My son, more dear, while life remained, E'en than that life to me, My son, long exercised and trained In Ilium's destiny, My errand is from Jove the sire, Who saved your vessels from the fire, And sent at last from heaven above The wished-for token of his love. Hear and obey the counsel sage Bestowed by Nautes' reverend age: Picked youths, the bravest of the brave, Be these your comrades o'er the wave, For haughty are the tribes and rude That Latium has to be subdued. But ere you yet confront the foe, First seek the halls of Dis below, Pass deep Avernus' vale, and meet Your father in his own retreat. Not Tartarus' prison-house of crime Detains me, nor the mournful shades: My home is in the Elysian clime, With righteous souls, 'mid happy glades. The virgin Sibyl with the gore Of sable sheep shall ope the door; Then shall you learn your future line, And what the walls the Fates assign. And now farewell: dew-sprinkled Night Has scaled Olympus' topmost height: I catch their panting breath from far, The steeds of morning's cruel star. Conington. Moved by this vision, Æneas builds a town for the dispirited members of his band; and consigning these to King Acestes, sets his face once more toward Italy. This time, by Venus' aid, he reaches the Italian port of Cumæ, with no misadventure except the loss of his faithful pilot, Palinurus. Once more on land, the Trojans joyfully scour the woods, seek out fresh springs of water, and collect fuel for their fires. Æneas, however, turns his steps to the temple of Apollo upon a neighboring height, and prays the guidance of the god upon his further way. But most of all it is upon the hero's heart to visit his father in the underworld according to the mandate of his father's shade in Sicily. At the advice of the Sibyl who presides over the temple of Apollo, Æneas performs the necessary rites preliminary to this journey, and entering the dread cave near Lake Avernus, they take their gloomy way below. Obscure they went thro' dreary shades, that led Along the waste dominions of the dead. Thus wander travelers in wood by night, By the moon's doubtful and malignant light, When Jove in dusky clouds involves the skies, And the faint crescent shoots by fits before their eyes. Dryden. They reach at last the gates of Hades, where hover the dreadful shapes of Cares, Disease and Death, Want, Famine, Toil and Strife. Through these they fare, and stand upon the sedgy bank of the river of death. They see approaching them across the stream the old boatman Charon, who in his frail skiff ferries souls across the water.