The paroxysms increase after she has entered the cave, and is in the agonies of inspiration:-- “The seer, impatient of control, Raves in the cavern vast, And madly struggles from her soul The incumbent power to cast. He, mighty Master, plies the more Her foaming mouth, all chafed and sore, Tames her wild heart with plastic hand, And makes her docile to command.” At last all the hundred doors fly open at once, and the voice of destiny comes forth. The wanderers shall reach Latium safely, but they shall wish they had never reached it. “War, dreadful war, and Tiber flood I see incarnadined with blood; Simois and Xanthus, and the plain Where Greece encamped shall rise again; A new Achilles, goddess-born, The destinies provide, And Juno, like a rankling thorn, Shall never quit your side. * * * * * The old, old cause shall stir the strife-- A stranger bed, a foreign wife. Yet still despond not, but proceed Along the path where Fate may lead.” Æneas hears,--undismayed. He is a true hero so far, that he is always equal to his fate. One request he makes of the Sibyl,--that he may visit the shades below, the entrance to which is said to lie here, within the prophetess’s domain, and there see again the face of his father. Deiphobè consents, but not without the solemn warning, often quoted to point a far higher moral than the heathen poet was likely to have conceived--so often, that the Latin words themselves are probably familiar even to those who profess but little Latin scholarship:--- “Facilis descensus Averni; Noctes atque dies patet atra janua Ditis; Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, Hoc opus, hic labor est.” Their terseness and pathos are not easy to reproduce in any other language, but Mr Conington has done it as well, perhaps, as it could be done:-- “The journey down to the Abyss Is prosperous and light; The palace-gates of gloomy Dis Stand open day and night; But upward to retrace the way, And pass into the light of day,-- There comes the stress of labour--this May task a hero’s might.” Few are they of mortal birth who, by the special grace of the gods, have achieved that desperate venture with success. Still, if Æneas is determined to attempt it, she will teach him the secret of the passage. Deep in the shades of the neighbouring forest there grows a tree which bears a golden bough, which he must find and carry with him into the regions of the dead; it is the gift which Proserpine, who reigns there, claims from all who enter her court.