ies is explained by the continuation and progress of
ignorance and misery, but that one of their magistrates whose mind is
raised above the common level should share these popular illusions and
should be frightened by the hideous demons that the inhabitants of that
country painted on the walls of their tombs in the time of Porsena--that
is something which might sadden even a sage. My Etruscan visitor
repeated verses to me which he had composed in a new dialect, called
by him the vulgar tongue, the sense of which I could not understand.
My ears were more surprised than charmed as I heard him repeat the same
sound three or four times at regular intervals in his efforts to mark
the rhythm. That artifice did not seem ingenious to me; but it is not
for the dead to judge of novelties.

"But I do not reproach this colonist of Sulla, born in an unhappy time,
for making inharmonious verses or for being, if it be possible, as bad a
poet as Bavius or Maevius. I have grievances against him which touch
me more closely. The thing is monstrous and scarcely credible, but when
this man returned to earth he disseminated the most odious lies about
me. He affirmed in several passages of his barbarous poems that I had
served him as a guide in the modern Tartarus, a place I know nothing of.
He insolently proclaimed that I had spoken of the gods of Rome as false
and lying gods, and that I held as the true God the present successor of
Jupiter. Friend, when thou art restored to the kindly light of day and
beholdest again thy native land, contradict those abominable falsehoods.
Say to thy people that the singer of the pious Aeneas has never
worshipped the god of the Jews. I am assured that his power is declining
and that his approaching fall is manifested by undoubted indications.
This news would give me some pleasure if one could rejoice in these
abodes where we feel neither fears nor desires."

He spoke, and with a gesture of farewell he went away. I beheld his.
shade gliding over the asphodels without bending their stalks. I saw
that it became fainter and vaguer as it receded farther from me, and
it vanished before it reached the wood of evergreen laurels. Then I
understood the meaning of the words, "The dead have no life, but that
which the living lend them," and I walked slowly through the pale meadow
to the gate of horn.

I affirm that all in this writing is true.*

* There is in Marbodius's narrative a passage very worthy of