Answer one question: circle the number of your essay choice. Remember to support your points with detail and example (but not fluff). Write as legibly and clearly as you can ( one page )

1. The forest or woods appears as both an actual place and a metaphor, symbol or trope* in at least three of our readings. Discuss and compare, using details and examples, the significance to our theme of the labyrinth to the story and the protagonist in at least two readings.

2. Dreams and sleep are mentioned in many of our readings, starting from the original myth of the labyrinth. Discuss the significance of dreams and sleep in at least four readings, using examples and details from the readings, and also discuss the connections between the readings (related to sleep and dreams).

3. In the original myth of the labyrinth and minotaur, Ariadne “guides” Theseus through the labyrinth by providing him with a scarlet (or gold) thread. This idea of a guide is important in several of our readings. Discuss and compare in detail the role, purpose, and nature of the guide in at least four readings.  

*metaphor: 1) A metaphor is a figure of speech that refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas. 2) A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

I include the reading file. 

Theseus & The Minotaur, the Labyrinth & Mazes
in Classical Mythology

from Pseudo-Apollodorus Biblioteca Book 3.1; Epitome.1 p. 2
translated by J.G. Frazer

Europa, Minos and Pasiphae

Theseus [and the Minotaur]

from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book VIII p.4
The Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne
Daedalus and Icarus

from Ovid’s Heroides Book X: The Lament of Ariadne p.6

from Clay tablet found at Knossus ca. 1400, Linear B script p.9
translated by Hermann Kern

from The Odyssey, Bk XVIII:468-617 Hephaestus forges Achilles’ armour p.9

from The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion p.10
by J.G. Frazer

quoted in Encyclopaedia Brittanica p.10
synopsis of Pliny the Elder, Natural History
[passage on the four famous labyrinths of antiquity]

from Histories, Book 2 p.11
by Herodotus
[passage on the Egyptian labyrinth]

from the Writings of Marcus Varro, on the tomb of Lars Porsena p.11

from Pseudo-Apollodorus Biblioteca Book 3 translated by J.G. Frazer
Europa, Minos and Pasiphae

Theseus [and the Minotaur]
Europa, Minos and Pasiphae

[3.1.1] Having now run over the family of Inachus and described them from Belus down to the Heraclids, we
have next to speak of the house of Agenor. For as I have said, Libya had by Poseidon two sons, Belus and
Agenor. Now Belus reigned over the Egyptians and begat the aforesaid sons; but Agenor went to Phoenicia,
married Telephassa, and begat a daughter Europa and three sons, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix. But some say that
Europa was a daughter not of Agenor but of Phoenix.

Zeus loved her, and turning himself into a tame bull, he mounted her on his back and conveyed her through the
sea to Crete. There Zeus bedded with her, and she bore Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthys; but according to
Homer, Sarpedon was a son of Zeus by Laodamia, daughter of Bellerophon.

On the disappearance of Europa her father Agenor sent out his sons in search of her, telling them not to return
until they had found Europa. With them her mother, Telephassa, and Thasus, son of Poseidon, or according to
Pherecydes, of Cilix, went forth in search of her. But when, after diligent search, they could not find Europa, they
gave up the thought of returning home, and took up their abode in divers places; Phoenix settled in Phoenicia;
Cilix settled near Phoenicia, and all the country subject to himself near the river Pyramus he called Cilicia; and
Cadmus and Telephassa took up their abode in Thrace and in like manner Thasus founded a city Thasus in an
island off Thrace and dwelt there.

[3.1.2] Now Asterius, prince of the Cretans, married Europa and brought up her children. But when they were
grown up, they quarrelled with each other; for they loved a boy called Miletus, son of Apollo by Aria, daughter of
Cleochus. As the boy was more friendly to Sarpedon, Minos went to war and had the better of it, and the others
fled. Miletus landed in Caria and there founded a city which he called Miletus after himself; and Sarpedon allied
himself with Cilix, who was at war with the Lycians, and having stipulated for a share of the country, he became
king of Lycia. And Zeus granted him to live for three generations. But some say that they loved Atymnius, the
son of Zeus and Cassiepea, and that it was about him that they quarrelled.

Rhadamanthys legislated for the islanders, but afterwards he fled to Boeotia and married Alcmena; and since
his departure from the world he acts as judge in Hades along with Minos. Minos, residing in Crete, passed laws,
and married Pasiphae, daughter of the Sun and Perseis; but Asclepiades says that his wife was Crete, daughter
of Asterius. He begat sons, to wit, Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, and Androgeus: and daughters, to wit, Acalle,
Xenodice, Ariadne, Phaedra; and by a nymph Paria he had Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses, and Philolaus; and
by Dexithea he had Euxanthius.

[3.1.3] Asterius dying childless, Minos wished to reign over Crete, but his claim was opposed. So he alleged that
he had received the kingdom from the gods, and in proof of it he said that whatever he prayed for would be
done. And in sacrificing to Poseidon he prayed that a bull might appear from the depths, promising to sacrifice
it when it appeared. Poseidon did send him up a fine bull, and Minos obtained the kingdom, but he sent the bull
to the herds and sacrificed another.[Being the first to obtain the dominion of the sea, he extended his rule over
almost all the islands.]

[3.1.4] But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, Poseidon made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasi-
phae should conceive a passion for it. In her love for the bull she found an accomplice in Daedalus, an architect,
who had been banished from Athens for murder. He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it
out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the
bull used to graze. Then he introduced Pasiphae into it; and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a

real cow. And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of
him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.
Now the Labyrinth which Daedalus constructed was a chamber “that with its tangled windings perplexed the
outward way.” The story of the Minotaur, and Androgeus, and Phaedra, and Ariadne, I will tell hereafter in my
account of Theseus.

Theseus [and the Minotaur]

[E.1.1–4 details some adventures of Theseus—raised in obscurity by his mother, a priestess —on his Journey to
Athens to meet his father Aegeus for the first time.]

So, having cleared the road, Theseus came to Athens.

[E.1.5] But Medea, being then wedded to Aegeus, plotted against him and persuaded Aegeus to beware of him
as a traitor. And Aegeus, not knowing his own son, was afraid and sent him against the Marathonian bull.

[E.1.6] And when Theseus had killed it, Aegeus presented to him a poison which he had received the selfsame
day from Medea. But just as the draught was about to be administered to him, he gave his father the sword, and
on recognizing it Aegeus dashed the cup from his hands. And when Theseus was thus made known to his father
and informed of the plot, he expelled Medea.

E.1.7] And he was numbered among those who were to be sent as the third tribute to the Minotaur; or, as some
affirm, he offered himself voluntarily. And as the ship had a black sail, Aegeus charged his son, if he returned
alive, to spread white sails on the ship.

[3.1.8] And when he came to Crete, Ariadne, daughter of Minos, being amorously disposed to him, offered to
help him if he would agree to carry her away to Athens and have her to wife. Theseus having agreed on oath to
do so, she besought Daedalus to disclose the way out of the labyrinth.

[3.1.9] And at his suggestion she gave Theseus a clue when he went in; Theseus fastened it to the door, and,
drawing it after him, entered in. And having found the Minotaur in the last part of the labyrinth, he killed him
by smiting him with his fists; and drawing the clue after him made his way out again. And by night he arrived
with Ariadne and the children at Naxos. There Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off; and having
brought her to Lemnos he enjoyed her, and begat Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, and Peparethus.
3.1.10] In his grief on account of Ariadne, Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship when he stood for
port; and Aegeus, seeing from the acropolis the ship with a black sail, supposed that Theseus had perished; so
he cast himself down and died.
[3.1.11] But Theseus succeeded to the sovereignty of Athens, and killed the sons of Pallas, fifty in number; like-
wise all who would oppose him were killed by him, and he got the whole government to himself.

[3.1.12] On being apprized of the flight of Theseus and his company, Minos shut up the guilty Daedalus in the
labyrinth, along with his son Icarus, who had been borne to Daedalus by Naucrate, a female slave of Minos. But
Daedalus constructed wings for himself and his son, and enjoined his son, when he took to flight, neither to fly
high, lest the glue should melt in the sun and the wings should drop off, nor to fly near the sea, lest the pinions
should be detached by the damp.

[3.1.13] But the infatuated Icarus, disregarding his father’s injunctions, soared ever higher, till, the glue melting,
he fell into the sea called after him Icarian, and perished. But Daedalus made his way safely to Camicus in Sicily.

[3.1.14] And Minos pursued Daedalus, and in every country that he searched he carried a spiral shell and prom-
ised to give a great reward to him who should pass a thread through the shell, believing that by that means he
should discover Daedalus. And having come to Camicus in Sicily, to the court of Cocalus, with whom Daedalus
was concealed, he showed the spiral shell. Cocalus took it, and promised to thread it, and gave it to Daedalus;

[3.1.15] and Daedalus fastened a thread to an ant, and, having bored a hole in the spiral shell, allowed the ant

to pass through it. But when Minos found the thread passed through the shell, he perceived that Daedalus was
with Cocalus, and at once demanded his surrender. Cocalus promised to surrender him, and made an entertain-
ment for Minos; but after his bath Minos was undone by the daughters of Cocalus; some say, however, that he
died through being drenched with boiling water.

[3.1.16] Theseus joined Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons and carried off Antiope, or, as some say,
Melanippe; but Simonides calls her Hippolyte.1Wherefore the Amazons marched against Athens, and having
taken up a position about the Areopagusthey were vanquished by the Athenians under Theseus. And though he
had a son Hippolytus by the Amazon,

[E.1.17] Theseus afterwards received from Deucalion in marriage Phaedra, daughter of Minos; and when her
marriage was being celebrated, the Amazon that had before been married to him appeared in arms with her
Amazons, and threatened to kill the assembled guests. But they hastily closed the doors and killed her. However,
some say that she was slain in battle by Theseus.

