what shape guards the
threshold?
Virgil - Aeneid
Here is the place where
the road disparts; by this that runs to the right [542-574]under great
Dis' city is our path to Elysium; but the leftward wreaks vengeance on
the wicked and sends them to unrelenting hell. ' But Deiphobus: 'Be not
angered, mighty priestess; I will depart, I will refill my place and
return into darkness. Go, glory of our people, go, enjoy a fairer fate
than mine. ' Thus much he spoke, and on the word turned away his
footsteps.
Aeneas looks swiftly back, and sees beneath the cliff on the left hand a
wide city, girt with a triple wall and encircled by a racing river of
boiling flame, Tartarean Phlegethon, that echoes over its rolling rocks.
In front is the gate, huge and pillared with solid adamant, that no
warring force of men nor the very habitants of heaven may avail to
overthrow; it stands up a tower of iron, and Tisiphone sitting girt in
bloodstained pall keeps sleepless watch at the entry by night and day.
Hence moans are heard and fierce lashes resound, with the clank of iron
and dragging chains. Aeneas stopped and hung dismayed at the tumult.
'What shapes of crime are here? declare, O maiden; or what the
punishment that pursues them, and all this upsurging wail? ' Then the
soothsayer thus began to speak: 'Illustrious chief of Troy, no pure foot
may tread these guilty courts; but to me Hecate herself, when she gave
me rule over the groves of Avernus, taught how the gods punish, and
guided me through all her realm. Gnosian Rhadamanthus here holds
unrelaxing sway, chastises secret crime revealed, and exacts confession,
wheresoever in the upper world one vainly exultant in stolen guilt hath
till the dusk of death kept clear from the evil he wrought. Straightway
avenging Tisiphone, girt with her scourge, tramples down the shivering
sinners, menaces them with the grim snakes in her left hand, and summons
forth her sisters in merciless train. Then at last the sacred gates are
flung open and grate on the jarring hinge. Markest thou what sentry is
seated in [575-609]the doorway?
what shape guards the threshold? More
grim within sits the monstrous Hydra with her fifty black yawning
throats: and Tartarus' self gapes sheer and strikes into the gloom
through twice the space that one looks upward to Olympus and the skyey
heaven. Here Earth's ancient children, the Titans' brood, hurled down by
the thunderbolt, lie wallowing in the abyss. Here likewise I saw the
twin Aloids, enormous of frame, who essayed with violent hands to pluck
down high heaven and thrust Jove from his upper realm. Likewise I saw
Salmoneus in the cruel payment he gives for mocking Jove's flame and
Olympus' thunders. Borne by four horses and brandishing a torch, he rode
in triumph midway through the populous city of Grecian Elis, and claimed
for himself the worship of deity; madman! who would mimic the
storm-cloud and the inimitable bolt with brass that rang under his
trampling horse-hoofs. But the Lord omnipotent hurled his shaft through
thickening clouds (no firebrand his nor smoky glare of torches) and
dashed him headlong in the fury of the whirlwind. Therewithal Tityos
might be seen, fosterling of Earth the mother of all, whose body
stretches over nine full acres, and a monstrous vulture with crooked
beak eats away the imperishable liver and the entrails that breed in
suffering, and plunges deep into the breast that gives it food and
dwelling; nor is any rest given to the fibres that ever grow anew. Why
tell of the Lapithae, of Ixion and Pirithous? 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.
the road disparts; by this that runs to the right [542-574]under great
Dis' city is our path to Elysium; but the leftward wreaks vengeance on
the wicked and sends them to unrelenting hell. ' But Deiphobus: 'Be not
angered, mighty priestess; I will depart, I will refill my place and
return into darkness. Go, glory of our people, go, enjoy a fairer fate
than mine. ' Thus much he spoke, and on the word turned away his
footsteps.
Aeneas looks swiftly back, and sees beneath the cliff on the left hand a
wide city, girt with a triple wall and encircled by a racing river of
boiling flame, Tartarean Phlegethon, that echoes over its rolling rocks.
In front is the gate, huge and pillared with solid adamant, that no
warring force of men nor the very habitants of heaven may avail to
overthrow; it stands up a tower of iron, and Tisiphone sitting girt in
bloodstained pall keeps sleepless watch at the entry by night and day.
Hence moans are heard and fierce lashes resound, with the clank of iron
and dragging chains. Aeneas stopped and hung dismayed at the tumult.
'What shapes of crime are here? declare, O maiden; or what the
punishment that pursues them, and all this upsurging wail? ' Then the
soothsayer thus began to speak: 'Illustrious chief of Troy, no pure foot
may tread these guilty courts; but to me Hecate herself, when she gave
me rule over the groves of Avernus, taught how the gods punish, and
guided me through all her realm. Gnosian Rhadamanthus here holds
unrelaxing sway, chastises secret crime revealed, and exacts confession,
wheresoever in the upper world one vainly exultant in stolen guilt hath
till the dusk of death kept clear from the evil he wrought. Straightway
avenging Tisiphone, girt with her scourge, tramples down the shivering
sinners, menaces them with the grim snakes in her left hand, and summons
forth her sisters in merciless train. Then at last the sacred gates are
flung open and grate on the jarring hinge. Markest thou what sentry is
seated in [575-609]the doorway?
what shape guards the threshold? More
grim within sits the monstrous Hydra with her fifty black yawning
throats: and Tartarus' self gapes sheer and strikes into the gloom
through twice the space that one looks upward to Olympus and the skyey
heaven. Here Earth's ancient children, the Titans' brood, hurled down by
the thunderbolt, lie wallowing in the abyss. Here likewise I saw the
twin Aloids, enormous of frame, who essayed with violent hands to pluck
down high heaven and thrust Jove from his upper realm. Likewise I saw
Salmoneus in the cruel payment he gives for mocking Jove's flame and
Olympus' thunders. Borne by four horses and brandishing a torch, he rode
in triumph midway through the populous city of Grecian Elis, and claimed
for himself the worship of deity; madman! who would mimic the
storm-cloud and the inimitable bolt with brass that rang under his
trampling horse-hoofs. But the Lord omnipotent hurled his shaft through
thickening clouds (no firebrand his nor smoky glare of torches) and
dashed him headlong in the fury of the whirlwind. Therewithal Tityos
might be seen, fosterling of Earth the mother of all, whose body
stretches over nine full acres, and a monstrous vulture with crooked
beak eats away the imperishable liver and the entrails that breed in
suffering, and plunges deep into the breast that gives it food and
dwelling; nor is any rest given to the fibres that ever grow anew. Why
tell of the Lapithae, of Ixion and Pirithous? 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.
