oweth it)--
"Know ye!"
Then in his swelling heart adown the anger sank,
Nor spake he more; but wondering at that gift a God might thank,
The fateful stem, now seen once more so long a time worn by,
He turned about his coal-blue keel and drew the bank anigh 410
The souls upon the long thwarts set therewith he thrusteth out,
And clears the gangway, and withal takes in his hollow boat
The huge AEneas, 'neath whose weight the seamed boat groans and creaks,
And plenteous water of the mere lets in at many leaks.
At last the Hero and the Maid safe o'er the watery way
He leaveth on the ugly mire and sedge of sorry grey.

The three-mouthed bark of Cerberus here filleth all the place,
As huge he lieth in a den that hath them full in face:
But when the adders she beheld upon his crest upborne,
A sleepy morsel honey-steeped, and blent of wizards' corn, 420
She cast him: then his threefold throat, all wild with hunger's lack,
He opened wide, and caught at it, and sank his monstrous back,
And there he lay upon the earth enormous through the cave.
AEneas caught upon the pass the door-ward's slumber gave,
And fled the bank of that sad stream no man may pass again.
And many sounds they heard therewith, a wailing vast and vain;
For weeping souls of speechless babes round the first threshold lay,
Whom, without share of life's delight, snatched from the breast away,
The black day hurried off, and all in bitter ending hid.
And next were those condemned to die for deed they never did: 430
For neither doom nor judge nor house may any lack in death:
The seeker Minos shakes the urn, and ever summoneth
The hushed-ones' court, and learns men's lives and what against them stands.

The next place is of woeful ones, who sackless, with their hands
Compassed their death, and weary-sick of light without avail
Cast life away; but now how fain to bear the poor man's bale
Beneath the heaven, the uttermost of weary toil to bear!
But law forbiddeth: the sad wave of that unlovely mere
Is changeless bond; and ninefold Styx compelleth to abide.
Nor far from thence behold the meads far spread on every side, 440
The Mourning Meads--in tale have they such very name and sign.
There those whom hard love ate away with cruel wasting pine
Are hidden in the lonely paths wi