[E.1.18] And Phaedra, after she had borne two children, Acamas and Demophon, to Theseus, fell in love with
the son he had by the Amazon, to wit, Hippolytus, and besought him to lie with her. Howbeit, he fled from her
embraces, because he hated all women. But Phaedra, fearing that he might accuse her to his father, cleft open
the doors of her bed-chamber, rent her garments, and falsely charged Hippolytus with an assault.

E.1.19] Theseus believed her and prayed to Poseidon that Hippolytus might perish. So, when Hippolytus was
riding in his chariot and driving beside the sea, Poseidon sent up a bull from the surf, and the horses were fright-
ened, the chariot dashed in pieces, and Hippolytus, entangled in the reins, was dragged to death. And when her
passion was made public, Phaedra hanged herself.

********

from Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Bk VIII: The Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne

Bk VIII: Daedalus and Icarus

Bk VIII:The Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne

When Minos reached Cretan soil he paid his dues to Jove, with the sacrifice of a hundred bulls, and hung up his
war trophies to adorn the palace. The scandal concerning his family grew, and the queen’s unnatural adultery
was evident from the birth of a strange hybrid monster. Minos resolved to remove this shame, the Minotaur,
from his house, and hide it away in Tala labyrinth with blind passageways. Daedalus, celebrated for his skill in
architecture, laid out the design, and confused the clues to direction, and led the eye into a tortuous maze, by
the windings of alternating paths. No differently from the way in which the watery Maeander deludes the sight,
flowing backwards and forwards in its changeable course, through the meadows of Phrygia, facing the running
waves advancing to meet it, now directing its uncertain waters towards its source, now towards the open sea:
so Daedalus made the endless pathways of the maze, and was scarcely able to recover the entrance himself: the
building was as deceptive as that.

In there, Minos walled up the twin form of bull and man, and twice nourished it on Athenian blood, but the third
repetition of the nine-year tribute by lot, caused the monster’s downfall. When, through the help of the virgin
princess, Ariadne, by rewinding the thread, Theseus, son of Aegeus, won his way back to the elusive threshold,
that no one had previously regained, he immediately set sail for Dia, stealing the daughter of Minos away with
him, then cruelly abandoned his companion on that shore. Deserted and weeping bitterly, as she was, Bac-

chus-Liber brought her help and comfort. So that she might shine among the eternal stars, he took the crown
from her forehead, and set it in the sky. It soared through the rarified air, and as it soared its jewels changed
to bright fires, and took their place, retaining the appearance of a crown, as the Corona Borealis, between the
kneeling Hercules and the head of the serpent that Ophiuchus holds.

Bk VIII:183-235 Daedalus and Icarus

Meanwhile Daedalus, hating Crete, and his long exile, and filled with a desire to stand on his native soil, was
imprisoned by the waves. ‘He may thwart our escape by land or sea’ he said ‘but the sky is surely open to us: we
will go that way: Minos rules everything but he does not rule the heavens’. So saying he applied his thought to
new invention and altered the natural order of things. He laid down lines of feathers, beginning with the small-
est, following the shorter with longer ones, so that you might think they had grown like that, on a slant. In that
way, long ago, the rustic pan-pipes were graduated, with lengthening reeds. Then he fastened them together
with thread at the middle, and bees’-wax at the base, and, when he had arranged them, he flexed each one into
a gentle curve, so that they imitated real bird’s wings. His son, Icarus, stood next to him, and, not realising that
he was handling things that would endanger him, caught laughingly at the down that blew in the passing breeze,
and softened the yellow bees’-wax with his thumb, and, in his play, hindered his father’s marvellous work.

When he had put the last touches to what he had begun, the artificer balanced his own body between the two
wings and hovered in the moving air. He instructed the boy as well, saying ‘Let me warn you, Icarus, to take
the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun
scorches them. Travel between the extremes. And I order you not to aim towards Bootes, the Herdsman, or
Helice, the Great Bear, or towards the drawn sword of Orion: take the course I show you!’ At the same time as
he laid down the rules of flight, he fitted the newly created wings on the boy’s shoulders. While he worked and
issued his warnings the ageing man’s cheeks were wet with tears: the father’s hands trembled.

He gave a never to be repeated kiss to his son, and lifting upwards on his wings, flew ahead, anxious for his com-
panion, like a bird, leading her fledglings out of a nest above, into the empty air. He urged the boy to follow, and
showed him the dangerous art of flying, moving his own wings, and then looking back at his son. Some angler
catching fish with a quivering rod, or a shepherd leaning on his crook, or a ploughman resting on the handles of
his plough, saw them, perhaps, and stood there amazed, believing them to be gods able to travel the sky.

And now Samos, sacred to Juno, lay ahead to the left (Delos and Paros were behind them), Lebinthos, and Ca-
lymne, rich in honey, to the right, when the boy began to delight in his daring flight, and abandoning his guide,
drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher. His nearness to the devouring sun softened the fragrant wax
that held the wings: and the wax melted: he flailed with bare arms, but losing his oar-like wings, could not ride
the air. Even as his mouth was crying his father’s name, it vanished into the dark blue sea, the Icarian Sea, called
after him. The unhappy father, now no longer a father, shouted ‘Icarus, Icarus where are you? Which way should
I be looking, to see you?’ ‘Icarus’ he called again. Then he caught sight of the feathers on the waves, and cursed
his inventions. He laid the body to rest, in a tomb, and the island was named Icaria after his buried child.

********

from Ovid’s Heroides.
Boox X. The Lament of Ariadne

Ariadne to Theseus

Even now, left to the wild beasts, she might live, cruel Theseus.
Do you expect her to have endured this too, patiently?
The whole tribe of creatures contrive to be gentler than you:
not one have I had less confidence in than you.

Theseus, what you read has been sent to you from this land,
from which your sails carried your ship without me,
in which my sleep, and you, evilly betrayed me,
conceiving your plans against me while I slept.

It was the time when the earth’s first sprinkled with glassy frost,
and the hidden birds lament in the leaves:
waking uncertainly, and stirring languidly in sleep,
half-turning, my hand reached out for Theseus:
there was no one there. I drew back, and tried again,
and moved my arm across the bed: no one there.

Fear broke through my drowsiness: terrified, I rose
and hurled my body from the empty bed.
Straight away my hands drummed on my breast, and tore at my hair,
just as it was, on waking, from my confused sleep.

There was a moon: I looked and saw nothing but the shore:
wherever my eyes could see, there was nothing but sand.
I ran here and there without any sense of purpose,
the deep sand slowing a girl’s feet.

Meanwhile I called: ‘Theseus!’ over the whole beach
your name echoing from the hollow cliffs
and as often as I called you, the place itself called too:
the place itself wished to give aid to my misery.

There was a hill: a few bushes were visible on its summit:
a crag hangs there hollowed out by the harsh waves
I climbed it: courage gave me strength: and I scanned
the wide waters from that height with my gaze.

Then I saw – now the cruel winds were also felt –
your ship driven before a fierce southerly gale.
Either with what I saw, or what I may have thought I’d seen
I was frozen like ice and half-alive.

But grief allowed no time for languor. I was roused by it,
and roused, I called to Theseus at the top of my voice.
‘Where are you going?’ I shouted ‘turn back, wicked Theseus!

Work your ship! You’re without one of your number!’
So I called. When my voice failed I beat my breast instead:
my blows were interspaced with my words.
If you could not hear at least you might still see:
I made wide signals with my outstretched hands.

I hung a white cloth on a tall branch,
hoping those who’d forgotten would remember me.
Now you were lost to sight. Then finally I wept:
till then my cheeks were numb with grief.

What could my eyes do but weep at myself,
once they had ceased to see your sails?

Either I wandered alone, with dishevelled hair,
like a Maenad shaken by the Theban god:
or I sat on the cold rock gazing at the sea,
and I was as much a stone as the stones I sat on.

Often I seek again the bed that accepted us both,
but it shows no sign of that acceptance,
and I touch what I can of the traces of you, instead of you,
and the sheets your body warmed.

I lie there and, wetting the bed with my flowing tears,
I cry out: ‘We two burdened you, restore the two!
We came here together: why shouldn’t we go together?
Faithless bed, where’s the better part of me now?
What am I to do? Why endure alone? The island’s unploughed:

I see no human beings: I can’t imagine there’s an ox.
The land’s encircled by the sea on every side: no sailors,
no ship to set sail on its uncertain way.
Suppose I was given companions, winds and ship,
where would I make for? My country denies me access.

If my boat slid gently through peaceful waters,
calmed by Aeolian winds, I’d be an exile still.

I could not gaze at you, Crete, split in a hundred cities,
a land that was known to the infant Jove.
But my father and that land justly ruled by my father,
those dear names, were both betrayed by me.
while you, the victor who retraced your steps, would have died
in the winding labyrinth, unless guided by the thread I gave you,

Then, you said to me: ‘I swear by the dangers overcome,
that you’ll be mine while we both shall live.’
We live, and I’m not yours, Theseus, if you still live,
I’m a woman buried by the fraud of a lying man.

Club that killed my brother, the Minotaur, condemn me too!
The promise that you gave should be dissolved by death.
Now I see not only what I must endure,
but what any castaway would suffer.

A thousand images of dying fill my mind,
and I fear death less than delay in that penalty of death.
At every moment I dream it, coming from here or there,
as if wolves tore my entrails with eager teeth.
Perhaps this land breeds tawny lions?
Who knows if this island harbours savage tigers?

And they say that the ocean throws up huge sea-lions:
and who could prevent some sword piercing my side?

