The Aeneid (31 page)

                When the aged priestess of Apollo had finished her answer,
                she added these words: ‘But come now, you must take the road
630         and complete the task you have begun. Let us hasten. I can see
                the high walls forged in the furnaces of the Cyclopes and the
                gates there in front of us in the arch. This is where we have been
                told to lay the gift that is required of us.’ After these words they
                walked the dark road together, soon covering the distance and
                coming close to the doors. There Aeneas leapt on the threshold,
                sprinkled his body with fresh water and fixed the bough full in
                the doorway.

                When this rite was at last performed and his duty to the
                goddess was done, they entered the land of joy, the lovely glades
640         
of the fortunate woods and the home of the blest. Here a broader
                sky clothes the plains in glowing light, and the spirits have their
                own sun and their own stars. Some take exercise on grassy
                wrestling-grounds and hold athletic contests and wrestling
                bouts on the golden sand. Others pound the earth with dancing
                feet and sing their songs while Orpheus, the priest of Thrace,
                accompanies their measures on his seven-stringed lyre, plucking
                the notes sometimes with his fingers, sometimes with his ivory
                plectrum. Here was the ancient line of Teucer, the fairest of
650         all families, great-hearted heroes born in a better time, Ilus,
                Assaracus and Dardanus, the founder of Troy. Aeneas admired
                from a distance their armour and empty chariots. Their swords
                were planted in the ground and their horses wandered free on
                the plain cropping the grass. Reposing there below the earth,
                they took the same joy in their chariots and their armour as
                when alive, and the same care to feed their sleek horses. Then
                suddenly he saw others on both sides of him feasting on the
                grass, singing in a joyful choir their paean to Apollo all through
                a grove of fragrant laurels where the mighty river Eridanus rolls
660         through the forest to the upper world. Here were armies of men
                bearing wounds received while fighting for their native land,
                priests who had been chaste unto death and true prophets whose
                words were worthy of Apollo; then those who have raised
                human life to new heights by the skills they have discovered and
                those whom men remember for what they have done for men.
                All these with sacred ribbons of white round their foreheads
                gathered round Aeneas and the Sibyl, and she addressed these
                words to them, especially to Musaeus, for the whole great
                throng looked up to him as he stood there in the middle, head
                and shoulders above them all: ‘Tell me, blessed spirits, and you,
670         best of poets, which part of this world holds Anchises? Where
                is he to be found? It is because of Anchises that we have come
                here and crossed the great rivers of Erebus.’ The hero returned
                a short answer: ‘None of us has a fixed home. We live in these
                densely wooded groves and rest on the soft couches of the river
                bank and in the fresh water-meadows. But if that is the desire
                of your hearts, come climb this ridge and I shall soon set you on
                an easy path.’ So saying, he walked on in front of them to a
                
place from where they could see the plains below them bathed
                in light, and from that point Aeneas and the Sibyl came down
                from the mountain tops.

                Father Anchises was deep in a green valley, walking among
680         the souls who were enclosed there and eagerly surveying them
                as they waited to rise into the upper light. It so happened that
                at that moment he was counting the number of his people,
                reviewing his dear descendants, their fates and their fortunes,
                their characters and their courage in war. When he saw Aeneas
                coming towards him over the grass, he stretched out both hands
                in eager welcome, with the tears streaming down his cheeks,
                and these were the words that broke from his mouth: ‘You have
                come at last,’ he cried. ‘I knew your devotion would prevail
                over all the rigour of the journey and bring you to your father.
                Am I to be allowed to look upon your face, my son, to hear the
690         voice I know so well and answer it with my own? I never
                doubted it. I counted the hours, knowing you would come, and
                my love has not deceived me. I understand how many lands you
                have travelled and how many seas you have sailed to come to
                me here. I know the dangers that have beset you. I so feared the
                kingdom of Libya would do you harm.’ ‘It was my vision of
                you,’ replied Aeneas, ‘always before my eyes and always stricken
                with sorrow, that drove me to the threshold of this place. The
                fleet is moored in the Tyrrhenian sea on the shores of Italy.
                Give me your right hand, father. Give it me. Do not avoid my
                embrace.’ As he spoke these words his cheeks were washed with
700         tears and three times he tried to put his arms around his father’s
                neck. Three times the phantom melted in his hands, as weightless
                as the wind, as light as the flight of sleep.

                And now Aeneas saw in a side valley a secluded grove with
                copses of rustling trees where the river Lethe glided along past
                peaceful dwelling houses. Around it fluttered numberless races
                and tribes of men, like bees in a meadow on a clear summer
                day, settling on all the many-coloured flowers and crowding
                round the gleaming white lilies while the whole plain is loud
710         with their buzzing. Not understanding what he saw, Aeneas
                shuddered at the sudden sight of them and asked why this was,
                what was that river in the distance and who were all those
                
companies of men crowding its banks. ‘These are the souls to
                whom Fate owes a second body,’ replied Anchises. ‘They come
                to the waves of the river Lethe and drink the waters of serenity
                and draughts of long oblivion. I have long been eager to tell you
                who they are, to show them to you face to face and count the
                generations of my people to you so that you could rejoice the
                more with me at the finding of Italy.’ ‘But are we to believe,’
720         replied Aeneas to his dear father, ‘that there are some souls who
                rise from here to go back under the sky and return to sluggish
                bodies? Why do the poor wretches have this terrible longing for
                the light?’ ‘I shall tell you, my son, and leave you no longer in
                doubt,’ replied Anchises, and he began to explain all things in
                due order.

