Story of Aeneas by Michael Clarke
page 64 of 149 (42%)
page 64 of 149 (42%)
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dangers far more formidable than any he had hitherto encountered.
"Escaped the dangers of the watery reign, Yet more and greater ills by land remain. The coast so long desired (nor doubt the event), Thy troops shall reach, but, having reached, repent. Wars! horrid wars, I view!--a field of blood, And Tiber rolling with a purple flood." DRYDEN, _AEneid_, BOOK VI. But AEneas was not discouraged by this terrible prophecy. He was ready, he said, to meet the worst that could come, and now he was about to undertake an enterprise more arduous than any the soothsayers had told him of. This was a descent into the regions of Pluto--the land of the dead--to visit the shade of his father, who in a dream had requested him to do so, telling him that the Cumaean Sibyl would be his guide, for the entrance to the Lower World was near Lake A-ver'nus, not far from the cave of the prophetess. AEneas, therefore, entreated the Sibyl to consent to be his conductor that so he might comply with his father's wish. In reply to this request the prophetess warned the Trojan chief that the undertaking was one of great danger. The descent into the kingdom of Pluto, she said, was easy, but, to return to the upper world--that was a task difficult for mortals to accomplish. Few there were who had entered the gloomy realms of Dis, to whom it had been permitted ever to retrace their steps. "The journey down to the abyss Is prosperous and light; |
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