If only I might not be a captive, bound with harsh chains,
nor draw out endless threads with a slave’s hand,
I whose father is Minos, whose mother is the Sun’s daughter,
because of that I remember the more, that I was bound to you!
If I see the ocean, the land and the wide shore,
I fear many things on land, many on the waves.
The sky remains: I fear visions from the gods:
I’m forsaken, a prey and food for swift beasts.

If men live here and cultivate this place, I distrust them:
I’ve thoroughly learned to fear wounds from strangers.
I wish my brother Androgeos lived and you Athens, land of Cecrops,
hadn’t paid with your children’s deaths for his impious murder:
and that you, Theseus hadn’t killed the Minotaur, half man, half bull,
wielding a knotted club in your strong hand:

and that I hadn’t given you the thread that marked your way back,
the thread so often received back into the hand that drew it.
I’m not surprised that victory was yours, and the monster,
prone, lay groaning on the Cretan earth.
His horns could not pierce your iron heart:
though you might fail to shield it, your breast would be safe.
There you revealed flints and adamants,
there you’ve a Theseus harder than flint.

Cruel sleep, why did you hold me there, senseless?
Rather I should have been buried forever in eternal night.
You too cruel winds, you gales, all too ready
and officious in bringing tears to me:
cruel right hand that causes my death, and my brother’s,
and offered the promise I asked, an empty name:
Sleep, the breeze, the promise conspired against me:
one girl, I’m betrayed by three causes.

So it seems I’ll die without seeing my mother’s tears,
and there’ll be no one to close my eyes.
My unhappy spirit will vanish on a foreign breeze,
no friendly hand will anoint my laid-out body.
The seabirds will hover over my unburied bones:
these are the ceremonies fit for my tomb.

You’ll be carried to Athens, and be received by your homeland,
where you’ll stand in the high fortress of your city,
and speak cleverly of the death of man and bull,
and the labyrinth’s winding paths cut from the rock:
speak of me also, abandoned in a lonely land:
I’m not to be dropped, secretly, from your list!
Your father’s not Aegeus: Aethra, daughter of Pittheus,
is not your mother: your creators were stone and sea.

May the gods have ordained that you saw me from the high stern,
that my mournful figure altered your expression.
Now see me not with your eyes, but as you can, with your mind,
clinging to a rock the fickle sea beats against:
see my dishevelled hair like one who is in mourning
and my clothes heavy with tears like rain!

My body trembles like ears of wheat struck by a north wind

and the letters I write waver in my unsteady fingers.

I don’t entreat you by my kindness, since that has ended badly:
let no gratitude be owed for my deeds.
But no punishment either. If I’m not the cause of your health,
that’s still no reason why you should cause me harm.

These hands weary of beating my sad breast for you,
unhappily I stretch them out over the wide waters:
I mournfully display to you what remains of my hair:
I beg you by these tears your actions have caused:
turn your ship, Theseus, fall back against the wind:

if I die first, you can still bear my bones.

********

from Clay tablet found at Knossus ca. 1400, Linear B script

“One jar of honey to all the gods, one jar of honey to the Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

********

from The Odyssey, BkXVIII:468-617
Hephaestus forges Achilles’ armour

Then he inlaid an intricate dancing floor like that which Daedalus once made in spacious Cnossos for long-haired Ariadne.
Young men, and girls worth many cattle, were dancing there, their hands clasping one another’s wrists. The girls wore
white linen with pretty garlands on their heads; the young men fine-woven tunics with a soft sheen, daggers of gold hang-
ing from their silver belts. Here, they danced lightly with skilful steps, like the motion a potter gives his wheel when testing
it out to see how it will run. There, they ran in lines to meet each other. And enjoying the lovely scene, a host of people
stood round about, while a pair of acrobats whirled among them, keeping time to the dance.

********

from The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion
by J.G. Frazer

In Greece, on the other hand, the king’s fate seems to have hung in the balance at the end of every eight years, ready to
fly up and kick the beam as soon as the opposite scale was loaded with a falling star.

Whatever its origin may have been, the cycle of eight years appears to have coincided with the normal length of the king’s
reign in other parts of Greece besides Sparta. Thus Minos, king of Cnossus in Crete, whose great palace has been un-
earthed in recent years, is said to have held office for periods of eight years together. At the end of each period he retired
for a season to the oracular cave on Mount Ida, and there communed with his divine father Zeus, giving him an account
of his kingship in the years that were past, and receiving from him instructions for his guidance in those which were to
come. The tradition plainly implies that at the end of every eight years the king’s sacred powers needed to be renewed by
intercourse with the godhead, and that without such a renewal he would have forfeited his right to the throne.

Without being unduly rash we may surmise that the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens whom the Athenians were
bound to send to Minos every eight years had some connexion with the renewal of the king’s power for another octen-
nial cycle. Traditions varied as to the fate which awaited the lads and damsels on their arrival in Crete; but the common
view appears to have been that they were shut up in the labyrinth, there to be devoured by the Minotaur, or at least to
be imprisoned for life. Perhaps they were sacrificed by being roasted alive in a bronze image of a bull, or of a bull-headed
man, in order to renew the strength of the king and of the sun, whom he personated. This at all events is suggested by
the legend of Talos, a bronze man who clutched people to his breast and leaped with them into the fire, so that they were
roasted alive. He is said to have been given by Zeus to Europa, or by Hephaestus to Minos, to guard the island of Crete,
which he patrolled thrice daily. According to one account he was a bull, according to another he was the sun. Probably he
was identical with the Minotaur, and stripped of his mythical features was nothing but a bronze image of the sun repre-
sented as a man with a bull’s head.

In order to renew the solar fires, human victims may have been sacrificed to the idol by being roasted in its hollow body or
placed on its sloping hands and allowed to roll into a pit of fire. It was in the latter fashion that the Carthaginians sacrificed
their offspring to Moloch. The children were laid on the hands of a calf-headed image of bronze, from which they slid
into a fiery oven, while the people danced to the music of flutes and timbrels to drown the shrieks of the burning victims.
The resemblance which the Cretan traditions bear to the Carthaginian practice suggests that the worship associated with
the names of Minos and the Minotaur may have been powerfully influenced by that of a Semitic Baal. In the tradition of
Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum, and his brazen bull we may have an echo of similar rites in Sicily, where the Carthaginian
power struck deep roots.

********

quoted in Encyclopaedia Brittanica
synopsis of Pliny the Elder, Natural History [passage on the four famous labyrinths of antiquity]

1. The Egyptian, of which a description is given by Herodotus and Strabo, was situated to the east of the Lake of Moeris,
opposite the ancient site of Arsinoë, or Crocodilopolis. According to Egyptologists, the word means “the temple at the
entrance of the lake.” According to Herodotus, the entire building, surrounded by a single wall, contained 12 courts and
3,000 chambers, 1,500 above and 1,500 below ground. The roofs were wholly of stone, and the walls were covered with
sculpture. On one side stood a pyramid about 243 feet (74 m) high. Herodotus himself went through the upper chambers
but was not permitted to visit those underground, which he was told contained the tombs of the kings who had built
the labyrinth and the tombs of the sacred crocodiles. Other ancient authorities considered that it was built as a place of
meeting for the Egyptian nomes, or political divisions; but it is more likely that it was intended for sepulchral purposes.
It was the work of Amenemhet III, of the 12th dynasty, who reigned from 1818 to 1770 bc. It was first located by the
Egyptologist Karl R. Lepsius to the north of Hawara in the Fayum, and in 1888 Flinders Petrie discovered its foundation,
the extent of which is about 1,000 feet long by 800 feet wide (300 by 250 m).

“. . . that Daedalus took this for the model of the labyrinth which he constructed in Crete, there can be no doubt; thouhe
only reproduced the hundredth part of it, that portion, namely, which encloses circuitous passages, windings and inextri-
cable galleries which lead to and fro… we must picture to ourselves a building filled with numerous doors, and galleries
which continually mislead the visitor, bringing him back, after all his wanderings, to the spot from which he first set out . . .”

2. The Cretan, said to have been built by Daedalus on the plan of the Egyptian, is famous for its connection with the leg-
end of the Minotaur. It is doubtful whether it ever had any real existence. By the older writers it was placed near Knossos,
and it is represented on coins, but nothing corresponding to it has been found during modern excavations, unless the roy-
al palace was intended. Later writers, such as Claudian, place it near Gortyna, but some winding passages and chambers
close to that place are, in reality, ancient quarries.

3. The Lemnian was similar in construction to the Egyptian, with 150 columns.

4. The Italian was a highly intricate series of chambers in the lower part of the tomb of Etruscan General Lars Porsena at
Clusium.

********

from Histories, Book 2
by Herodotus [passage on the Egyptian labyrinth]

Herodotus, in Book II of his Histories, describes as a “labyrinth” a building complex in Egypt, “near the place called the City of Crocodiles,” that he
considered to surpass the pyramids:

It has twelve covered courts — six in a row facing north, six south — the gates of the one range exactly fronting the gates
of the other. Inside, the building is of two storeys and contains three thousand rooms, of which half are underground,
and the other half directly above them. I was taken through the rooms in the upper storey, so what I shall say of them is
from my own observation, but the underground ones I can speak of only from report, because the Egyptians in charge
refused to let me see them, as they contain the tombs of the kings who built the labyrinth, and also the tombs of the
sacred crocodiles. The upper rooms, on the contrary, I did actually see, and it is hard to believe that they are the work of
men; the baffling and intricate passages from room to room and from court to court were an endless wonder to me, as we
passed from a courtyard into rooms, from rooms into galleries, from galleries into more rooms and thence into yet more
courtyards. The roof of every chamber, courtyard, and gallery is, like the walls, of stone. The walls are covered with carved
figures, and each court is exquisitely built of white marble and surrounded by a colonnade.

