But the Sibyl warns her companion, who stands absorbed in grief at his comrade’s fate, that the permitted hours of their visit are fast passing away. She guides him on to where the path they are treading divides, leading in one direction to the Elysian Fields, in the other to Tartarus,--for the district which they have explored already is represented as of an entirely neutral character. On the left, Æneas sees rise before him the broad bastions of Tartarus, round which flows the fiery stream of Phlegethon:-- “In front a portal stands displayed, On adamantine columns stayed; Nor mortal nor immortal foe Those massy gates could overthrow. An iron tower of equal might In air uprises steep; Tisiphonè, in red robes dight, Sits on the threshold day and night, With eyes that know not sleep. Hark! from within there issue groans, The cracking of the thong, The clank of iron o’er the stones Dragged heavily along.” Æneas asks of his companion the meaning of these fearful sounds. They are the outcries of the wicked in torment. They may not be seen by human eyes; but Deiphobè herself has been shown all the horrible secrets of their prison-house by Hecate, when intrusted by that goddess with the charge of the entrance to the Shades. She tells Æneas how Rhadamanthus sits in judgment there, and forces the wicked to confess their deeds. Crimes successfully concealed on earth are there made manifest; then the culprit is handed over to the Furies for punishment. Such punishments are various as the crimes; strange and horrible in the cases of extraordinary offenders,--especially against the majesty of the gods. In the lowest gulf of all,-- “Where Tartarus, with sheer descent, Dips ’neath the ghost-world twice as deep As towers above earth’s continent The height of heaven’s Olympian steep,”-- lie the twin giants, sons of Aloeus, who sought to storm heaven, and hurl Jupiter from his throne. There, too, is chained Salmoneus, who, counterfeiting the thunder and lightning of the Olympian ruler, was struck down by the force which he profanely imitated. Tityos, son of Earth, who dared to offer violence to the goddess Latona, lies there also, suffering the punishment assigned by the Greek mythologists to Prometheus:-- “O’er acres nine from end to end His vast unmeasured limbs extend; A vulture on his liver preys: The liver fails not, nor decays: Still o’er that flesh which breeds new pangs, With crooked beak the torturer hangs, Explores its depth with bloody fangs, And searches for her food; Still haunts the cavern of his breast, Nor lets the filaments have rest, To endless pain renewed.”