Aeneid

Virgil

Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

  1. Hence the way leads to that Tartarean stream
  2. Of Acheron, whose torrent fierce and foul
  3. Disgorges in Cocytus all its sands.
  4. A ferryman of gruesome guise keeps ward
  5. Upon these waters,—Charon, foully garbed,
  6. With unkempt, thick gray beard upon his chin,
  7. And staring eyes of flame; a mantle coarse,
  8. All stained and knotted, from his shoulder falls,
  9. As with a pole he guides his craft, tends sail,
  10. And in the black boat ferries o'er his dead;—
  11. Old, but a god's old age looks fresh and strong.
  12. To those dim shores the multitude streams on—
  13. Husbands and wives, and pale, unbreathing forms
  14. Of high-souled heroes, boys and virgins fair,
  15. And strong youth at whose graves fond parents mourned.
  16. As numberless the throng as leaves that fall
  17. When autumn's early frost is on the grove;
  18. Or like vast flocks of birds by winter's chill
  19. Sent flying o'er wide seas to lands of flowers.
  20. All stood beseeching to begin their voyage
  21. Across that river, and reached out pale hands,
  22. In passionate yearning for its distant shore.
  23. But the grim boatman takes now these, now those,
  24. Or thrusts unpitying from the stream away.
  25. Aeneas, moved to wonder and deep awe,
  26. Beheld the tumult; “Virgin seer!” he cried, .
  27. “Why move the thronging ghosts toward yonder stream?
  28. What seek they there? Or what election holds
  29. That these unwilling linger, while their peers
  30. Sweep forward yonder o'er the leaden waves?”
  31. To him, in few, the aged Sibyl spoke :
  32. “Son of Anchises, offspring of the gods,
  33. Yon are Cocytus and the Stygian stream,
  34. By whose dread power the gods themselves do fear
  35. To take an oath in vain. Here far and wide
  36. Thou seest the hapless throng that hath no grave.
  37. That boatman Charon bears across the deep
  38. Such as be sepulchred with holy care.
  39. But over that loud flood and dreadful shore
  40. No trav'ler may be borne, until in peace
  41. His gathered ashes rest. A hundred years
  42. Round this dark borderland some haunt and roam,
  43. Then win late passage o'er the longed-for wave.”
  44. Aeneas lingered for a little space,
  45. Revolving in his soul with pitying prayer
  46. Fate's partial way. But presently he sees
  47. Leucaspis and the Lycian navy's lord,
  48. Orontes; both of melancholy brow,
  49. Both hapless and unhonored after death,
  50. Whom, while from Troy they crossed the wind-swept seas,
  51. A whirling tempest wrecked with ship and crew.