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While thus, in talk, the flying hours they pass, 720 The sun had finish'd more than half his race; And they, perhaps, in words and tears had spent The little time of stay which heav'n had lent: But thus the Sibyl chides their long delay: 'Night rushes down, and headlong drives the day: 725 'Tis here, in diff'rent paths, the way divides : The right to Pluto's golden palace guides : The left to that unhappy region tends Which to the depth of Tartarus descendsThe seat of night profound, and punish'd fiends.' 730 Then thus Deïphobus: ‘O sacred maid! Forbear to chide; and be your will obey'd.

Lo! to the secret shadows I retire,
To pay my penance till my years expire.
Proceed, auspicious prince, with glory crown'd,
And born to better fates than I have found.'
He said; and, while he said, his steps he turn'd
To secret shadows, and in silence mourn'd.

735

The hero, looking on the left, espied

A lofty tow'r and strong on ev'ry side
With treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds,
Whose fiery flood the burning empire bounds:
And, press'd betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise

740

resounds.

Wide is the fronting gate, and, raised on high
With adamantine columns, threats the sky.
Vain is the force of man, and heaven's as vain,
To crush the pillars which the pile sustain.
Sublime on these a tow'r of steel is rear'd;
And dire Tisiphone there keeps the ward,
Girt in her sanguine gown, by night and day,
Observant of the souls that pass the downward way.
From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains
Of sounding lashes, and of dragging chains.

745

750

The Trojan stood astonish'd at their cries,

And ask'd his guide from whence those yells arise;

And what the crimes, and what the tortures were, 756

And loud laments that rent the liquid air.

She thus replied: 'The chaste and holy race

Are all forbidden this polluted place.

But Hecate, when she gave to rule the woods,
Then led me trembling through these dire abodes,
And taught the tortures of th' avenging gods.
These are the realms of unrelenting Fate;
And awful Rhadamanthus rules the state.
He hears and judges each committed crime;
Inquires into the manner, place, and time.
The conscious wretch must all his acts reveal,
(Loth to confess, unable to conceal,)
From the first moment of his vital breath,
To his last hour of unrepenting death.
Straight o'er the guilty ghost the Fury shakes
The sounding whip, and brandishes her snakes,
And the pale sinner, with her sisters, takes.
Then, of itself, unfolds th' eternal door:
With dreadful sounds the brazen hinges roar.
You see, before the gate, what stalking ghost
Commands the guard, what sentries keep the post.

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More formidable Hydra stands within,

Whose jaws with iron teeth severely grin.

780

The gaping gulf low to the centre lies,
And twice as deep, as earth is distant from the skies.
The rivals of the gods, the Titan race,

Here, singed with lightning, roll within th' unfathom'd

space.

Here lie th' Aloëan twins, (I saw them both,)

Enormous bodies, of gigantic growth,
Who dared in fight the Thund'rer to defy,

785

Affect his heav'n, and force him from the sky.

Salmoneus, suff'ring cruel pains, I found,
For emulating Jove with rattling sound
Of mimic thunder, and the glitt'ring blaze
Of pointed lightnings, and their forky rays.
Through Elis, and the Grecian towns, he flew :
Th' audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew :
He waved a torch aloft, and, madly vain,
Sought godlike worship from a servile train.
Ambitious fool! with horny hoofs to pass
O'er hollow arches of resounding brass,
To rival thunder in its rapid course,
And imitate inimitable force!

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But he, the king of heav'n, obscure on high,
Bared his red arm, and, launching from the sky
His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke,
Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon struck.

800

There Tityus was to see, who took his birth
From heav'n, his nursing from the foodful earth. 805

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Th' immortal hunger lasts, th' immortal food re

mains.

Ixion and Pirithoüs I could name,

And more Thessalian chiefs of mighty fame.

815

High o'er their heads a mould'ring rock is placed,

That promises a fall, and shakes at ev'ry blast.

They lie below on golden beds display'd;

And genial feasts with regal pomp are made.

The queen of furies by their sides is set,

820

And snatches from their mouths th' untasted meat,

Which if they touch, her hissing snakes she rears,
Tossing her torch, and thund'ring in their ears.
Then they, who brothers' better claim disown,
Expel their parents and usurp the throne;
Defraud their clients, and, to lucre sold,
Sit brooding on unprofitable gold-
Who dare not give, and ev'n refuse to lend,
To their poor kindred or a wanting friend-
Vast is the throng of these; nor less the train

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Of lustful youths, for foul adult'ry slain-
Hosts of deserters, who their honor sold,
And basely broke their faith for bribes of gold.
All these within the dungeon's depth remain,

Despairing pardon, and expecting pain.

835

Ask not what pains; nor farther seek to know

Their process, or the forms of law below.

Some roll a mighty stone; some, laid along,

And bound with burning wires, on spokes of wheels

are hung.

Unhappy Theseus, doom'd for ever there,

840

Is fix'd by Fate on his eternal chair:

And wretched Phlegyas warns the world with cries, (Could warning make the world more just or wise,) 'Learn righteousness, and dread th' avenging deities.'

To tyrants others have their country sold,

845

Imposing foreign lords for foreign gold:

Some have old laws repeal'd, new statutes made,
Not as the people pleased, but as they paid.

With incest some their daughters' bed profaned.
All dared the worst of ills, and, what they dared, at-

tain'd.

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Had I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,

And throats of brass, inspired with iron lungs,

I could not half those horrid crimes repeat,

Nor half the punishments those crimes have met.

But let us haste our voyage to pursue:
The walls of Pluto's palace are in view,
The gate, and iron arch above :-it stands
On anvils labor'd by the Cyclops' hands.
Before our farther way the Fates allow,

855

Here must we fix on high the golden bough.'
She said: and through the gloomy shades they past,

860

And chose the middle path.-Arrived at last,

The prince, with living water, sprinkled o'er
His limbs and body; then approach'd the door,

Possess'd the porch, and on the front above

865

He fix'd the fatal bough, required by Pluto's love.
These holy rites perform'd, they took their way,
Where long extended plains of pleasure lay.

The verdant fields with those of heav'n may vie,

With ether vested, and a purple sky

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The blissful seats of happy souls below :

Stars of their own, and their own suns, they know.

Their airy limbs in sports they exercise,

And, on the green, contend the wrestler's prize.

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Strike sev'n distinguish'd notes, and sev'n at once they

fill.

880

Here found they Teucer's old heroic race,
Born better times and happier years to grace.

Assaracus and Ilus here enjoy

Perpetual fame, with him who founded Troy.
The chief beheld their chariots from afar,
Their shining arms, and coursers train'd to war.
Their lances fix'd in earth-their steeds around,
Free from their harness, graze the flow'ry ground.

885

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