Thou’llt wish thyself soon afar! Look! a flood— Tiber foaming to the sea—of men’s blood. Horrors Simois, Xanthus showed might seem Repeated by thy loath fancy in a dream. Nor even wanting to this war—fell war— An Achilles, Goddess born; Troy’s ill star, Queen Juno; and, of worse augury yet For Trojans, or, of snares that Fate has set For thy feet a surer than all beside— A foreign hostess, and a foreign bride. Face trials; turn thy back upon no foe; By paths, however strait, Chance-opened, go. Where wilt thou not in Italy beg aid? If to no purpose, be not thou dismayed. Fortune loves strange means; how but for me have known Thy dawn would break first from forth a Greek town?” Æneas spoke not; for again the jar, Bellowing, shrieking, roaring—civil war Between Spirit, Divine, and human—This, In last contest to stand by what it is; Planning passages that lead nowhere, in or out, Darkening truths, perversities of doubt; Phœbus, if thundering, resolved and cold, Certain of victory, ne’er quitting hold; The other, a wild mare on a wild plain. You heard the cold calm trainer shake the rein, Tear mutinous mouth with the cruel bit, Mock at the passion that resented it. Then quiet; Æneas once more began: “Speak not of risks endurable by man; None daunt me; long since I foresaw the whole, Rehearsed what worst could happen in my soul. I fear no ordeal; if Hell’s gate be here, As they say, and it front the darksome mere— Acheron’s wash—I crave it of thy grace, Holy One, to meet my sire face to face. Never had I been parted from his side Till in an evil hour for me he died. Not in the agony of that dread night, Troy’s ruin, did I lose him from my sight; On these shoulders bore I him ’mid the wreck, Though all Hell’s hounds were barking at my back. On my voyagings best of comrades he, In mortal terrors, on every sea; Minding nothing how elements might rage— A heart that defied weaknesses of age! Tell me the foemen that I would not dare To see him once more, pain I would not bear. In the dead watches of the night he came, And bade me supplicate Thee in his name To unbar Hell’s gates, and to be my Guide. Oh think that he is kneeling by my side! Thy will is law; whate’er Thou wilt is done; Mercy we pray; rejoin us, Father, Son. Others have been to whom was given the right, Living, to travel through the world of night. Its doors, as Orpheus sounded lute and song, Opened to let the minstrel pass along; Fraternal tenderness has paved a way To and from twilight to radiant day; Alcides—did not friendship bring him down? Theseus also—if but that!— Me, love’s crown, The noblest, filial piety, draws, Though into Tartarus’s very jaws! By no bare title holdest thou in fee Avernus by gift from great Hecate; Thine leave to grant, with me the right of love To visit Hell—and I too count from Jove!”