********

from the Writings of Marcus Varro,
(on the tomb of Lars Porsena)

Porsena was buried below the city of Clusium in the place where he had built a square monument of dressed stones.
Each side was three hundred feet in length and fifty in height, and beneath the base there was an inextricable laby-
rinth, into which, if any-body entered without a clue of thread, he could never discover his way out. Above this square
building there stand five pyramids, one at each corner and one in the centre, seventy-five feet [c. 22 meters] broad at
the base and one hundred and fifty feet [c. 44 meters] high. These pyramids so taper in shape that upon the top of all
of them together there is supported a brazen globe, and upon that again a petasus from which bells are suspended by
chains. These make a tinkling sound when blown about by the wind, as was done in bygone times at Dodona. Upon
this globe there are four more pyramids, each a hundred feet [c. 30 meters] in height, and above them is a platform on
which are five more pyramids.

The labyrinth of initiation
the underworld, and the sacred grove

read before class on June 12-17

The Aeneid by Virgil, Ch. 6 p. 2
translated by H.R. Fairclough

The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri p. 23
Inferno, cantos 1–6, 12, 34; Paradisio, canto 33
translated by Courtney Langdon

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost p. 56

we will work with these texts during class on June 17

East Coker p.57
Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis p.60

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 1

The Aeneid, by Virgil, Ch. 6

[1] Thus he cries weeping, and gives his fleet the reins, and at last glides up to
the shores of Euboean Cumae. They turn the prows seaward, then with the grip
of anchors’ teeth made fast the ships, and the round keels fringe the beach.
In hot haste the youthful band leaps forth on the Hesperian shore; some seek
the seeds of flame hidden in veins of flint, some despoil the woods, the thick
coverts of game, and point to new-found streams. But loyal Aeneas seeks the
heights, where Apollo sits enthroned, and a vast cavern hard by, hidden haunt
of the dread Sibyl, into whom the Delian seer breathes a mighty mind and soul,
revealing the future. Now they pass under the grove of Trivia and the roof of
gold.

[14] Daedalus, it is said, when fleeing from Minos’ realm, dared on swift wings
to trust himself to the sky; on his unwonted way he floated forth towards the
cold North, and at last stood lightly poised above the Chalcidian hill. Here first
restored to earth, he dedicated to thee, Phoebus, the orange of his wings and
built a vast temple. On the doors is the death of Androgeos; then the children
of Cecrops, bidden, alas, to pay as yearly tribute seven living sons; there stands
the urn, the lots now drawn. Opposite, rising from the sea, the Cretan land
faces this; here is the cruel love of the bull, Pasiphaë craftily mated, and the
mongrel breed of the Minotaur, a hybrid offspring, record of a monstrous love;
there that house of toil, a maze inextricable; but Daedalus pitying the princess’s
great love, himself unwound the deceptive tangle of the palace, guiding blind
feet with the thread. You, too, Icarus, would have large share in such a work, did
grief permit: twice had he essayed to fashion your fall in gold; twice sank the
father’s hands. Ay, and all the tale throughout would their eyes have scanned,
but now came Achates from his errand, and with him the priestess of Phoebus
and Trivia, Deiphobe, daughter of Glaucus, who addressed the king: “Not sights
like these does this hour demand! Now it were better to sacrifice seven bullocks
from the unbroken herd, and as many ewes fitly chosen.” Having thus addressed
Aeneas – and not slow are the men to do her sacred bidding – the priestess
calls the Teucrians into the lofty fane.

[42] The huge side of the Euboean rock is hew into a cavern, into which lead a
hundred wide mouths, a hundred gateways, from which rush as many voices,
the answers of the Sibyl. They had come to the threshold, when the maiden
cries: “Tis time to ask the oracles; the god, lo! the god!” As thus she spoke be-

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 2

fore the doors, suddenly not countenance nor colour was the same, nor stayed
her tresses braided; but her bosom heaves, her heart swells with wild frenzy,
and she is taller to behold, nor has her voice a mortal ring, since now she feels
the nearer breath of deity. “Are you slow to vow and to pray?” she cries. “Are
you slow, Trojan Aeneas? For till then the mighty mouths of the awestruck
house will not gape open.” So she spoke and was mute. A chill shudder ran
through the Teucrians’ sturdy frames, and their king pours forth prayers from his
inmost heart: “Phoebus, who never failed to pity Troy’s sore agony, who guid-
ed the Dardan shaft and hand of Paris against the body of Aeacus’ son, under
your guidance did I enter so many seas, skirting mighty lands, the far remote
Massylian tribes, and fields the Syrtes fringe; now at last is Italy’s ever reced-
ing shore within our grasp; thus far only may Troy’s fortune have followed us!
You, too, many now fitly spare the race of Pergamus, you gods and goddesses
all, to whom Troy and Dardania’s great glory were an offence. And you, most
holy prophetess, who foreknow the future, grant – I ask no realm unpledged by
my fate – that the Teucrians may rest in Latium, with the wandering gods and
storm-tossed powers of Troy. Then to Phoebus and Trivia will I set up a tem-
ple of solid marble, and festal days in Phoebus’ name. You also a stately shrine
awaits in our realm; for here I will place your oracles and mystic utterances,
told to my people, and ordain chosen men, O gracious one. Only trust not your
verses to leaves, lest they fly in disorder, the sport of rushing winds; chant them
yourself, I pray.” His lips ceased speaking.

[77] But the prophetess, not yet brooking the sway of Phoebus, storms wildly
in the cavern, if so she may shake the mighty god from her breast; so much the
more he tires her raving mouth, tames her wild heart, and moulds her by con-
straint. And now the hundred mighty mouths of the house have opened of their
own will, and bring through the air the seer’s reply: “O you that have at length
survived the great perils of the sea – yet by land more grievous woes lie in
wait – into the realm of Lavinium the sons of Dardanus shall come, relieve your
heart of this care. Yet they shall not also rejoice in their coming. Wars, grim wars
I see, and the Tiber foaming with streams of blood. You will not lack a Simois,
nor a Xanthus, nor a Doric camp. Even now in Latium a new Achilles has been
born, himself a goddess’s son; nor shall Juno anywhere fail to dog the Trojans,
while you, a suppliant in your need, what races, what cities of Italy will you not
implore! The cause of all this Trojan woe is again an alien bride, again a foreign
marriage! . . . Yield not to ills, but go forth all the bolder to face them as far as
your destiny will allow! The road to safety, little though you think it, shall first
issue from a Grecian city.”

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 3

[98] In these words the Cumaean Sibyl chants from the shrine her dread enig-
mas and booms from the cavern, wrapping truth in darkness – so does Apollo
shake his reins as she rages, and ply the goad beneath her breast. As soon as
the frenzy ceased and the raving lips were hushed, Aeneas the hero begins:
“For me no form of toils arises, O maiden, strange or unlooked for; all this have
I foreseen and debated in my mind. On thing I pray: since here is the famed
gate of the nether king, and the gloomy marsh from Acheron’s overflow, be it
granted me to pass into my dear father’s sight and presence; show the way and
open the hallowed portals! Amid flames and a thousand pursuing spears, I res-
cued him on these shoulders, and brought him safe from the enemy’s midst.
He, the partner of my journey, endured with me all the seas and all the men-
ace of ocean and sky, weak as he was, beyond the strength and portion of age.
He is was who prayed and charged me humbly to seek you and draw near to
your threshold. Pity both son and sire, I beseech you, gracious one; for you
are all-powerful, and not in vain did Hecate make you mistress in the groves of
Avernus. If Orpheus availed to summon his wife’s shade, strong in his Thracian
lyre and tuneful strings; if Pollux, dying in turn, ransomed his brother and so
many times comes and goes his way – why speak of Theseus, why of Hercules
the mighty – I, too, have descent from Jove most high!”

[124] In such words he prayed and clasped the altar, when thus the prophet-
ess began to speak: “Sprung from blood of gods, son of Trojan Anchises, easy is
the descent to Avernus: night and day the door of gloomy Dis stands open; but
to recall one’s steps and pass out to the upper air, this is the task, this the toil!
Some few, whom kindly Jupiter has loved, or shining worth uplifted to heaven,
sons of the gods, have availed. In all the mid-space lie woods, and Cocytus girds
it, gliding with murky folds. But if such love is in your heart – if such a yearn-
ing, twice to swim the Stygian lake, twice to see black Tartarus – and if you are
pleased to give rein to the mad endeavour, hear what must first be done. There
lurks in a shady tree a bough, golden leaf and pliant stem, held consecrate to
nether Juno [Proserpine]; this all the grove hides, and shadows veil in the dim
valleys. But it is not given to pass beneath earth’s hidden places, before some-
one has plucked from the tree the golden-tressed fruitage. This has beautiful
Proserpine ordained to be borne to her as her own gift. When the first is torn
away, a second fails not, golden too, and the spray bears leaf of the selfsame
ore. Search then with eyes aloft and, when found, duly pluck it with your hand;
for of itself will it follow you, freely and with ease, if Fate be calling you; else
with no force will you avail to win it or rend it with hard steel. Moreover, there
lies the dead body of your friend – ah, you know it not! – and defiles all the

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 4

fleet with death, while you seek counsel and hover on our threshold. Bear him
first to his own place and hide him in the tomb. Lead black cattle; be these your
first peace offerings. Only so will you survey the Stygian groves and realms the
living may not tread.” She spoke, and with closed lips was silent.

