d believed himself
superior even to the Tritons, the sea-deities whose especial province it
was to lull the seas at the command of Neptune by blowing upon instruments
made of shells. These Tritons Misenus had challenged to a trial of skill,
and by way of defiance had blown so loud a note that the deities were
afraid to respond to his challenge; but being full of jealousy, they had
now contrived to lure him into the sea and drown him. The discovery of his
lifeless body filled all his comrades with sadness. They gathered about
him with loud lamentations, and then prepared to erect his funeral pyre,
hastening with axes into the thick surrounding woods, and cutting down
huge oaks and pines and ash-trees.

AEneas himself led the way in the performance of this task, and while he
was engaged in it he could not help exclaiming, as his glance surveyed the
wide forest, "Would that I could now perceive the golden bough which I
must find before entering Hades; for in this ample forest, how can I begin
to search for it?" Scarcely had he spoken when two pigeons suddenly
swooped down from the upper air and alighted at his feet. He guessed at
once that these doves, his mother's favorite birds, had been sent for his
guidance, and he entreated them to conduct him to the place where the
precious bough was growing. The doves, feeding and flying by turns,
advanced through the wood at such a speed that AEneas could easily keep
them in sight, and presently, having reached the very edge of Lake
Avernus, both rose at once into the air, and settled on a great tree of
very dense foliage. The hero hastened to the spot, and there indeed, on
one of the lower limbs of the tree, gleamed the bough, the rich yellow
lustre of its leaves and twigs contrasting vividly with the deep green of
the surrounding foliage. AEneas with delight grasped it, and plucked it
from its place, and, bearing it carefully in his hand, hastened to rejoin
his companions.

They, in the mean time, had reared on the shore a vast pile of logs of
pine and oak, the sides of which they had interlaced with smaller boughs.
After having carefully washed and purified the body of Misenus, they first
made a couch upon the pyre, with the apparel of the dead man, and then,
with renewed cries of grief, placed the body upon it. His arms, too, they
laid beside him, and having poured incense and oil abundantly upon the
pile, they set it on fire. When only smouldering embers were left, these
were