of Fate, heavy with the brood of
armed men in its belly, leapt over the high walls of Pergamum,
Helen was pretending to be worshipping Bacchus, leading the
women of Phrygia around the city, dancing and shrieking their
ritual cries. There she was in the middle of them with a huge
torch, signalling to the Greeks from the top of the citadel, and
520 all the time I was sleeping soundly in our accursed bed, worn
out by all I had suffered and sunk in a sleep that was sweet and
deep and like the peace of death. Meanwhile this excellent wife
of mine, after moving all my armour out of the house and taking
the good sword from under my head, called in Menelaus and
threw open the doors, hoping no doubt that her loving husband
would take this as a great favour to wipe out the memory of her
past sins. You can guess the rest. They burst into the room,
taking with them the man who had incited them to their crimes,
their comrade Ulixes – they say he is descended from Aeolus.
530 You gods, if the punishment I ask is just, grant that a fate like
mine should strike again and strike Greeks. But come, it is now
time for you to tell me what chance has brought you here alive.
Is it your sea wanderings that have taken you here? Are you
under the instructions of the gods? What fortune is dogging
you, that you should come here to our sad and sunless homes
in this troubled place?’
While they were speaking to one another, Dawn’s rosy chariot
had already run its heavenly course past the mid-point of the
vault of the sky, and they might have spent all the allotted
time in talking but for Aeneas’ companion. The Sibyl gave her
warning in few words: ‘Night is running quickly by, Aeneas,
540 and we waste the hours in weeping. This is where the way
divides. On the right it leads up to the walls of great Dis. This is
the road we take for Elysium. On the left is the road of punishment
for evil-doers, leading to Tartarus, the place of the
damned.’ ‘There is no need for anger, great priestess,’ replied
Deiphobus. ‘I shall go to take my place among the dead and
return to darkness. Go, Aeneas, go, great glory of our Troy,
and enjoy a better fate than mine.’ These were his only words,
and as he spoke he turned on his heel and strode away.
Aeneas looked back suddenly and saw under a cliff on his left
550 a broad city encircled by a triple wall and washed all round by
Phlegethon, one of the rivers of Tartarus, a torrent of fire and
flame, rolling and grinding great boulders in its current. There
before him stood a huge gate with columns of solid adamant so
strong that neither the violence of men nor of the heavenly gods
themselves could ever uproot them in war, and an iron tower
rose into the air where Tisiphone sat with her blood-soaked
dress girt up, guarding the entrance and never sleeping, night or
day. They could hear the groans from the city, the cruel crack
560 of the lash, the dragging and clanking of iron chains. Aeneas
stood in terror, listening to the noise. ‘What kinds of criminal are
here? Tell me, virgin priestess, what punishments are inflicted on
them? What is this wild lamentation in the air?’ The Sibyl
replied: ‘Great leader of the Trojans, the chaste may not set foot
upon the threshold of that evil place, but when Hecate put me
in charge of the groves of Avernus, she herself explained the
punishments the gods had imposed and showed me them all.
Here Rhadamanthus, king of Cnossus, holds sway with his
unbending laws, chastising men, hearing all the frauds they have
practised and forcing them to confess the undiscovered crimes
they have gloated over in the upper world – foolishly, for they
570 have only delayed the day of atonement till after death. Immediately
the avenging Tisiphone leaps upon the guilty and flogs
them till they writhe, waving fearful serpents over them in her
left hand and calling up the cohorts of her savage sisters, the
Furies. Then at last the gates sacred to the gods below shriek in
their sockets and open wide. You see what a watch she keeps,
sitting in the entrance? What a sight she is guarding the
threshold? Inside, more savage still, the huge, black-throated,
fifty-headed Hydra has its lair. And then there is Tartarus itself,
stretching sheer down into its dark chasm twice as far as we
580 look up to the ethereal Olympus in the sky. Here, rolling in the
bottom of the abyss, is the ancient brood of Earth, the army of
Titans, hurled down by the thunderbolt. Here too I saw the
huge bodies of the twin sons of Aloeus who laid violent hands
on the immeasurable sky to wrench it from its place and tear
down Jupiter from his heavenly kingdom. I saw too Salmoneus
suffering cruel punishment, still miming the flames of Jupiter and
the rumblings of Olympus. He it was who, riding his four-horse
chariot and brandishing a torch, used to go in glory through the
peoples of Greece and the city of Olympia in the heart of Elis,
590 laying claim to divine honours for himself – fool that he was to
copy the storm and the inimitable thunderbolt with the rattle of
the horn of his horses’ hooves on bronze. Through the thick
clouds the All-powerful Father hurled his lightning – no smoky
light from pitchy torches for him – and sent him spinning deep
into the abyss. Tityos too I could see, the nurseling of Earth,
mother of all, his body sprawling over nine whole acres while a
huge vulture with hooked beak cropped his immortal liver and
600 the flesh that was such a rich supplier of punishment. Deep in
his breast it roosts and forages for its dinners, while the filaments
of his liver know no rest but are restored as soon as they are
consumed. I do not need to speak of the Lapiths, of Ixion or
Pirithous, over whose heads the boulder of black flint is always
slipping, always seeming to be falling. The gold gleams on the
high supports of festal couches and a feast is laid in regal
splendour before the eyes of the guilty, but the greatest of the
Furies is reclining at table and allows no hand to touch the food,
but leaps up brandishing a torch and shouting with a voice of
thunder. Immured in this place and waiting for punishment
are those who in life hated their brothers, beat their fathers,
610 defrauded their dependants, found wealth and brooded over it
alone without setting aside a share for their kinsmen – these are
most numerous of all – men caught and killed in adultery, men
who took up arms against their own people and did not shrink
from abusing their masters’ trust. Do not ask to know what
their punishments are, what form of pain or what misfortune
has engulfed them. Some are rolling huge rocks, or hang spreadeagled
on the spokes of wheels. Theseus is sitting there dejected,
and there he will sit until the end of time, while Phlegyas, most
wretched of them all, shouts this lesson for all men at the top of
620 his voice in the darkness: “Learn to be just and not to slight the
gods. You have been warned.” Here is the man who has sold
his native land for gold, and set a tyrant over it, putting up
tablets with new laws for a price and for a price removing them.
Here is the man who forced his way into his daughter’s bed
and a forbidden union. They have all dared to attempt some
monstrous crime against the gods and have succeeded in their
attempt. If I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths and a
voice of iron, I could not encompass all their different crimes or
speak the names of all their different punishments.’