[156] With sad countenance and downcast eyes, Aeneas wends his way, quit-
ting the cavern, and ponders in his mind the dark issues. At his side goes loyal
Achates, and plants his steps under a like load of care. Much varied discourse
were they weaving, each with each – of what dead comrade spoke the sooth-
sayer, of what body for burial? And as they came, they see on the dry beach
Misenus, cut off by untimely death – Misenus, son of Aeolus, surpassed by
none in stirring men with his bugle’s blare, and in kindling with his clang the god
of war. He had been great Hector’s comrade, at Hector’s side he braved the
fray, glorious for clarion and spear alike; but when Achilles, victorious, stripped
his chief of life, the valiant hero came into the fellowship of Dardan Aeneas,
following no meaner standard. Yet on that day, while by chance he made the
seas ring with his hollow shell – madman – and with his blare calls the gods to
contest, jealous Triton, if the tale can win belief, caught and plunged him in the
foaming waves amid the rocks. So, with loud lament, all were mourning round
him, good Aeneas foremost. Then, weeping, they quickly carry out the Sibyl’s
commands, and toil to pile up trees fro the altar of his tomb and rear it to the
sky. They pass into the forest primeval, the deep lairs of beasts; down drop the
pitchy pines, and the ilex rings to the stroke of the axe; ashen logs and splinter-
ing oak are cleft with wedges, and from the mountains they roll down huge ash
trees.

[183] No less Aeneas, first amid such toils, cheers his comrades and girds on
like weapons. And alone he ponders with his own sad heart, gazing on the
boundless forest, and, as it chanced, thus prays: “O if now that golden bough
would show itself to us on the tree in the deep wood! For all things truly – ah,
too truly – did the seer say of you, Misenus.” Scarce had he said these words
when under his very eyes twin doves, as it chanced, came flying from the sky
and lit on the green grass. Then the great hero knew them for his mother’s
birds, and prays with joy: “Be my guides, if any way there be, and through the
air steer a course into the grove, where the rich bough overshades the fruit-
ful ground! And you, goddess-mother, fail not my dark hour!” So speaking,
he checked his steps, marking what signs they bring, where they direct their
course. As eyes could keep them within sight; then, when they came to the
jaws of noisome Avernus, they swiftly rise and, dropping through the unclouded

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 5

air, perch side by side on their chosen goal – a tree, through whose branches
flashed the contrasting glimmer of gold. As in winter’s cold, amid the woods, the
mistletoe, sown of an alien tree, is wont to bloom with strange leafage, and with
yellow fruit embrace the shapely stems: such was the vision of the leafy gold
on the shadowy ilex, so rustled the foil in the gentle breeze. Forthwith Aeneas
plucks it and greedily breaks off the clinging bough, and carries it beneath the
roof of the prophetic Sibyl.

[212] No less meanwhile on the beach the Teucrians were weeping for Misenus
and paying the last dues to the thankless dust. And first they raise a huge pyre,
rich with pitchy pine and oaken logs. Its sides they entwine with somber foliage,
set in front funereal cypresses, and adorn it above with gleaming arms. Some
heat water, setting cauldrons bubbling on the flames, and wash and anoint the
cold body. Loud is the wailing; then, their weeping done, they lay his limbs upon
the couch, and over them cast purple robes, the familiar dress. Some shoul-
dered the heavy bier – sad ministry – and in ancestral fashion, with averted
eyes, held the torch below. The gifts were piled up in the blaze – frankincense,
viands, and bowls of flowing oil. After the ashes fell in and the flame died away,
they washed with wine the remnant of thirsty dust, and Corynaeus, gather-
ing the bones, hid them in a brazen urn. He, too, with pure water thrice encir-
cled his comrades and cleansed them, sprinkling light dew from a fruitful olive
bough, and spoke the words of farewell. But loyal Aeneas heaps over him a
massive tomb, with the soldier’s own arms, his oar and trumpet, beneath a lofty
hill, which now from him is called Misenus, and keeps from age to age an ever
living name.

[236] This done, he fulfils with haste the Sibyl’s behest. A deep cave there was,
yawning wide and vast, of jagged rock, and sheltered by dark lake and wood-
land gloom, over which no flying creatures could safely wing their way; such a
vapour from those black jaws was wafted to the vaulted sky whence the Greeks
spoke of Avernus, the Birdless Place. Here first the priestess set in line four
dark-backed heifers, and pours wine upon their brows; then, plucking the top-
most bristles from between the horns, lays them on the sacred fire for first of-
fering, calling aloud on Hecate, supreme both in Heaven and in Hell. Others set
knives to the throat and catch the warm blood in bowls. Aeneas himself slays
with the sword a black-fleeced lamb to the mother [Night] of the Eumenides
and her great sister [Earth], and to you, Proserpine, a barren heifer. Then for the
Stygian king he inaugurates an altar by night, and lays upon the flames whole
carcasses of bulls, pouring fat oil over the blazing entrails. But just before the

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 6

rays and dawning of the early sun the ground rumbled underfoot, the wood-
ed ridges began to quiver, and through the gloom dogs seemed to howl as the
goddess [Hecate] drew nigh. “Away! away! you that are uninitiated!” shrieks the
seer, “withdraw from all the grove! And you, rush on the road and unsheathe
your sword! Now, Aeneas, is the hour for courage, now for a dauntless heart!”
So much she said, and plunged madly into the opened cave; he, with fearless
steps, keeps pace with his advancing guide.

[264] You gods, who hold the domain of spirits! You voiceless shades! You,
Chaos, and you, Phlegethon, you broad, hushed tracts of night! Suffer me to
tell what I have heard; suffer me of your grace to unfold secrets buried in the
depths and darkness of the earth!

[268] On they went dimly, beneath the lonely night amid the gloom, through
the empty halls of Dis and his phantom realm, even as under the niggard light of
a fitful moon lies a path in the forest, when Jupiter has buried the sky in shade,
and black Night has stolen from the world her hues. Just before the entrance,
even within the very jaws of Hell, Grief and avenging Cares have set their bed;
there pale Diseases dwell, sad Age, and Fear, and Hunger, temptress to sin, and
loathly Want, shapes terrible to view; and Death and Distress; next, Death’s
own brother Sleep, and the soul’s Guilty Joys, and, on the threshold opposite,
the death-dealing War, and the Furies’ iron cells, and maddening Strife, her
snaky locks entwined with bloody ribbons.

[282] In the midst an elm, shadowy and vast, spreads her boughs and aged
arms, the whome which, men say, false Dreams hold, clinging under every leaf.
And many monstrous forms besides of various beasts are stalled at the doors,
Centaurs and double-shaped Scyllas, and he hundredfold Briareus, and the
beast of Lerna, hissing horribly, and the Chimaera armed with flame, Gorgons
and Harpies, and the shape of the three-bodied shade [Geryon]. Here on a sud-
den, in trembling terror, Aeneas grasps his sword, and turns the naked edge
against their coming; and did not his wise companion warn him that these were
but faint, bodiless lives, flitting under a hollow semblance of form, he would
rush upon them and vainly cleave shadows with steel.

[295] From here a road leads to the waters of Tartarean Acheron. Here, thick
with mire and of fathomless flood, a whirlpool seethes and belches into Cocy-
tus all its sand. A grim ferry man guards these waters and streams, terrible in
his squalor – Charon, on whose chin lies a mass of unkempt hoary hair; his eyes

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 7

are staring orbs of flame; his squalid garb hangs by a knot from his shoulders.
Unaided, he poles the boat, tends the sails, and in his murky craft convoys the
dead – now aged, but a god’s old age is hardy and green. Hither rushed all the
throng, streaming to the banks; mothers and men and bodies of high-souled
heroes, their life now done, boys and unwedded girls, and sons placed on the
pyre before their fathers’ eyes; thick as the leaves of the forest that at autumn’s
first frost drop and fall, and thick as the birds that from the seething deep flock
shoreward, when the chill of the year drives them overseas and sends them into
sunny lands. They stood, pleading to be the first ferried across, and stretched
out hands in yearning for the farther shore. But the surly boatman takes now
these, now those, while others he thrusts away, back from the brink.

[317] Then aroused and amazed by the disorder, Aeneas cries: “Tell me, maiden,
what means the crowding to the river? What seek the spirits? By what rule do
these leave the banks, and those sweep the lurid stream with oars?” To him thus
briefly spoke the aged priestess: “Anchises’ son, true offspring of gods, you are
looking at the deep pools of Cocytus and the Stygian marsh, by whose power
the gods fear to swear falsely. All this crowd that you see is helpless and grav-
eless; yonder ferryman is Charon; those whom the flood carries are the bur-
ied. He may not carry them over the dreadful banks and hoarse-voiced waters
until their bones have found a resting place. A hundred years they roam and
flit about these shores; then only are they admitted and revisit the longed-for
pools.” Anchises’ son paused and stayed his steps, pondering much, and pitying
in his heart their unjust lost. There he espies, doleful and reft of death’s hon-
our, Leucaspis and Orontes, captain of the Lycian fleet, whom, while voyaging
together from Troy over windy waters, the South Wind overwhelmed, engulfing
alike ship and sailors.

