So spoke Apollo’s aged priestess; and then resuming: “But come,” she cries, “speed on your way, and fulfil the duty you have essayed: quicken we our pace. I see the walls which the Cyclopian forge raised in air, and the 15 arched gates confronting us, where sacred rule bids us set down our offering.” As she spoke, they step side by side through the dusky ways, despatch the interval of distance, and draw near the gate. Æneas masters the approach, sprinkles his body with pure spring water, and 20 fixes the branch on the portal’s front. And now these things done at length, and the offering to the goddess accomplished, they have reached the regions of bliss, green pleasaunces of happy groves, and the abodes of the blest. Here ether clothes the plains with 25 an ampler plenitude and a dazzling lustre; and the eye beholds a sun and stars of its own. There are some, plying their limbs on the grassy wrestling-ground, conflicting in sport, and grappling each other on the yellow sand: some are beating their feet in the dance, and chanting 30 songs. There, too, is the Thracian priest[224] in his flowing robe, singing the seven notes in unison with the dancer’s measure, and striking them now with his fingers, now with the quill of ivory. Here are the old race of Teucer, a goodly family, heroes of lofty soul, born in 35 earth’s better days, Ilus and Assaracus, and Dardanus, founder of Troy. From afar he gazes wonderingly on their warrior arms and their ghostly chariots. Their spears stand rooted in the ground, and their unyoked steeds graze dispersedly over the meadow. All the delight they took when alive in chariots and armour, all their pride in grooming and feeding their horses, goes with them underground, and animates them there. See, too, his eye rests 5 on others regaling on either hand upon the grass, and singing in chorus a joyous pæan, all in a fragrant grove of bay, the source whence, welling forth into the upper world, Eridanus[225] flows in broad current between his wooded banks. Here is a noble company who braved 10 wounds in fight for fatherland; all the priests who kept their purity while life was; all the poets whose hearts were clean, and their songs worthy Phœbus’ ear; all who by cunning inventions gave a grace to life, and whose worthy deeds made their fellows think of them with love: 15 each has his brow cinctured with a snow-white fillet. Looking on the multitude as it streamed around, the Sibyl bespoke them thus—Musæus before all; for he stands the centre of that vast crowd, which looks up to him, as with rising shoulders he towers above them: 20 “Tell us, happy spirits, and you, best of bards, which is Anchises’ haunt? which his home? for it is to see him