Aeneid VI.477-561
Aeneas knows a lot of dead people, which doesn't make it less scary down here.
From there he laboured on the way that was granted them.
And soon they reached the most distant fields,
the remote places where those famous in war
crowd together. Here Tydeus met him, Parthenopaeus
glorious in arms, and the pale form of Adrastus:1
here were the Trojans, wept for deeply above, fallen in war,
whom, seeing them all in their long ranks, he groaned at,
Glaucus, Medon and Thersilochus, the three sons of Antenor,
Polyboetes, the priest of Ceres, and Idaeus
still with his chariot and his weapons.
The spirits stand there in crowds to left and right.
They are not satisfied with seeing him only once;
they delight in lingering on, walking beside him,
and learning the reason for his coming.
But the Greek princes and Agamemnon’s phalanxes
trembled with great fear when they saw the hero
and his gleaming weapons among the shades;
some turned to run, as they once sought their ships: some raised
a faint cry, the noise they made belying their gaping mouths.
And he saw Deiphobus there, Priam’s son, his whole body
mutilated, his face brutally torn, his face and hands both, the ears
ripped from his ruined head, his nostrils sheared by an ugly wound.
Indeed Aeneas barely recognised the quivering form, hiding its dire
punishment, even as he called to him, unprompted, in familiar tones:
“Deiphobus, powerful in war, born of Teucer’s noble blood,
who chose to work such brutal punishment on you?
Who was allowed to treat you so? Rumour has it
that on that final night, wearied by endless killing of Greeks,
you sank down on a pile of the slaughtered.
Then I set up an empty tomb on the Rhoetean2 shore
and called on your spirit three times in a loud voice.
Your name and weapons watch over the site; I could not
see you, friend, to set you, as I left, in your native soil.”
To this Priam’s son replied: “O my friend, you’ve neglected
nothing; you’ve paid all that’s due to Deiophobus
and a dead man’s spirit. My own destiny,
and that Spartan woman’s3 deadly crime, drowned me
in these sorrows; she left me these memorials.
You know how we passed that last night in illusory joy:
and you must remember it only too well.
When the fateful horse came leaping the walls of Troy,
pregnant with the armed warriors it carried in its womb,
she led the Trojan women about, wailing in dance,
aping the Bacchic rites; she held a huge torch in their midst,
signalling to the Greeks from the heights of the citadel.
I was then in our unlucky marriage-chamber, worn out with care
and heavy with sleep, a sweet deep slumber weighing on me
as I lay there, the very semblance of peaceful death.
Meanwhile that illustrious wife of mine removed every weapon
from the house, even stealing my faithful sword from under my head:
she calls Menelaus into the house and throws open the doors,
hoping, I suppose, it would prove a great gift for her lover,
and in that way the infamy of her past sins might be erased.
Why drag out the tale? They burst into the room, and with them
Ulysses the Aeolid4, their co-inciter to wickedness. Gods, so repay
the Greeks, if these lips I pray for vengeance with are virtuous.
But you, in turn, tell what fate has brought you here, living.
Do you come here driven by your wandering on the sea,
or exhorted by the gods? If not, what misfortune torments you,
that you enter these sad sunless houses, this troubled place?”
While they spoke Aurora and her rosy chariot had passed
the zenith of her ethereal path; and they might perhaps
have spent all the time allowed in such talk, but the Sibyl,
his companion, warned him briefly, saying:
“Night approaches, Aeneas; we waste the hours with weeping.
This is the place where the path splits itself in two:
there on the right is our road to Elysium, that runs beneath
the walls of mighty Dis: but the left works punishment
on the wicked and sends them on to godless Tartarus.”
Deiophobus replied: “Do not be angry, great priestess:
I will leave: I will make up the numbers and return to the darkness.
Go now, glory of our race; enjoy a better fate.”
So he spoke, and in speaking turned away.
Aeneas suddenly looked back and, below the left hand cliff,
he saw wide battlements, surrounded by a triple wall
and encircled by a swift river of red-hot flames,
the Tartarean Phlegethon, churning with echoing rocks.
A gate fronts it, vast, with pillars of solid steel,
that no human force, not the heavenly gods themselves,
can overturn by war; an iron tower rises into the air,
and seated before it, Tisiphone5, clothed in a blood-wet dress,
keeps guard of the doorway, sleeplessly, night and day.
Groans came from there, and the cruel sound of the lash,
then the clank of iron and dragging chains.
Aeneas halted and stood rooted, terrified by the noise.
“What evil is practised here? O Virgin, tell me: by what torments
are they oppressed? Why are there such sounds in the air?”
