Virgil is here more literally orthodox, and less philosophical in his creed, than his master Lucretius. For he, too, knew the story of Tityos, but saw in it only an allegory; “every man is a Tityos,” says the elder poet, “whose heart is torn and racked perpetually by his own evil lusts and passions.” Other and various torments has the Sibyl seen; for the selfish and covetous, for the adulterer, for the betrayer of trust, and the spoiler of the orphan; the feast ever spread before the hungry eyes and ever vanishing; the rock overhanging the head of the guilty, ever ready to fall; the stone that has to be rolled with vast labour up the hill, only to roll back again for ever; and, most remarkable of all punishments, the doom of the restless adventurer Theseus for his attempt on Proserpine--to sit for ever in perpetual inactivity. And amidst them all rings out the warning voice of Phlegyas (condemned for having set fire to the temple of Apollo) from his place of torment:-- “Be warned--learn righteousness--and reverence heaven.” Here again we have, it may be, a protest against the teaching of Lucretius: a distinct rejection, on Virgil’s part, of the materialistic doctrine which would deny a divine Providence and human responsibility. The whole conception of Virgil’s hell is grand and terrific. Highly material and sensational, it is hardly more so than mediæval divines and artists have represented; and indeed it is more than probable that, consciously or unconsciously, they often adopted pagan notions on the subject. In its moral teaching, whether the poet intended his descriptions to be taken in their literal sense or interpreted in the way of parable, his creed has at least the essential elements of truth. But now the visitors turn their steps towards the Elysian fields, and after duly hanging up the golden bough at the gate for Proserpine’s acceptance, they enter those abodes of the blest:-- “Green spaces, folded in with trees, A paradise of pleasaunces; Around the champaign mantles bright The fulness of purpureal light; Another sun and stars they know, That shine like ours, but shine below.” There are assembled the illustrious dead--warriors who have died for their country; priests of unstained life; bards who have never perverted their powers; all who have been benefactors of mankind,-- “A goodly brotherhood, bedight With coronals of virgin white.” Shadows as they are, all the items of their happiness are material. The games of the palæstra, the song of the bard, the care of ghostly horses and ghostly chariots, form the interests of this world of spirits;--the interests of earth, without earth’s substantial realities. The poet found his imagination fail him, as it fails us all, when he tries to paint the details of an incorporeal existence.