The priestess marked, all bristling now with snakes,
And flung a sop of honied drugs and bread.
He, famine-stung, with triple jaws dispread,
The morsel snaps, then prone along the cave
Lies stretched on earth, with loosened limbs, as dead.
The sentry lulled, AEneas, blithe and brave,
Seizes the pass, and leaves the irremeable wave.

LVII. Loud shrieks are heard, and wails of the distrest,
The souls of babes, that on the threshold cry,
Reft of sweet life, and ravished from the breast,
And early plunged in bitter death. Hard by
Are those, whom slanderous charges doomed to die.
Not without judgment these abodes they win.
Here, urn in hand, dread Minos sits to try
The charge anew; he summons from within
The silent court, and learns each several life and sin.

LVIII. And next are those, who, hateful of the day,
With guiltless hands their sorrowing lives have ta'en,
And miserably flung their souls away.
How gladly now, in upper air again,
Would they endure their poverty and pain!
It may not be. The Fates their doom decide
Past hope, and bind them to this sad domain.
Dark round them rolls the sea, unlovely tide;
Ninefold the waves of Styx those dreary realms divide.

LIX. Not far off stretch the Mourning Meads, where those
Whom cruel Love hath wasted with despair,
In myrtle groves and alleys hide their woes,
Nor Death itself relieves them of their care.
Lo, Phaedra, Procris, Eriphyle there,
Baring the breast by filial hands imbrued,
Evadne, and Pasiphae, and fair
Laodamia in the crowd he viewed,
And Caeneus, maid, then man, and now a maid renewed.

LX. There through the wood Phoenician Dido strayed,
Fresh from her wound. Whom when AEneas knew,
Scarce seen, though near, amid the doubtful shade,
As one who views, or only seems to view,
The clouded moon rise when the month is new,
Fondly he spake, while tears were in his eye:
"Ah, hapless Dido! then the news was true
That thou had'st sought the bitter end. Was I,
Alas! the cause of death? O by the starry sky,

LXI. "By Gods above, by faith, if aught, below,
Unwillingly, O Queen, I left thy sight.
The Gods, at whose compulsion now I go
Through these dark Shades, this realm of deepest Night,
These wastes of squalor, 'twas their word of might
That drove me forth; nor could I dream such woe
Was thine at my departi