are tossed about like dead
leaves. At sight of the branch dedicated to Proserpine, Charon took
me in his bark, which groaned beneath my weight, and I alighted on the
shores of the dead, and was greeted by the mute baying of the threefold
Cerberus. I pretended to throw the shade of a stone at him, and the vain
monster fled into his cave. There, amidst the rushes, wandered the souls
of those children whose eyes had but opened and shut to the kindly light
of day, and there in a gloomy cavern Minos judges men. I penetrated
into the myrtle wood in which the victims of love wander languishing,
Phaedra, Procris, the sad Eriphyle, Evadne, Pasiphae, Laodamia, and
Cenis, and the Phoenician Dido. Then I went through the dusty plains
reserved for famous warriors. Beyond them open two ways. That to the
left leads to Tartarus, the abode of the wicked. I took that to the
right, which leads to Elysium and to the dwellings of Dis. Having hung
the sacred branch at the goddess's door, I reached pleasant fields
flooded with purple light. The shades of philosophers and poets hold
grave converse there. The Graces and the Muses formed sprightly choirs
upon the grass. Old Homer sang, accompanying himself upon his rustic
lyre. His eyes were closed, but divine images shone upon his lips. I saw
Solon, Democritus, and Pythagoras watching the games of the young men in
the meadow, and, through the foliage of an ancient laurel, I perceived
also Hesiod, Orpheus, the melancholy Euripides, and the masculine
Sappho. I passed and recognised, as they sat on the bank of a fresh
rivulet, the poet Horace, Varius, Gallus, and Lycoris. A little
apart, leaning against the trunk of a dark holm-oak, Virgil was gazing
pensively at the grove. Of lofty stature, though spare, he still
preserved that swarthy complexion, that rustic air, that negligent
bearing, and unpolished appearance which during his lifetime concealed
his genius. I saluted him piously and remained for a long time without
speech.

At last when my halting voice could proceed out of my throat:

"O thou, so dear to the Ausonian Muses, thou honour of the Latin name,
Virgil," cried I, "it is through thee I have known what beauty is, it
is through thee I have known what the tables of the gods and the beds
of the goddesses are like. Suffer the praises of the humblest of thy
adorers."

"Arise, stranger," answered the divine poet. "I perceive that thou art
a living being among the shades, and that thy bod