Aeneid VI.679-751

Ghost Dad is here, and he's got LORE!

But deep in a green valley his father Anchises

was surveying the spirits enclosed there, destined

for the light above, thinking carefully, and was reviewing

as it chanced¹ the numbers of his own folk, his dear grandsons,

and their fate and fortunes as men, and their ways and works.

And when he saw Aeneas heading towards him over the grass

he stretched out both his hands eagerly, his face

streaming with tears, and a cry issued from his lips:

“Have you come at last, and has the loyalty your father expected

conquered the harsh road? Is it granted me to see your face,

my son, and hear and speak in familiar tones?

I calculated it in my mind, and thought it would be so,

counting off the hours, nor has my trouble failed me.

From travel over what lands and seas do I receive you!

What dangers have hurled you about, my son!

How I feared the realms of Libya might harm you!”

He answered: “Father, your image, yours, appearing to me

so often, drove me to reach this threshold:

My ships ride the Etruscan waves. Father, let me clasp

your hand, let me, and do not draw away from my embrace.”

So speaking, his face was also drowned in a flood of tears.

Three times he tries to throw his arms round his father’s neck,

three times, clasped in vain, that semblance slips though his hands

like the light breeze, most of all like a winged dream.

And now Aeneas saw a secluded grove

in a receding valley with rustling woodland thickets,

and the river of Lethe gliding past those peaceful places.

Innumerable tribes and peoples hovered round it:

just as, in the meadows on a cloudless summer’s day,

the bees settle on the multifarious flowers, and stream

round the bright lilies, and all the fields hum with their buzzing.

Aeneas was thrilled by the sudden sight and, in ignorance,

asked the cause: what the river is in the distance,

who the men are crowding the banks in such numbers.

Then his father Anchises answered: “They are spirits,

owed a second body by destiny, and they drink

the happy waters and a last forgetting at Lethe’s stream.

Indeed, for a long time I’ve wished to tell you of them,

and show you them face to face, to enumerate my children’s

descendants, so you might joy with me more at finding Italy.”

“O father, is it to be thought that any spirits go from here

to the sky above, returning again to dull matter?”

“Indeed I’ll tell you, son, not keep you in doubt,”

Anchises answered, and revealed each thing in order.

“Firstly, a spirit within them nourishes the sky and earth,

the watery plains, the shining orb of the moon,

and Titan’s star, and Mind, flowing through matter,

vivifies the whole mass and mingles with its vast frame.

From it come the species of man and beast, and winged lives,

and the monsters the sea contains beneath its marbled waves.

The power of those seeds is fiery, and their origin divine,

so long as harmful matter doesn’t impede them

and terrestrial bodies and mortal limbs don’t dull them.

Through those they fear and desire and grieve and joy,

and enclosed in night and a dark dungeon, can’t see the light.

Why, when life leaves them at the final hour,

still all of the evil, all the plagues of the flesh, alas,

have not completely vanished, and many things, long hardened

deep within, must of necessity be ingrained in strange ways.

So they are scourged by torments, and pay the price

for former sins: some are hung stretched out

to the hollow winds, the taint of wickedness is cleansed

for others in vast gulfs or burned away with fire:

each spirit suffers its own. Then we are sent

through wide Elysium, and we few stay in the joyous fields

for a length of days, till the cycle of time,

complete, removes the hardened stain, and leaves

pure ethereal thought and the brightness of natural air.

All these others the god calls in a great crowd to the river Lethe,

after they have turned the wheel for a thousand years,

so that, truly forgetting, they can revisit the vault above,

and begin with a desire to return to the flesh.”

---

At pater Anchises penitus convalle virenti

inclusas animas superumque ad lumen ituras               680

lustrabat studio recolens, omnemque suorum

forte recensebat numerum, carosque nepotes

fataque fortunasque virum moresque manusque.

isque ubi tendentem adversum per gramina vidit

Aenean, alacris palmas utrasque tetendit,               685

effusaeque genis lacrimae et vox excidit ore:

'venisti tandem, tuaque exspectata parenti

vicit iter durum pietas? datur ora tueri,

nate, tua et notas audire et reddere voces?

sic equidem ducebam animo rebarque futurum                690

tempora dinumerans, nec me mea cura fefellit.

quas ego te terras et quanta per aequora vectum

accipio! quantis iactatum, nate, periclis!

quam metui ne quid Libyae tibi regna nocerent!'

ille autem: 'tua me, genitor, tua tristis imago               695

saepius occurrens haec limina tendere adegit;

stant sale Tyrrheno classes. da iungere dextram,

da, genitor, teque amplexu ne subtrahe nostro.'

sic memorans largo fletu simul ora rigabat.

ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum;               700

ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,

par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.

Interea videt Aeneas in valle reducta

seclusum nemus et virgulta sonantia silvae,

Lethaeumque domos placidas qui praenatat amnem.               705

hunc circum innumerae gentes populique volabant:

ac veluti in pratis ubi apes aestate serena

floribus insidunt variis et candida circum

lilia funduntur, strepit omnis murmure campus.

horrescit visu subito causasque requirit               710

inscius Aeneas, quae sint ea flumina porro,

quive viri tanto complerint agmine ripas.

tum pater Anchises: 'animae, quibus altera fato

corpora debentur, Lethaei ad fluminis undam

securos latices et longa oblivia potant.               715

has equidem memorare tibi atque ostendere coram

iampridem, hanc prolem cupio enumerare meorum,

quo magis Italia mecum laetere reperta.'

'o pater, anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandum est

sublimis animas iterumque ad tarda reverti               720

corpora? quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido?'

'dicam equidem nec te suspensum, nate, tenebo,'

suscipit Anchises atque ordine singula pandit.

'Principio caelum ac terras camposque liquentis

lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra               725

spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus

mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.

inde hominum pecudumque genus vitaeque volantum

et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus.

igneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo               730

seminibus, quantum non noxia corpora tardant

terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra.

hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque, neque auras

dispiciunt clausae tenebris et carcere caeco.

quin et supremo cum lumine vita reliquit,               735

non tamen omne malum miseris nec funditus omnes

corporeae excedunt pestes, penitusque necesse est

multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris.

ergo exercentur poenis veterumque malorum

supplicia expendunt: aliae panduntur inanes               740

suspensae ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto

infectum eluitur scelus aut exuritur igni:

quisque suos patimur manis. exinde per amplum

mittimur Elysium et pauci laeta arva tenemus,

donec longa dies perfecto temporis orbe               745

concretam exemit labem, purumque relinquit

aetherium sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem.

has omnis, ubi mille rotam volvere per annos,

Lethaeum ad fluvium deus evocat agmine magno,

scilicet immemores supera ut convexa revisant               750

rursus, et incipiant in corpora velle reverti.'

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1. Totally by chance, guys.