The boundless grove: at last he prays:
‘Ah! would some God but show me now
In all that wood the golden bough!
My poor, poor friend! in thee, alas,
The Sibyl’s words have come to pass.’
Scarce had he said, when lo! there flew
Two snow-white doves before his view,
And on the sward took rest;
His mother’s birds the hero knew,
And joyful prayer addrest:
‘Hail, gentle guides! before me fly,
And mark my pathway on the sky:
So lead me where the bough of gold
Glooms rich above its parent mould.
And thou, my mother, aid my quest,
Nor leave me doubtful and distrest.’
He stayed his steps, intent to know
What signs they give, which way they go.
By turns they feed, by turns they fly,
Just in the range of human eye;
Till when they scent the noisome gale
Which dark Avernus’ jaws exhale,
Aloft they rise in rapid flight:
Then on the tree at once alight
Where flashing through the leaves is seen
The golden bough’s contrasted sheen.
As in the depth of winter’s snow
The parasitic mistletoe
Bursts with fresh bloom, and clothes anew
The smooth bare stems with saffron hue:
So ’mid the oak’s umbrageous green
The gleam of leafy gold was seen:
So ’mid the sounds of whispering trees
The thin foil tinkled in the breeze.
At once Æneas grasps the spray:
His haste o’ercomes its coy delay,
And laden with the new-won prize
Beneath the Sibyl’s roof he hies.
To dead Misenus’ thankless clay
The last memorial rite:
And first a giant pile they raise
With oak and fir to feed the blaze,
With dark-leaved boughs its sides enlace,
Sad cypresses before it place,
And deck with armour bright.
Some fix the caldron, heat the wave,
And oil the corpse which first they lave.
Loud wails are heard: then on his bed,
The weeping done, they stretch the dead,
And heap above, the cold limbs o’er,
The purple robes the living wore:
Some lend their shoulders to the bier,
A ministration sad and drear,
And, as their fathers wont, apply
The firebrands with averted eye:
While streaming oil and offered spice
Blaze up with flesh of sacrifice.
And now, when sank the embers down,
And ceased the flame to burn,
The smouldering heap with wine they drown,
And Corynæus from the pyre
Collects the bones, charred white by fire,
And stores in brazen urn:
Then to his comrades thrice he gave
Lustration from the flowing wave,
With showery dew and olive bough
Besprinkling each polluted brow,
And spoke the last acclaim.
But good Æneas bids arise
A funeral mound of mighty size;
There plants the arms the warrior bore,
The trumpet and the shapely oar,
Beneath a mountain high in air,
Which bears, and evermore shall bear,
From him Misenus’ name.
The dictates of the Sibyl’s will.
Before his eyes a monstrous cave
Expands its yawning womb,
Protected by the lake’s dark wave
And forest’s leafy gloom:
O’er that dread space no flying thing
Unjeoparded could ply its wing;
Such noisome exhalations rise
From out its darkness to the skies.
Here first the priestess sets in view
Four goodly bulls of sable hue,
And ’twixt their horns pours forth the wine.
The topmost hairs she next plucks out,
That bristling on the forehead sprout,
An offering to the flame divine;
On Hecate the while she cries,
The Mighty One of shades and skies.
Some ’neath the throat thrust in the knife,
And catch in cups the stream of life.
To Earth, and Night, the Furies’ dam,
Æneas slays a black ewe-lamb,
And bids a barren heifer bleed,
For thee, dread Proserpine, decreed.
To Pluto then he sets alight
High altars, flaming through the night,
And on the embers lays
Whole bulls, denuded of their hide,
Still pouring oil in copious tide
To feed the surging blaze.
When lo, as morning’s orient red
Just brightens o’er the sky,
The firm ground bellows ’neath their tread,
The wooded summits rock and sway,
And through the shade the hell-hounds’ bay
Proclaims the goddess nigh.
‘Back, ye unhallowed,’ shrieks the seer,
‘And leave the whole wide forest clear:
Come, great Æneas, tread the way,
And keep your falchion bared:
Now for a heart that scorns dismay:
Now for a soul prepared.’
This said, with madness in her face
She plunged into the cave:
He with her lengthening stride keeps pace,
As fearless and as brave.
The empire of departed souls,
Ye too, throughout whose wide domain
Blank Night and grisly Silence reign,
Hoar Chaos, awful Phlegethon,
What ear has heard let tongue make known:
Vouchsafe your sanction, nor forbid
To utter things in darkness hid.
Darkling and lone their way they made,
Through the vast kingdom of the dead,
An empty void, though tenanted:
So travellers in a forest move
With but the uncertain moon above,
Beneath
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