[337] Lo! there passed the helmsman, Palinurus, who of late, on the Libyan
voyage, while he marked the stars, had fallen from the stern, flung forth in
the midst of the waves. Him, when at last amid the deep gloom he knew the
sorrowful form, he first accosts thus: “What god, Palinurus, tore you from us
and plunged you beneath the open ocean? O tell me! For Apollo, never before
found false, with this one answer tricked my soul, for he foretold that you would
escape the sea and reach Ausonia’s shores. Is this how he keeps his promise?”
But he answered: “Neither did tripod of Phoebus fail you, my captain, Anchis-
es’ son, nor did a god plunge me in the deep. For by chance the helm to which
I clung, steering our course, was violently torn from me, and as I fell headlong, I
dragged it down with me. By the rough seas I sear that not for myself did I feel

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 8

such fear as for your ship, lest, stripped of its gear and deprived of its helmsman,
it might fail amid such surging waves. Three stormy nights over the measureless
seas the South Wind drove me wildly on the water; scarce on the fourth dawn,
aloft on the crest of a wave, I sighted Italy. Little by little I swam shoreward, and
even now was grasping at safety, but as, weighted by dripping garb, I caught
with bent fingers at the rugged cliff-spurs, the barbarous folk assailed me with
the sword, in ignorance deeming me a prize. Now the wave holds me, and the
winds toss me on the beach. Oh, by heaven’s sweet light and air, I beseech you,
by your father, by the rising hope of Iulus, snatch me from these woes, uncon-
quered one! Either case earth on me, for that you can, by seeking again the ha-
ven of Velia; or if there be a way, if your goddess-mother shows you one – for
not without divine favour, I believe, are you trying to sail these great streams
and the Stygian mere – give your hand to one so unhappy, and take me with
you across the waves, that at last in death I may find a quiet resting place!”

[372] So had he spoken, and the soothsayer thus began: “Whence, Palinurus,
comes this wild longing of yours? Are you, unburied, to look upon the Stygian
waters and the Furies” stern river, and unbidden draw near the bank? Cease to
dream that heaven’s decrees may be turned aside by prayer. But hear and re-
member my words, to solace your hard lot; for the neighbouring people, in their
cities far and wide, shall be driven by celestial portents to appease your dust,
and shall build a tomb, and to the tomb pay solemn offerings; and for ever the
place shall bear the name of Palinurus.” By these words his cares are dispelled
and for a little space grief is driven from his anguished heart; the land rejoiced in
the name.

[384] So they pursue the journey begun, and draw near to the river. But when,
even from the Stygian wave, the boatman saw them passing through the silent
wood and turning their feet towards the bank, he first, unhailed, accosts and
rebukes them: “Whoever you are who come to our river in arms, tell me, even
from there, why you come, and check your step. This is the land of Shadows, of
Sleep and drowsy Night; living bodies I may not carry in the Stygian boat. And
in truth it brought me no joy that I took Heracles on his journey over the lake,
or Theseus and Pirithoüs, though sons of gods and invincible in valour. The one
by force sought to drag into chains, even from the monarch’s throne, the ward-
er of Tartarus, and tore him off trembling; these essayed to carry off our queen
from the chamber of Dis.” In answer the Amphyrsian soothsayer spoke briefly:
“No such trickery is here; be not troubled; our weapons offer no force; the huge
doorkeeper may from his cave with endless howl affright the bloodless shades;

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Proserpine may in purity keep within her uncle’s threshold. Trojan Aeneas, fa-
mous for piety and arms, descends to his father, to the lowest shades of Erebus.
If the picture of such piety in no wise moves you, yet know this bough” – and
she shows the bough, hidden in her robe. At this his swelling breast subsides
from its anger. No more is said; but he, marveling at the dread gift, the fate-
ful wand so long unseen, turns his blue barge and nears the shore. Then oth-
er souls that sat on the long thwarts he routs out, and clears the gangways; at
once he takes aboard giant Aeneas. The seamy craft groaned under the weight,
and through its chinks took in marshy flood. At last, across the water, he lands
seer and soldier unharmed on the ugly mire and grey sedge.

[417] These realms huge Cerberus makes ring with his triple-throated baying,
his monstrous bulk crouching in a cavern opposite. To him, seeing the snakes
now bristling on his necks, the seer flung a morsel drowsy with honey and
drugged meal. He, opening his triple throat in ravenous hunger, catches it when
thrown and, with monstrous frame relaxed, sinks to earth and stretches his bulk
over all the den. The warder buried in sleep, Aeneas wins the entrance, and
swiftly leaves the bank of that stream whence none return.

[426] At once are heard voices and wailing sore – the souls of infants weep-
ing, whom, on the very threshold of the sweet life they shared not, torn from
the breast, the black day swept off and plunged in bitter death. Near them
were those on false charge condemned to die. Yet not without lot, not without
a judge, are these places given: Minos, presiding, shakes the urn; he it is who
calls a conclave of the silent, and learns men’s lives and misdeeds. The region
thereafter is held by those sad souls who in innocence wrought their own death
and, loathing the light, flung away their lives. How gladly now, in the air above,
would they bear both want and harsh distress! Fate withstands; the unlovely
mere with its dreary water enchains them and Styx imprisons with his ninefold
circles.

[440] Not far from here, outspread on every side, are shown the Mourning
Fields; such is the name they bear. Here those whom stern Love has con-
sumed with cruel wasting are hidden in walks withdrawn, embowered in a
myrtle grove; even in death the pangs leave them not. In this region he sees
Phaedra and Procris, and sad Eriphyle, pointing to the wounds her cruel son
had dealt, and Evadne and Pasiphaë. With them goes Laodamia, and Caene-
us, once a youth, now a woman, and again turned back by Fate into her form
of old. Among them, with wound still fresh, Phoenician Dido was wandering in

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the great forest, and soon as the Trojan hero stood near and knew her, a dim
form amid the shadows – even as, in the early month, one sees or fancies he
has seen the moon rise amid the clouds – he shed tears, and spoke to her in
tender love: “Unhappy Dido! Was the tale true then that came to me, that you
were dead and had sought your doom with the sword? Was I, alas! the cause
of your death? By the stars I swear, by the world above, and whatever is sa-
cred in the grave below, unwillingly, queen, I parted from your shores. But the
gods’ decrees, which now constrain me to pass through these shades, through
lands squalid and forsaken, and through abysmal night, drove me with their be-
hests; nor could I deem my going thence would bring on you distress so deep.
Stay your step and withdraw not from our view. Whom do you flee? This is the
last word Fate suffers me to say to you.” With these words amid springing tears
Aeneas strove to soothe the wrath of the fiery, fierce-eyed queen. She, turn-
ing away, kept her looks fixed on the ground and no more changes her counte-
nance as he essays to speak than if she were set in hard flint or Marpesian rock.
At length she flung herself away and, still his foe, fled back to the shady grove,
where Sychaeus, her lord of former days, responds to her sorrows and gives her
love for love. Yet none the less, stricken by her unjust doom, Aeneas attends her
with tears afar and pities her as she goes.

[477] Thence he toils along the way that offered itself. And now they gained
the farthest fields [the neutral region, neither Elysium nor Tartarus], where
the renowned in war dwell apart. Here Tydeus meets him; here Parthenopae-
us, famed in arms, and the pale shade of Adrastus; here, much wept on earth
above and fallen in war, the Dardan chiefs; whom as he beheld, all in long array,
he moaned – Glaucus and Medon and Thersilochus, the three sons of Anten-
or, and Polyboetes, priest of Ceres, and Idaeus, still keeping his chariot, still his
arms. Round about, on right and left, stand the souls in throngs. To have seen
him once is not enough; they delight to linger, to pace beside him, and to learn
the causes of his coming. But the Danaan princes and Agamemnon’s battalions,
soon as they saw the man and his arms flashing amid the glom, trembled with
mighty fear; some turn to flee, as of old they sought the ships; some raise a
shout – faintly; the cry essayed mocks their gaping mouths.

[494] And here he sees Deiphobus, son of Priam, his whole frame mangled and
his face cruelly torn – his face and either hand – his ears wrenched from de-
spoiled temples, and his nostrils lopped by a shameful wound. Scarce, indeed,
did he know the quivering form that tried to hide its awful punishment; then,
with familiar accents, unhailed, he accosts him: “Deiphobus, strong in battle,

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scion of Teucer’s high lineage, who chose to exact so cruel a penalty! Who had
power to deal thus with you? Rumour told me that on that last night, weary
with endless slaughter of Pelasgians, you had fallen upon a heap of mingled car-
nage. Then I myself set up a cenotaph upon the Rhoetean shore, and with loud
cry called thrice upon your spirit. Your name and arms guard the place; you, my
friend, I could not see, nor bury, as I departed, in your native land.” To this the
son of Priam: “Nothing, my friend, have you left undone; all dues you have paid
to Deiphobus and the dead man’s shade. But me my own fate and the Laconi-
an woman’s [Helen’s] death-dealing crime overwhelmed in these woes. It was
she who left these memorials! For how we spent that last night amid deluding
joys, you know; and all too well must you remember! When the fateful horse
leapt over the heights of Troy, and brought armed infantry to weight its womb,
she feigned a solemn dance and around the city led the Phrygian wives, shriek-
ing in their Bacchic rites; she herself in the midst held a mighty torch and called
the Danaans from the castle-height. Care-worn and sunk in slumber, I was then
inside our ill-starred bridal chamber, sleep weighing upon me as I lay – sweet
and deep, very image of death’s peace. Meanwhile, this peerless wife takes ev-
ery weapon from the house – even from under my head she had withdrawn
my trusty sword; into the house she calls Menelaus and flings wide the door,
hoping, I doubt not, that her lover would find this a great boon, and so the fame
of old misdeeds might be blotted out. Why prolong the story? They burst into
my chambers; with them comes their fellow counsellor of sin, the son of Aeolus
[Ulysses]. O gods, with like penalties repay the Greeks, if with pious lips I pray
for vengeance! But come, tell in turn what chance has brought you here, alive.
Have you come here driven by your ocean-wanderings, or at Heaven’s com-
mand? Or what doom compels you to visit these sad, sunless dwellings, this
land of disorder?”

