These rites performed, he hastened to the Sibyl. There was a cavern, yawning wide and deep, Jagged, below the darkness of the trees, Beside the darkness of the lake. No bird Could fly above it safely, with the vapor Pouring from the black gulf (the Greeks have named it Avernus, or A-Ornos, meaning _birdless_), And here the priestess for the slaughter set Four bullocks, black ones, poured the holy wine Between the horns, and plucked the topmost bristles For the first offering to the sacred fire, Calling on Hecate, a power in heaven, A power in hell. Knives to the throat were driven, The warm blood caught in bowls. Aeneas offered A lamb, black-fleeced, to Night and her great sister, A sterile heifer for the queen; for Dis An altar in the night, and on the flames The weight of heavy bulls, the fat oil pouring Over the burning entrails. And at dawn, Under their feet, earth seemed to shake and rumble, The ridges move, and bitches bay in darkness, As the presence neared. The Sibyl cried a warning, “Keep off, keep off, whatever is unholy, Depart from here! Courage, Aeneas; enter The path, unsheathe the sword. The time is ready For the brave heart.” She strode out boldly, leading Into the open cavern, and he followed. Gods of the world of spirit, silent shadows, Chaos and Phlegethon, areas of silence, Wide realms of dark, may it be right and proper To tell what I have heard, this revelation Of matters buried deep in earth and darkness! Vague forms in lonely darkness, they were going Through void and shadow, through the empty realm Like people in a forest, when the moonlight Shifts with a baleful glimmer, and shadow covers The sky, and all the colors turn to blackness. At the first threshold, on the jaws of Orcus, Grief and avenging Cares have set their couches, And pale Diseases dwell, and sad Old Age, Fear, evil-counselling Hunger, wretched Need, Forms terrible to see, and Death, and Toil, And Death’s own brother, Sleep, and evil Joys, Fantasies of the mind, and deadly War, The Furies’ iron chambers, Discord, raving, Her snaky hair entwined in bloody bands. An elm-tree loomed there, shadowy and huge, The aged boughs outspread, beneath whose leaves, Men say, the false dreams cling, thousands on thousands. And there are monsters in the dooryard, Centaurs, Scyllas, of double shape, the beast of Lerna, Hissing most horribly, Briareus, The hundred-handed giant, a Chimaera Whose armament is fire, Harpies, and Gorgons, A triple-bodied giant. In sudden panic Aeneas drew his sword, the edge held forward, Ready to rush and flail, however blindly, Save that his wise companion warned him, saying They had no substance, they were only phantoms Flitting about, illusions without body.