This done, he hastens to execute the Sibyl’s bidding. A deep cave there was, yawning wide with giant throat, rough and shingly, shadowed by the black pool and the 15 gloom of the forest—a cave, over whose mouth no winged thing could fly unharmed, so poisonous the breath that exhaling from its pitchy jaws steamed up to the sky—whence Greece has given the spot the name _Aornos_.[213] Here first the priestess places in sacrificial station four 20 black-skinned bullocks, and empties wine over their brows, and plucking from between their horns the hairs of the crown, throws them into the hallowed flame, as the firstfruits of worship, with loud cries on Hecate, queen in heaven and Erebus both. Others put the knife to the 25 throat, and catch in chargers the steaming blood. With his own sword Æneas strikes down a lamb of sable fleece, for the Furies’[214] mother and her mighty sister, and a barren heifer for thee, dread Proserpine. Then to the Stygian monarch he rears altars, blazing through the 30 darkness, and piles on the flame the bulls’ carcases entire, pouring fat oil on the entrails all aglow. When, hark! as the sun began to glimmer and dawn, the ground is bellowing under their feet, and the wood-crowned heights are nodding, and the baying of dogs sounds through the 35 gloom, for the goddess is at hand. “Hence, hence with your unhallowed feet!” clamours the prophetess, “and rid the whole grove of your presence. And you—strike into the road, and pluck your sword from his scabbard—now is the hour for courage, Æneas, now for a stout heart.” No more she said, but flung herself wildly into the cavern’s mouth; and he, with no faltering step, keeps pace with his guide. 5 Ye gods, whose empire is the shades—spirits of silence, Chaos and Phlegethon, stretching wide in the stillness of night, suffer me to tell what has reached my ears; grant me your aid to reveal things buried underground, deep and dark. 10