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They went, hidden, under the lonely night through the shadows and through the empty homes and the empty kingdoms of Dis: it is like the journey in the forest through the uncertain moon under the scant light, when Jupiter put the sky in shadow, and the black night took the colour from things.

Before the entrance itself and in the front of the ={todo}doorway= of Orcus, Grief and avenging Worries placed their lairs, and pale Death and sad Old Age inhabits [it], and Anxiety and seductive Famine and ugly Poverty, terrible appearances with respect to sight, and Death and Labour; next, Sleep, the twin brother of Death and evil pleasures of the mind, and fatal War in the opposite threshold, and the iron beds of the Furies and mad Chaos, bound with respect to the snake hair with bloody fabrics.

In the middle, a shaded elm tree, giant, streches the boughs and the aged branches, they say that empty Dreams, in a crowd, hold this seat, they linger below all the foliage.

Moreover, [there were] many marvels of various beasts, Centaurs are stabled in the doorways and two-formed Scyllas and hundred-fold Briareus and the beast of Lerna, hissing horribly, and the Chimaera armed with flames, Gorgons and Harpies and a shape of three-bodied shadow.

Here, trepid Aeneas, frightened by sudden alarm, siezes the sword and presented the sharp edge towards the approaching [things]. And if the learned companion did not warn [him] that the souls without limbs and without body fly under with a hollow image of shape, he would have destroyed and cleaved the shadows with the sword in vain.

From here, the road that leads to the waves of Tartarean Acheron. Here, a whirlpool, turbulent with mud and with a deep chasm, vomits all the sand to Cocytos.

Charon, a terrifying ferryman with terrible filth, guards these waters and rivers, on whose chin lies many unkempt white hairs, his eyes stand with flame, his dirty clothing hangs from his shoulders with a knot. By himself, he pushes the boat with a pole and manages the sails, and regularly carries up the bodies with the iron-coloured boat, [he is] already older, but for a god, old age is raw and fresh.

To this place, the whole crowd, having been poured out, poured out, rush towards the banks, mothers and husbands and the bodies of great heroes, dead from life, boys and unwedgirls, and young men placed in graves before the faces of their parents: as many as the gliding leaves that fall in the forest due to autumn's first chill, or as many as the birds that were being accumulated to the land from the high abyss, when the cold year chases them across the sea and sends them into sunny lands. They stand, begging to traverse the journey first and stretching out their hands due to love of further shores. But the sad sailor now accepts these and now those, but keeps the banished others from the far shore.

...

"Whoever you are, who comes armed to my river, speak, why you now come from there, and restrain your course. This is a place of shadows, of sleep and drowsy night: It is not right to carry living bodies in a boat on the Styx. In fact, I was not happy to have accepted journeying Hercules on the lake, nor Theseus and Pirithous, although they were children from gods and were undefeated by strengths. He sought the Tartarean guardian [to put him] in chains by his hand, and dragged him trembling from the throne of the king himself, trembling king from his own throne; they attempted to lead the queen of Dis from the bedroom.

Opposing this, the prophet of Apollo spoke briefly:

"Here are no such evils (cease to be disturbed), nor do the teapons carry violence; it is right that large doorman, eternally barking in the cave, should terrify bloodless shadows, it is right that chaste Proserpina should serve the threshold of her uncle. Trojan Aeneas, distinguished in piety and in warfare, descends to the innermost birthplace and shadows of the underworld. If such an image of piety does not move you, then this branch," (she reveals a branch, which was hidden in clothing), "you should recognise."

Then, the inflammed hearts subside from anger; nor ={todo}more [was said] to this=. Charon, admiring the venerable gift of the fateful branch, seen again after a long time, he turned the blue stern and approaches the bank.

Then, he dislodges the other souls, who sits all along the long beams, and frees up the gangway; at the same time, he accepts huge Aeneas into the hold. The patchwork boat groaned under the weight and, leaky, let in much swamp. At last across the river, Charon put the prophet and the man, unharmed, in the shapeless mud and the bluish-grey sedge.

Large Cerberus resounds these kingdoms with three-throated barking; lying immense in the opposite cave. The prophet, already seeing his neck bristling with snakes, throws a lump made drowsy with honey and medicinal fruits. Cerberus, opening the three throats rabid with hunger, snatches the thrown thing, and relaxed the immense back, spread on the ground, and the bulk was extended in the entire cave. With the guardian overwhelmed, Aeneas seizes the entrnce and quickly escapes to the bank of the water of no return.

Immediately [there were] audible voices, and loud wailing, and the crying spirits of infants, in the first threshold, the black day snatched those without part in sweet life and stolen from the breast, and submerged them in bitter death; next to them are the ones condemed to death on false charges. But these seats are not give without lots being drawn, without a jury: Judge Minos shakes an urn; he calls on the council of the dead and learns the lives and charges.

Then the miserable hold the nearest places, who, innocent, produced destruction to themselves by [their own] hand, and despising the light, discarded their souls. How they would now prefer to be in the high sky and in poverty and to carry out hard labour!

Divine will stands in the way, and the sad marsh of unloveable water binds [them] and the nine-fold Styx, running in between, represses [them]. Not farfrom here, the fields of mourning (like that they call them by name), spread out in all directions, are pointed out. Here, secret passageways conceal them and the surrounding myrtle forests hide them, those who unyielding love cruelly and slowly erodes; worries did not leave them in death itself.

In this place, [Aeneas] sees Phaedra and Procris and sad Eriphyle, showing the wounds of her cruel son, and Evadne and Pasiphae; for them Laodamia walks as a companion, and Caeneus, once a young man, now a woman, changed back by fate into her old form.

Near to them are those damned to death on false allegation. But their seats are not given out without lots being drawn, without a jury: the judge Minos shakes the urn; he calls on the council of the silent and examines their lives and their charges.