Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/174

 may not be ferried in my Stygian barque. Nay, it was not to my joy that I gave Alcides a passage over the lake, nor Theseus and Pirithous, born of gods though they were, and of strength unsubdued. The one laid a jailer's hand on the warder of Tartarus, even at the foot of the         5 king's own throne, and dragged him trembling along: the others essayed to carry off the queen from Pluto's bridal chamber." To which the Amphrysian priestess replied in brief: "Here there are no stratagems like those; be not discomposed; these weapons are not borne for             10 violence; the monstrous guardian of your gate is free to terrify the bloodless spectres from his den with his unending bark; Proserpine is free to keep her uncle's home as faithful wife should. This is Æneas of Troy, renowned for piety and arms alike: it is to see his father that he       15 is going down to Erebus' lowest depth of gloom. If thou art moved in nought by the spectacle of piety so signal, yet let this branch"—she uncovered the branch which was concealed in her robe—'claim recognition.' At once the angry swell subsides, and the breast is calm.          20 No further parley. Gazing in wonder at the sacred offering of the fated bough, last seen so long ago, he turns to them the sea-green boat, and draws near the bank. Then he dislodges other ghostly passengers who were sitting along the benches, and clears the gangways, while                25 he takes into the vessel's hollow the mighty Æneas. The sutures of the boat cracked beneath the weight, as through its rents it drew in large draughts of marsh-water. At length priestess and prince are safe across the flood, set down amid featureless mud and blue-green rushes.                 30

Cerberus,[o] the monster, makes the whole realm ring with his three barking throats, as he lies in giant length fronting them in his den's mouth. The priestess, seeing the snakes already bristling on his neck, throws him a morsel steeped in the slumber of honey and medicated            35 meal. He, in the frenzy of hunger, opens his triple jaws to catch it as it comes, and stretches his enormous back at length on the ground, till his huge bulk covers the den.