XLIV. Thereto in brief the aged priestess spake: "Son of Anchises, and the god's true heir, Thou see'st Cocytus and the Stygian lake, By whose dread majesty no god will dare His solemn oath attested to forswear. These are the needy, who a burial crave; The ferryman is Charon; they who fare Across the flood, the buried; none that wave Can traverse, ere his bones have rested in the grave. XLV. "A hundred years they wander in the cold Around these shores, till at the destined date The wished-for pools, admitted, they behold." Sad stood AEneas, pitying their estate, And, thoughtful, pondered their unequal fate. Leucaspis there, and Lycia's chief he viewed, Orontes, joyless, tombless, whom of late, Sea-tost from Troy, the blustering South pursued, And ship and crew at once whelmed in the rolling flood. XLVI. There paced in sorrow Palinurus' ghost, Who, lately from the Libyan shore their guide, Watching the stars, headforemost from his post Had fallen, and perished in the wildering tide. Him, known, but dimly in the gloom descried, The Dardan hails, "O Palinurus! who Of all the gods hath torn thee from our side? Speak, for Apollo, never known untrue, This once hath answered false, and mocked with hopes undue. XLVII. "Safe--so he sang--should'st thou escape the sea, And scatheless to Ausonia's coast attain. Lo, this, his plighted promise!"--"Nay," said he, "Nor answered Phoebus' oracle in vain, Nor did a god o'erwhelm me in the main. For while I ruled the rudder, charged to keep Our course, and steered thee o'er the billowy plain, Sudden, I slipped, and, falling prone and steep, Snapped with sheer force the helm, and dragged it to the deep. XLVIII. "Naught--let the rough seas witness--but for thee I feared, lest rudderless, her pilot lost, Your ship should fail in such a towering sea. Three wintry nights, nipt with the chilling frost, Upon the boundless waters I was tost, And on the fourth dawn from a wave at last Descried Italia. Slowly to her coast I swam, and clutching at the rock, held fast, Cumbered with dripping clothes, and deemed the worst o'erpast. XLIX. "When lo! the savage folk, with sword and stave, Set on me, weening to have found rich prey. And now my bones lie weltering on the wave, Now on strange shores winds blow them far away. O! by the memory of thy sire, I pray, By young Iulus, and his hope so fair, By heaven's sweet breath and light of gladsome day, Relieve my misery, assuage my care, Sail back to Velia's port, great conqueror, and there