Inde datum molitur iter. iamque arva tenebant
ultima, quae bello clari secreta frequentant.
hic illi occurrit Tydeus, hic inclutus armis
Parthenopaeus et Adrasti pallentis imago, 480
hic multum fleti ad superos belloque caduci
Dardanidae, quos ille omnis longo ordine cernens
ingemuit, Glaucumque Medontaque Thersilochumque,
tris Antenoridas Cererique sacrum Polyboeten,
Idaeumque etiam currus, etiam arma tenentem. 485
circumstant animae dextra laevaque frequentes,
nec vidisse semel satis est; iuvat usque morari
et conferre gradum et veniendi discere causas.
at Danaum proceres Agamemnoniaeque phalanges
ut videre virum fulgentiaque arma per umbras, 490
ingenti trepidare metu; pars vertere terga,
ceu quondam petiere rates, pars tollere vocem
exiguam: inceptus clamor frustratur hiantis.
Atque hic Priamiden laniatum corpore toto
Deiphobum videt et lacerum crudeliter ora, 495
ora manusque ambas, populataque tempora raptis
auribus et truncas inhonesto vulnere naris.
vix adeo agnovit pavitantem ac dira tegentem
supplicia, et notis compellat vocibus ultro:
'Deiphobe armipotens, genus alto a sanguine Teucri, 500
quis tam crudelis optavit sumere poenas?
cui tantum de te licuit? mihi fama suprema
nocte tulit fessum vasta te caede Pelasgum
procubuisse super confusae stragis acervum.
tunc egomet tumulum Rhoeteo in litore inanem 505
constitui et magna manis ter voce vocavi.
nomen et arma locum servant; te, amice, nequivi
conspicere et patria decedens ponere terra.'
ad quae Priamides: 'nihil o tibi, amice, relictum;
omnia Deiphobo solvisti et funeris umbris. 510
sed me fata mea et scelus exitiale Lacaenae
his mersere malis; illa haec monimenta reliquit.
namque ut supremam falsa inter gaudia noctem
egerimus, nosti: et nimium meminisse necesse est.
cum fatalis equus saltu super ardua venit 515
Pergama et armatum peditem gravis attulit aluo,
illa chorum simulans euhantis orgia circum
ducebat Phrygias; flammam media ipsa tenebat
ingentem et summa Danaos ex arce vocabat.
tum me confectum curis somnoque gravatum 520
infelix habuit thalamus, pressitque iacentem
dulcis et alta quies placidaeque simillima morti.
egregia interea coniunx arma omnia tectis
emovet, et fidum capiti subduxerat ensem:
intra tecta vocat Menelaum et limina pandit, 525
scilicet id magnum sperans fore munus amanti,
et famam exstingui veterum sic posse malorum.
quid moror? inrumpunt thalamo, comes additus una
hortator scelerum Aeolides. di, talia Grais
instaurate, pio si poenas ore reposco. 530
sed te qui vivum casus, age fare vicissim,
attulerint. pelagine venis erroribus actus
an monitu divum? an quae te fortuna fatigat,
ut tristis sine sole domos, loca turbida, adires?'
Hac vice sermonum roseis Aurora quadrigis 535
iam medium aetherio cursu traiecerat axem;
et fors omne datum traherent per talia tempus,
sed comes admonuit breviterque adfata Sibylla est:
'nox ruit, Aenea; nos flendo ducimus horas.
hic locus est, partis ubi se via findit in ambas: 540
dextera quae Ditis magni sub moenia tendit,
hac iter Elysium nobis; at laeva malorum
exercet poenas et ad impia Tartara mittit.'
Deiphobus contra: 'ne saevi, magna sacerdos;
discedam, explebo numerum reddarque tenebris. 545
i decus, i, nostrum; melioribus utere fatis.'
tantum effatus, et in verbo vestigia torsit.
Respicit Aeneas subito et sub rupe sinistra
moenia lata videt triplici circumdata muro,
quae rapidus flammis ambit torrentibus amnis, 550
Tartareus Phlegethon, torquetque sonantia saxa.
porta adversa ingens solidoque adamante columnae,
vis ut nulla virum, non ipsi exscindere bello
caelicolae valeant; stat ferrea turris ad auras,
Tisiphoneque sedens palla succincta cruenta 555
vestibulum exsomnis servat noctesque diesque.
hinc exaudiri gemitus et saeva sonare
verbera, tum stridor ferri tractaeque catenae.
constitit Aeneas strepitumque exterritus hausit.
'quae scelerum facies? o virgo, effare; quibusue 560
urgentur poenis? quis tantus plangor ad auras?'
Find the glossary for Aeneid Daily here; subscribe to receive daily posts.
All three men were Greek champions, part of the Seven against Thebes; most died in the attempt to take the city.
Rhoetum was a promontory near Troy.
Helen of Troy (Sparta), whom Deiophobus married after the death of Paris, Helen’s previous husband/abductor.
Referring to Aeolus, king of the winds, from whom Odysseus/Ulysses was descended.
a Fury