It is quickly told: they broke into the chamber, The two of them, and with them, as accomplice, Ulysses came, the crime-contriving bastard. O gods, pay back the Greeks; grant the petition If goodness asks for vengeance! But you, Aeneas, A living man--what chance has brought you here? Vagrant of ocean, god-inspired,--which are you? What chance has worn you down, to come, in sadness, To these confusing sunless dwelling-places?” While they were talking, Aurora’s rosy car Had halfway crossed the heaven; all their time Might have been spent in converse, but the Sibyl Hurried them forward:--“Night comes on, Aeneas; We waste the hours with tears. We are at the cross-road, Now; here we turn to the right, where the pathway leads On to Elysium, under Pluto’s ramparts. Leftward is Tartarus, and retribution, The terminal of the wicked, and their dungeon.” Deiphobus left them, saying, “O great priestess, Do not be angry with me; I am going; I shall not fail the roll-call of the shadows. Pride of our race, go on; may better fortune Attend you!” and, upon the word, he vanished. As he looked back, Aeneas saw, to his left, Wide walls beneath a cliff, a triple rampart, A river running fire, Phlegethon’s torrent, Rocks roaring in its course, a gate, tremendous, Pillars of adamant, a tower of iron, Too strong for men, too strong for even gods To batter down in warfare, and behind them A Fury, sentinel in bloody garments, Always on watch, by day, by night. He heard Sobbing and groaning there, the crack of the lash, The clank of iron, the sound of dragging shackles. The noise was terrible; Aeneas halted, Asking, “What forms of crime are these, O maiden? What harrying punishment, what horrible outcry?” She answered:--“O great leader of the Trojans, I have never crossed that threshold of the wicked; No pure soul is permitted entrance thither, But Hecate, by whose order I was given Charge of Avernus’ groves, my guide, my teacher, Told me how gods exact the toll of vengeance. The monarch here, merciless Rhadamanthus, Punishes guilt, and hears confession; he forces Acknowledgment of crime; no man in the world, No matter how cleverly he hides his evil, No matter how much he smiles at his own slyness, Can fend atonement off; the hour of death Begins his sentence. Tisiphone, the Fury, Leaps at the guilty with her scourge; her serpents Are whips of menace as she calls her sisters. Imagine the gates, on jarring hinge, rasp open, You would see her in the doorway, a shape, a sentry, Savage, implacable. Beyond, still fiercer, The monstrous Hydra dwells; her fifty throats Are black, and open wide, and Tartarus Is black, and open wide, and it goes down To darkness, sheer deep down, and twice the distance That earth is from Olympus.