The seat of night profound, and punished fiends." } Then thus Deïphobus:--"O sacred maid! Forbear to chide, and be your will obeyed. Lo! to the secret shadows I retire, To pay my penance till my years expire.[109] Proceed, auspicious prince, with glory crowned, And born to better fates than I have found." He said; and, while he said, his steps he turned To secret shadows, and in silence mourned. The hero, looking on the left, espied A lofty tower, and strong on every side With treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds, } Whose fiery flood the burning empire bounds; } And, pressed betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise resounds. } Wide is the fronting gate, and, raised on high With adamantine columns, threats the sky. Vain is the force of man, and heaven's as vain, To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. Sublime on these a tower of steel is reared; And dire Tysiphone there keeps the ward, Girt in her sanguine gown, by night and day, Observant of the souls that pass the downward way. From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains Of sounding lashes, and of dragging chains. The Trojan stood astonished at their cries, And asked his guide, from whence those yells arise; And what the crimes, and what the tortures were, And loud laments, that rent the liquid air. She thus replied:--"The chaste and holy race Are all forbidden this polluted place. But Hecat, when she gave to rule the woods, } Then led me trembling through these dire abodes, } And taught the tortures of the avenging gods. } These are the realms of unrelenting Fate; And awful Rhadamanthus rules the state. He hears and judges each committed crime; Inquires into the manner, place, and time. The conscious wretch must all his acts reveal, (Loth to confess, unable to conceal,) From the first moment of his vital breath, To his last hour of unrepenting death. Straight, o'er the guilty ghost, the Fury shakes } The sounding whip, and brandishes her snakes, } And the pale sinner, with her sisters, takes. } Then, of itself, unfolds the eternal door; With dreadful sounds the brazen hinges roar. You see before the gate, what stalking ghost Commands the guard, what centries keep the post. More formidable Hydra stands within, Whose jaws with iron teeth severely grin. The gaping gulf low to the centre lies, And twice as deep, as earth is distant from the skies. The rivals of the gods, the Titan race, Here, singed with lightning, roll within the unfathomed space. Here lie the Aloëan twins, (I saw them both,) Enormous bodies, of gigantic growth, Who dared in fight the Thunderer to defy, Affect his heaven, and force him from the sky. Salmoneus, suffering cruel pains, I found, For emulating Jove with rattling sound Of mimic thunder, and the glittering blaze