Twas he who bade me, with prevailing prayer,
Approach thee humbly, and thy care engage,
Pity the sire and son, and Trojan hearts assuage.

XVIII. "For thou can'st all, nor Hecate for naught
Hath set thee o'er Avernus' groves to reign.
If Orpheus from the shades his bride up-brought,
Trusting his Thracian harp and sounding strain,
If Pollux could from Pluto's drear domain
His brother by alternate death reclaim,
And tread the road to Hades o'er again
Oft and so oft--why great Alcides name?
Why Theseus? I, as they, Jove's ancestry can claim."

XIX. So prayed AEneas, clinging to the shrine,
When thus the prophetess: "O Trojan Knight,
Born of Anchises, and of seed divine,
Down to Avernus the descent is light,
The gate of Dis stands open day and night.
But upward thence thy journey to retrace,
There lies the labour; 'tis a task of might,
By few achieved, and those of heavenly race,
Whom shining worth extolled or Jove hath deigned to grace.

XX. "Thick woods and shades the middle space invest,
And black Cocytus girds the drear abode.
Yet, if such passion hath thy soul possessed,
If so thou longest to indulge thy mood,
And madly twice to cross the Stygian flood,
And visit twice black Tartarus, mark the way
Sacred to nether Juno, in a wood,
With golden stem and foliage, lurks a spray,
And trees and darksome dales surrounding shroud the day.

XXI. "Yet none the shades can visit, till he tear
That golden growth, the gift of Pluto's queen,
And show the passport she decreed to bear.
One plucked, another in its place is seen,
As bright and burgeoning with golden green.
Search then aloft, and when thou see'st the spray,
Reach forth and pluck it; willingly, I ween,
If Fate shall call thee, 'twill thy touch obey;
Else steel nor strength of arm shall rend the prize away.

XXII. "Mark yet--alas! thou know'st not--yonder lies
Thy friend's dead body, and pollutes the shore.
While thou the Fates art asking to advise,
And lingering here, a suppliant, at our door.
Nay, first thy comrade to his home restore,
And build a tomb, and bring black cattle; they
The stain shall expiate; so the Stygian shore
Shalt thou behold, and tread the sunless way,
Which living feet ne'er trod, and mounted to the day."

XXIII. She ended. From the cave AEneas went,
With down-dropt eyes and melancholy mi