                ‘In the beginning Spirit fed all things from within, the sky and
                the earth, the level waters, the shining globe of the moon and
                the Titan’s star, the sun. It was Mind that set all this matter in
                motion. Infused through all the limbs, it mingled with that great
                body, and from the union there sprang the families of men and
                of animals, the living things of the air and the strange creatures
730         born beneath the marble surface of the sea. The living force
                within them is of fire and its seeds have their source in heaven,
                but their guilt-ridden bodies make them slow and they are dulled
                by earthly limbs and dying flesh. It is this that gives them their
                fears and desires, their griefs and joys. Closed in the blind
                darkness of this prison they do not see out to the winds of air.
                Even when life leaves them on their last day of light, they are
                not wholly freed from all the many ills and miseries of the body
                which must harden in them over the long years and become
                ingrained in ways we cannot understand. And so they are put
740         to punishment, to pay the penalty for all their ancient sins. Some
                are stretched and hung out empty to dry in the winds. Some
                have the stain of evil washed out of them under a vast tide of
                water or scorched out by fire. Each of us suffers his own fate in
                the after-life. From here we are sent over the broad plains of
                Elysium and some few of us possess these fields of joy until the
                circle of time is completed and the length of days has removed
                ingrained corruption and left us pure ethereal sense, the fire of
                elemental air. All these others whom you see, when they have
                
rolled the wheel for a thousand years, are called out by God to
750         come in great columns to the river of Lethe, so that they may
                duly go back and see the vault of heaven again remembering
                nothing, and begin to be willing to return to bodies.’

                When he had finished speaking, Anchises led his son and the
                Sibyl with him into the middle of this noisy crowd of souls, and
                took up his stance on a mound from which he could pick them
                all out as they came towards him in a long line and recognize
                their faces as they came.

                ‘Come now, and I shall tell you of the glory that lies in store
                for the sons of Dardanus, for the men of Italian stock who will
                be our descendants, bright spirits that will inherit our name,
760         and I shall reveal to you your own destiny. That young warrior
                you see there leaning on the sword of valour, to him is allotted
                the place nearest to the light in this grove, and he will be the
                first of us to rise into the ethereal air with an admixture of Italic
                blood. He will be called Silvius, an Alban name, and he will be
                your son, born after your death. You will live long, but he will
                be born too late for you to know, and your wife Lavinia will
                rear him in the woods to be a king and father of kings and found
                our dynasty to rule in Alba Longa. Next to him is Procas, glory
                of the Trojan race, and Capys, and Numitor, and the king who
770         will renew your name, Silvius Aeneas, your equal in piety and
                in arms if ever he succeeds to his rightful throne in Alba. What
                warriors they are! Look at the strength of them! Look at the
                oak wreaths, the Civic Crowns, that shade their foreheads!
                These are the men who will build Nomentum for you, and
                Gabii, and the city of Fidenae. They will set Collatia’s citadel
                on the mountains, and Pometia too, and Castrum Inui, and Bola
                and Cora. These, my son, will be the names of places which are
                at this moment places without names. And Romulus, son of
                Mars, will march at his grandfather’s side. He will be of the
                stock of Assaracus, and his mother, who will rear him, will be
                Ilia. Do you see how the double crest stands on his head and the
780         Father of the Gods himself already honours him with his own
                emblem? Look at him, my son. Under his auspices will be
                founded Rome in all her glory, whose empire shall cover the
                earth and whose spirit shall rise to the heights of Olympus. Her
                
single city will enclose seven citadels within its walls and she
                will be blest in the abundance of her sons, like Cybele, the
                Mother Goddess of Mount Berecyntus riding in her chariot
                turret-crowned through the cities of Phrygia, rejoicing in her
                divine offspring and embracing a hundred descendants, all of
                them gods, all dwellers in the heights of heaven.

                ‘Now turn your two eyes in this direction and look at this
                family of yours, your own Romans. Here is Caesar, and all the
790         sons of Iulus about to come under the great vault of the sky.
                Here is the man whose coming you so often hear prophesied,
                here he is, Augustus Caesar, son of a god, the man who will
                bring back the golden years to the fields of Latium once ruled
                over by Saturn, and extend Rome’s empire beyond the Indians
                and the Garamantes to a land beyond the stars, beyond the
                yearly path of the sun, where Atlas holds on his shoulder the
                sky all studded with burning stars and turns it on its axis. The
                kingdoms round the Caspian sea and Lake Maeotis are even
800         now quaking at the prophecies of his coming. The seven mouths
                of the Nile are in turmoil and alarm. Hercules himself did not
                make his way to so many lands though his arrow pierced the
                hind with hooves of bronze, though he gave peace to the woods
                of Erymanthus and made Lerna tremble at his bow. Nor did
                triumphing Bacchus ride so far when he drove his tiger-drawn
                chariot down from the high peak of Nysa, and the reins that
                guided the yoke were the tendrils of the vine. And do we still
                hesitate to extend our courage by our actions? Does any fear
                deter us from taking our stand on the shore of Ausonia?