Æneas followed for some distance; then, with a
heavy heart, rejoined his companion and resumed his route.
They next entered the fields where roam the heroes who have fallen in
battle. Here they saw many shades of Grecian and Trojan warriors. The
Trojans thronged around him, and could not be satisfied with the sight.
They asked the cause of his coming, and plied him with innumerable
questions. But the Greeks, at the sight of his armor glittering through
the murky atmosphere, recognized the hero, and filled with terror turned
their backs and fled, as they used to do on the plains of Troy.
Æneas would have lingered long with his Trojan friends, but the Sibyl
hurried him away. They next came to a place where the road divided, the
one leading to Elysium, the other to the regions of the condemned. Æneas
beheld on one side the walls of a mighty city, around which Phlegethon
rolled its fiery waters. Before him was the gate of adamant that neither
gods nor men can break through. An iron tower stood by the gate, on
which Tisiphone, the avenging Fury, kept guard. From the city were heard
groans, and the sound of the scourge, the creaking of iron, and the
clanking of chains. Æneas, horror-struck, inquired of his guide what
crimes were those whose punishments produced the sounds he heard? The
Sibyl answered, “Here is the judgment hall of Rhadamanthus, who brings
to light crimes done in life, which the perpetrator vainly thought
impenetrably hid. Tisiphone applies her whip of scorpions, and delivers
the offender over to her sister Furies.” At this moment with horrid
clang the brazen gates unfolded, and Æneas saw within a Hydra with fifty
heads guarding the entrance. The Sibyl told him that the gulf of
Tartarus descended deep, so that its recesses were as far beneath their
feet as heaven was high above their heads. In the bottom of this pit,
the Titan race, who warred against the gods, lie prostrate; Salmoneus,
also, who presumed to vie with Jupiter, and built a bridge of brass over
which he drove his chariot that the sound might resemble thunder,
launching flaming brands at his people in imitation of lightning, till
Jupiter struck him with a real thunderbolt, and taught him the
difference between mortal weapons and divine. Here, also, is Tityus, the
giant, whose form is so immense that as he lies he stretches over nine
acres, while a vulture preys upon his liver, which as fast as it is
devoured grows again, so that his punishment will have no end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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