[535] During this interchange of talk, Dawn, with roseate car, had now crossed
mid-heaven in her skyey course, and perchance in such wise they would have
spent all the allotted time, but the Sibyl beside him gave warning with brief
words: “Night is coming, Aeneas; we waste the hours in weeping. Here is the
place, where the road parts: there to the right, as it runs under the walls of
great Dis, is our way to Elysium, but the left wreaks the punishment of the
wicked, and send them on to pitiless Tartarus.” In reply Deiphobus said: “Be not
angry, great priestess; I will go my way; I will make the count complete and re-
turn to the darkness. Go, you who are our glory, go; enjoy a happier fate!” Thus
much he said and, as he spoke, turned his steps.

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[548] Suddenly Aeneas looks back, and under a cliff on the left sees a broad
castle, girt with triple wall and encircled with a rushing flood of torrent flames –
Tartarean Phlegethon, that rolls along thundering rocks. In front stands a huge
gate, and pillars of solid adamant, that no might of man, nay, not even the sons
of heaven, could uproot in war; there stands an iron tower, soaring high, and
Tisiphone, sitting girt with bloody pall, keeps sleepless watch over the portal
night and day. From it are heard groans, the sound of the savage lash, the clank
of iron and the dragging of chains. Aeneas stopped, and terrified drank in the
tumult. “What forms of crime are these? Say, O maiden! With what penalties
are they scourged? What is this vast wailing on the wind?” Then the seer thus
began to speak: “Famed chieftain of the Teucrians, no pure soul may tread the
accursed threshold; but when Hecate set me over the groves of Avernus, she
taught me the gods’ penalties and guided me through all. Cretan Rhadamanthus
holds here his iron sway; he chastises, and hears the tale of guilt, exacting con-
fession of crimes, whenever in the world above any man, rejoicing in vain deceit,
has put off atonement for sin until death’s late hour. Straightway avenging Tisi-
phone, girt with the lash, leaps on the guilty to scourge them, and with left hand
brandishing her grim snakes, calls on her savage sister band. Then at last, grat-
ing on harsh, jarring hinge, the infernal gates open. Do you see what sentry [Ti-
siphone] sits in the doorway? what shape guards the threshold? The monstrous
Hydra, still fiercer, with her fifty black gaping throats, dwells within. Then Tarta-
rus itself yawns sheer down, stretching into the gloom twice as far as is the up-
ward view of the sky toward heavenly Olympus. Here the ancient sons of Earth,
the Titan’s brood, hurled down by the thunderbolt, writhe in lowest abyss. Here,
too I saw the twin sons of Aloeus, giant in stature, whose hands tried to tear
down high Heaven and thrust down Jove from his realm above. Salmoneus, too,
I saw, who paid cruel penalty while aping Jove’s fires and the thunders of Olym-
pus. Borne by four horses and brandishing a torch, he rode triumphant through
the Greek peoples and his city in the heart of Elis, claiming as his own the hom-
age of deity. Madman, to mimic the storm clouds and inimitable thunder with
brass and the tramp of horn-footed horses! But the Father Almighty amid thick
clouds launched his bolt – no firebrands he, nor pitch-pines’ smoky glare – and
drove him headlong with furious whirlwind. Likewise one might see Tityos,
nursling of Earth the mother of all. Over nine full acres his body is stretched,
and a monstrous vulture with crooked beak gnaws at his deathless liver and
vitals fruitful of anguish; deep within the breast he lodges and gropes for his
feast; nor is any respite given to the filaments that grow anew. Why tell of the
Lapiths, Ixion and Pirithoüs, and of him [Tantalus] over whom hangs a black crag
that seems ready to slip and fall at any moment? High festal couches gleam

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with backs of gold, and before their eyes is spread a banquet in royal splendour.
Reclining hard by, the eldest Fury stays their hands from touch of the table,
springing forth with uplifted torch and thunderous cries.

[608] “Here were they who in lifetime hated their brethren, or smote a sire, and
entangled a client in wrong; or who brooded in solitude over wealth they had
won, nor set aside a portion for their kin – the largest number this; who were
slain for adultery; or who followed the standard of treason, and feared not to
break allegiance with their lords – all these, immured, await their doom. Seek
not to learn that doom, or what form of crime, or fate, overwhelmed them!
Some roll a huge stone, or hang outstretched on spokes of wheels; hapless The-
seus sits and evermore shall sit, and Phlegyas, most unblest, gives warning to
all and with loud voice bears witness amid the gloom: ‘Be warned; learn ye to
be just and not to slight the gods!’ This one sold his country for gold, and fas-
tened on her a tyrant lord; he made and unmade laws for a bribe. This forced
his daughter’s bed and a marriage forbidden. All dared a monstrous sin, and
what they dared attained. Nay, had I a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, and
voice of iron, I could not sum up all the forms of crime, or rehearse all the tale
of torments.”

[628] So spoke the aged priestess of Phoebus; then adds: “But come now, has-
ten your step and fulfil the task in hand. Let us hasten. I descry the ramparts
reared by Cyclopean forges and the gates with fronting arch, where they bid us
lay the appointed gifts.” She ended, and, advancing side by side along the dusky
way, they haste over the mid-space and draw near the doors. Aeneas wins the
entrance, sprinkles his body with fresh water, and plants the bough full on the
threshold.

[637] This at length performed and the task of the goddess fulfilled, they came
to a land of joy, the pleasant lawns and happy seats of the Blissful Groves. Here
an ampler ether clothes the meads with roseate light, and they know their own
sun, and stars of their own. Some disport their limbs on the grassy wrestling
ground, vie in sports, and grapple on the yellow sand; some tread the rhythm of
a dance and chant songs. There, too, the long-robed Thracian priest [Orpheus]
matches their measures with the seven clear notes, striking the lyre now with
his fingers, now with is ivory quill. Here is Teucer’s ancient line, family most fair,
high-souled heroes born in happier years – Ilus and Assaracus and Dardanus,
Troy’s founder. From afar he marvels at their phantom arms and chariots. Their
lances stand fixed in the ground, and their unyoked steeds browse freely over

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the plain. The same pride in chariot and arms that was theirs in life, the same
care in keeping sleek steeds, attends them now that they are hidden beneath
the earth. Others he sees, to right and left, feasting on the sward, and chant-
ing in chorus a joyous paean within a fragrant laurel grove, from where the full
flood of the Eridanus rolls upward through the forest.

[660] Here is the band of those who suffered wounds, fighting for their coun-
try; those who in lifetime were priests and pure, good bards, whose songs were
meet for Phoebus; or they who ennobled life by arts discovered and they who
by service have won remembrance among men – the brows of all bound with
headbands white as snow. These, as they streamed round, the Sibyl thus ad-
dressed, Musaeus before all; for he is centre of that vast throng that gazes up
to him, as with shoulders high he towers aloft: “Say, happy souls, and you, best
of bards, what land, what place holds Anchises? For his sake are we come, and
have sailed across the great rivers of Erebus.” And to her the hero thus made
brief reply: “None has a fixed home. We dwell in shady groves, and live on cush-
ioned riverbanks and in meadows fresh with streams. But if the wish in your
heart so inclines, surmount this ridge, and soon I will set you on an easy path.”
He spoke and stepped on before, and from above points out the shining fields.
Then they leave the mountaintops.

[679] But deep in a green vale father Anchises was surveying with earnest
thought the imprisoned souls that were to pass to the light above and, as it
chanced, was counting over the full number of his people and beloved children,
their fates and fortunes, their works and ways. And as he saw Aeneas coming
towards him over the sward, he eagerly stretched forth both hands, while tears
streamed from his eyes and a cry fell from his lips: “Have you come at last, and
has the duty that your father expected vanquished the toilsome way? Is it given
me to see your face, my son, and hear and utter familiar tones? Even so I mused
and deemed the hour would come, counting the days, nor has my yearning
failed me. Over what lands, what wide seas have you journeyed to my welcome!
What dangers have beset you, my son! How I feared the realm of Libya might
work you harm!” But he answered: “Your shade, father, your sad shade, meet-
ing me repeatedly, drove me to seek these portals. My ships ride the Tuscan
sea. Grant me to clasp your hand, grant me, father, and withdraw not from my
embrace!” So he spoke, his face wet with flooding tears. Thrice there he strove
to throw his arms about his neck; thrice the form, vainly clasped, fled from his
hands, even as light winds, and most like a winged dream.

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[703] Meanwhile, in a retired vale, Aeneas sees a sequestered grove and rus-
tling forest thickets, and the river Lethe drifting past those peaceful homes.
About it hovered peoples and tribes unnumbered; even as when, in the mead-
ows, in cloudless summertime, bees light on many-hued blossoms and stream
round lustrous lilies and all the fields murmur with the humming. Aeneas is star-
tled by the sudden sight and, knowing not, asks the cause – what is that river
yonder, and who are the men thronging the banks in such a host? Then said
father Anchises: “Spirits they are, to whom second bodies are owed by Fate, and
at the water of Lethe’s stream they drink the soothing draught and long forget-
fulness. These in truth I have long yearned to tell and show you to your face,
yea, to count this, my children’s seed, that so you may rejoice with me the more
at finding Italy.” “But, father, must we think that any souls pass aloft from here
to the world above and return a second time to bodily fetters? What mad long-
ing for life possesses their sorry hearts?” “I will surely tell you, my son, and keep
you not in doubt,” Anchises replies and reveals each truth in order.

