He spake, and him the prophetess addressed:
"O Palinurus! whence so impious a request?

LI. "Think'st thou the Stygian waters to explore
Unburied, and the Furies' flood to see,
And reach unbidden yon relentless shore?
Hope not by prayer to bend the Fates' decree,
But take this comfort to thy misery;
The neighbouring towns, and people far and near,
Compelled by prodigies, thy ghost shall free,
And load thy tomb with offerings year by year,
And Palinurus' name for aye the place shall bear."

LII. These words relieved his heaviness; joy came
Upon his saddened spirit, pleased to hear
The well-known land remembered by his name.
Thus on they journey, and the stream draw near;
Whom when the Stygian boatman saw appear,
As shoreward through the silent grove they stray,
With stern rebuke he challenged them: "Beware;
Stand off; approach not, but your purpose say;
What brought you here, whoe'er ye come in armed array?

LIII. "Here Shades inhabit,--Sleep and drowsy Night,--
I may not steer the living to yon shore.
Small joy was mine, when, in the gods' despite,
Alive Alcides o'er the stream I bore,
And Theseus and Pirithous, though more
Than men in prowess, nor of mortal clay.
One tried to seize Hell's guardian, and before
Our monarch's throne to chain the trembling prey;
These from her lord's own bed to drag the queen to day."

LIV. Briefly the seer Amphrysian spake again:
"No guile these arms intend, nor open fight;
Fear not; still may the monster in his den
With endless howl the bloodless ghosts affright,
And chaste Proserpine guard her uncle's right.
Duteous and brave, his father's shade to view,
Descends the famed AEneas; if the sight
Of love so great is powerless to subdue,
Mark this,"--and from her vest the fateful gift she drew.

LV. Down fell his wrath: the venerable bough,
So long unseen, with wonderment he eyed;
Then, shoreward turning with his cold-blue prow,
From bench and gangway thrusts the shades aside,
And takes the great AEneas and his guide.
The stitched bark, groaning with the load it bore,
Gapes at each seam, and drinks the plenteous tide,
Till Prince and Prophetess, borne safely o'er,
Stand on the dank, grey ooze and grim, unsightly shore.

LVI. Crouched in a fronting cave, huge Cerberus wakes
These kingdoms with his three-mouthed bark. His head