No More Learning

over whom a stone hangs
just slipping and just as though it fell; or the high banqueting couches
gleam golden-pillared, and the feast is spread in royal luxury before
their faces; couched hard by, the eldest of the Furies wards the tables
from their touch and rises with torch upreared and thunderous lips. Here
are they who hated their brethren while life endured, or struck a parent
or entangled a client in wrong, or who brooded [610-643]alone over
found treasure and shared it not with their fellows, this the greatest
multitude of all; and they who were slain for adultery, and who followed
unrighteous arms, and feared not to betray their masters' plighted hand.
Imprisoned they await their doom. Seek not to be told that doom, that
fashion of fortune wherein they are sunk. Some roll a vast stone, or
hang outstretched on the spokes of wheels; hapless Theseus sits and
shall sit for ever, and Phlegyas in his misery gives counsel to all and
witnesses aloud through the gloom, _Learn by this warning to do justly
and not to slight the gods. _ This man sold his country for gold, and
laid her under a tyrant's sway; he set up and pulled down laws at a
price; this other forced his daughter's bridal chamber and a forbidden
marriage; all dared some monstrous wickedness, and had success in what
they dared. Not had I an hundred tongues, an hundred mouths, and a voice
of iron, could I sum up all the shapes of crime or name over all their
punishments. '

Thus spoke Phoebus' long-lived priestess; then 'But come now,' she
cries; 'haste on the way and perfect the service begun; let us go
faster; I descry the ramparts cast in Cyclopean furnaces, and in front
the arched gateway where they bid us lay the gifts foreordained. ' She
ended, and advancing side by side along the shadowy ways, they pass over
and draw nigh the gates. Aeneas makes entrance, and sprinkling his body
with fresh water, plants the bough full in the gateway.

Now at length, this fully done, and the service of the goddess
perfected, they came to the happy place, the green pleasances and
blissful seats of the Fortunate Woodlands. Here an ampler air clothes
the meadows in lustrous sheen, and they know their own sun and a
starlight of their own. Some exercise their limbs in tournament on the
greensward, contend in games, and wrestle on the yellow sand. Some
[644-676]dance with beating footfall and lips that sing; with them is
the Thracian priest in sweeping robe, and makes music to their measures
with the notes' sevenfold interval, the notes struck now with his
fingers, now with his ivory rod. Here is Teucer's ancient brood, a
generation excellent in beauty, high-hearted heroes born in happier
years, Ilus and Assaracus, and Dardanus, founder of Troy.
Afar he
marvels at the armour and chariots empty of their lords: their spears
stand fixed in the ground, and their unyoked horses pasture at large
over the plain: their life's delight in chariot and armour, their care
in pasturing their sleek horses, follows them in like wise low under
earth. Others, lo! he beholds feasting on the sward to right and left,
and singing in chorus the glad Paean-cry, within a scented laurel-grove
whence Eridanus river surges upward full-volumed through the wood. Here
is the band of them who bore wounds in fighting for their country, and
they who were pure in priesthood while life endured, and the good poets
whose speech abased not Apollo; and they who made life beautiful by the
arts of their invention, and who won by service a memory among men, the
brows of all girt with the snow-white fillet. To their encircling throng
the Sibyl spoke thus, and to Musaeus before them all; for he is midmost
of all the multitude, and stands out head and shoulders among their
upward gaze:

'Tell, O blissful souls, and thou, poet most gracious, what region, what
place hath Anchises for his own? For his sake are we come, and have
sailed across the wide rivers of Erebus. '

And to her the hero thus made brief reply: 'None hath a fixed dwelling;
we live in the shady woodlands; soft-swelling banks and meadows fresh
with streams are our habitation. But you, if this be your heart's
desire, scale this ridge, and I will even now set you on an easy
[677-708]pathway. ' He spoke, and paced on before them, and from above
shews the shining plains; thereafter they leave the mountain heights.

But lord Anchises, deep in the green valley, was musing in earnest
survey over the imprisoned souls destined to the daylight above, and
haply reviewing his beloved children and all the tale of his people,
them and their fates and fortunes, their works and ways. And he, when he
saw Aeneas advancing to meet him over the greensward, stretched forth
both hands eagerly, while tears rolled over his cheeks, and his lips
parted in a cry: 'Art thou come at last, and hath thy love, O child of
my desire, conquered the difficult road? Is it granted, O my son, to
gaze on thy face and hear and answer in familiar tones? Thus indeed I
forecast in spirit, counting the days between; nor hath my care misled
me. What lands, what space of seas hast thou traversed to reach me,
through what surge of perils, O my son! How I dreaded the realm of Libya
might work thee harm! '

And he: 'Thy melancholy phantom, thine, O my father, came before me
often and often, and drove me to steer to these portals.