[724] “First, know that heaven and earth and the watery plains the moon’s
bright sphere and Titan’s star, a spirit within sustains; in all the limbs mind
moves the mass and mingles with the mighty frame. Thence springs the races
of man and beast, the life of winged creatures, and the monsters that ocean
bears beneath his marble surface. Fiery is the vigour and divine the source of
those seeds of life, so far as harmful bodies clog them not, or earthly limbs and
frames born but to die. Hence their fears and desires, their griefs and joys; nor
do they discern the heavenly light, penned as they are in the gloom of their dark
dungeon. Still more! When life’s last ray has fled, the wretches are not entire-
ly freed from all evil and all the plagues of the body; and it needs must be that
many a taint, long ingrained, should in wondrous wise become deeply rooted
in their being. Therefore are they schooled with punishments, and pay penance
for bygone sins. Some are hung stretched out to the empty winds; from others
the stain of guilt is washed away under swirling floods or burned out by fire till
length of days, when time’s cycle is complete, has removed the inbred taint and
leaves unsoiled the ethereal sense and pure flame of spirit: each of us under-
goes his own purgatory. Then we are sent to spacious Elysium, a few of us to
possess the blissful fields. All these that you see, when they have rolled time’s
wheel through a thousand years, the god summons in vast throng to Lethe’s riv-
er, so that, their memories effaced, they may once more revisit the vault above
and conceive the desire of return to the body.”

[752] Anchises paused, and drew his son and with him the Sibyl into the heart

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of the assembly and buzzing throng, then chose a mound whence he might
scan face to face the whole of the long procession and note their faces as they
came.

[756] “Now then, the glory henceforth to attend the Trojan race, what children
of Italian stock are held in store by fate, glorious souls waiting to inherit our
name, this shall I reveal in speech and inform you of your destiny. The youth
you see leaning on an untipped spear holds by lot of life the most immediate
place: he first shall rise into the upper air with Italian blood in his veins, Silvius
of Alban name, last-born of your children, whom late in your old age your wife
Lavinia shall rear in the woodlands, a king and father of kings, with whom our
race shall hold sway in Alba Longa. He next is Procas, pride of the Trojan nation,
then Capys and Numitor and he who will resurrect you by his name, Aeneas
Silvius, no less eminent in goodness and in arms, if ever he come to reign over
Alba. What fine young men are these! Mark the strength they display and the
civic oak that shades their brows! These to your honour will build Nomentum
and Gabii and Fidena’s town; these shall crown hills with Collatia’s towers, and
Pometii, the Fort of Inuus, Bola and Cora: one day to be famous names, these
now are nameless places. Further, a son of Mars shall keep his grandsire com-
pany, Romulus, whom his mother Ilia shall bear of Assaracus’ stock. Do you see
how twin plumes stand upright on his head and how the Father of the gods
stamps him with divine majesty? Lo, under his auspices, my son, shall that glo-
rious Rome extend her empire to earth’s ends, her ambitions to the skies, and
shall embrace seven hills with a single city’s wall, blessed in a brood of heroes;
even as the Berecyntian mother [Cybele], turret-crowned, rides in her chariot
through Phrygian towns, happy in a progeny of gods, clasping a hundred grand-
sons, all denizens of heaven, all tenants of the celestial heights.

[788] “Turn hither now your two-eyed gaze, and behold this nation, the Romans
that are yours. Here is Caesar and all the seed of Iulus destined to pass under
heaven’s spacious sphere. And this in truth is he whom you so often hear prom-
ised you, Augustus Caesar, son of a god, who will again establish a golden age in
Latium amid fields once ruled by Saturn; he will advance his empire beyond the
Garamants and Indians to a land which lies beyond our stars, beyond the path
of year and sun, where sky-bearing Atlas wheels on his shoulders the blazing
star-studded sphere. Against his coming both Caspian realms and the Maeotic
land even now shudder at the oracles of their gods, and the mouths of seven-
fold Nile quiver in alarm. Not even Hercules traversed so much of earth’s ex-
tent, though he pierced the stag of brazen foot, quieted the woods of Eryman-

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thus, and made Lerna tremble at his bow; nor he either, who guides his car with
vine-leaf reins, triumphant Bacchus, driving his tigers down from Nysa’s lofty
peaks. And do we still hesitate to make known our worth by exploits or shrink in
fear from settling on Western soil?

[808] “but who is he apart, crowned with sprays of live, offering sacrifice? Ah, I
recognize the hoary hair and beard of that king of Rome [Numa] who will make
the infant city secure on a basis of laws, called from the needy land of low-
ly Cures to sovereign might. Him shall Tullus next succeed, the breaker of his
country’s peace, who will rouse to war an inactive folk and armies long unused
to triumphs. Hard on his heels follows over-boastful Ancus, who even now en-
joys too much the breeze by popular favour. Would you also see the Tarquin
kings, the proud spirit of Brutus the Avenger, and the fasces regained? He first
shall receive a consul’s power and the cruel axes, and when his sons would stir
up revolt, the father will hale them to execution in fair freedom’s name, unhap-
py man, however later ages will extol that deed; yet shall a patriot’s love prevail
and unquenched third for fame.

[824] “Now behold over there the Decii and the Drusi, Torquatus of the cruel
axe, and Camillus bringing the standards home! But they whom you see, re-
splendent in matching arms, souls now in harmony and as long as they are im-
prisoned in night, alas, if once they attain the light of life, what mutual strife,
what battles and bloodshed will they cause, the bride’s father swooping from
Alpine ramparts and Monoeus’ fort, her husband confronting him with forc-
es from the East! Steel not your hearts, my sons, to such wicked war nor vent
violent valour on the vitals of your land. And you who draw your lineage from
heaven, be you the first to show mercy; cast the sword from your hand, child of
my blood! . . .

[836] “He yonder [Lucius Mummius], triumphant over Corinth, shall drive a vic-
tor’s chariot to the lofty Capitol, famed for Achaeans he has slain. Yon other
[Luxius Aemilius Paullus] shall uproot Argos, Agamemnon’s Mycenae, and even
an heir of Aeacus, seed of mighty Achilles: he will avenge his Trojan sires and
Minerva’s polluted shrine. Who, lordly Cato, could leave you unsung, of you,
Cossus; who the Gracchan race or the Scipios twain, two thunderbolts of war
and the ruin of Carthage, or Favricius, in penury a prince, or you, Serranus, sow-
ing seed in the soil? Whither, O Fabii, do ye hurry me all breathless? You re he,
the mightest [Quinus Fabius Maximus], who could, s no one else, through inac-
tion preserve our state. Others, I doubt not, shall with softer mould beast out

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the breathing bronze, coax from the marble features to life, plead cases with
greater eloquence and with a pointer trace heaven’s motions and predict the
risings of the stars: you, Roman, be sure to rule the world (be these your arts),
to crown peace with justice, to spare the vanquished and to crush the proud.”

[854] Thus Father Anchises, and as they marvel, adds: “Behold how Marcellus
advances, graced with the spoils of the chief he slew, and towers triumphant
over all! When the Roman state is reeling under a brutal shock, he will steady
it, will ride down Carthaginians and the insurgent Gaul, and offer up to Father
Quirinus a third set of spoils.”

[860] At this Aeneas said – for by his side he saw a youth of passing beauty in
resplendent arms, but with joyless mien and eyes downcast: “Who, father, is he
that thus attends the warrior on his way? Is it his son, or some other of his prog-
eny’s heroic line? What a stir among his entourage! What majesty is his! But
death’s dark shadow flickers mournfully about his head.”

[867] Then, as his tears well up, Father Anchises begins: “My son, seek not to
taste the bitter grief of your people; only a glimpse of him will fate give earth
nor suffer him to stay long. Too powerful, O gods above, you deemed the Ro-
man people, had these gifts of yours been lasting. What sobbing of the brave
will the famed Field waft to Mars’ mighty city! What a cortege will you behold,
Father Tiber, as you glide past the new-build tomb! No youth of Trojan stock will
ever raise his Latin ancestry so high in hope nor the land of Romulus ever boast
of any son like this. Alas for his goodness, alas for his chivalrous honour and his
sword arm unconquerable in the fight! In arms none would have faced him un-
scathed, marched he on foot against his foe or dug with spurs the flanks of his
foaming steed. Child of a nation’s sorrow, could you but shatter the cruel barri-
er of fate! You are to be Marcellus. Grant me scatter in handfuls lilies of purple
blossom, to heap at least these gifts on my descendant’s shade and perform an
unavailing duty.” Thus they wander at large over the whole region in the wide
airy plain, taking note of all. After Anchises had led his son over every scene,
kindling his soul, with longing for the glory that was to be, he then tells of the
wars that the hero next must wage, the Laurentine peoples and Latinus’ town,
and how is to face or flee each peril.

[893] Two gates of Sleep there are, whereof the one, they say, is horn and of-
fers a ready exit to true shades, the other shining with the sheen of polished
ivory, but delusive dreams issue upward through it from the world below. Thith-

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er Anchises, discoursing thus, escorts his son and with him the Sibyl, and sends
them forth by the ivory gate: Aeneas speeds his way to the ships and rejoins his
comrades; then straight along the shore he sails for Caieta’s haven. The anchor
is cast from the prow; the sterns stand ranged on the shore.

********

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 20

The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri
Inferno, cantos 1–6, 12, 34; Paradisio, canto 33

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NFERNO

I

Introduction to the Divine Comedy
The Wood and the Mountain

When half way through the journey of our life
I found that I was in a gloomy wood,
because the path which led aright was lost.
And ah, how hard it is to say just what
this wild and rough and stubborn woodland was,
the very thought of which renews my fear!
So bitter ’t is, that death is little worse;
but of the good to treat which there I found,
I ’ll speak of what I else discovered there.
I cannot well say how I entered it,
so full of slumber was I at the moment
when I forsook the pathway of the truth;
but after I had reached a mountain’s foot,
where that vale ended which had pierced my heart
with fear, I looked on high,
and saw its shoulders
mantled already with that planet’s rays
which leadeth one aright o’er every path.
Then quieted a little was the fear,
which in the lake-depths of my heart had lasted
throughout the night I passed so piteously.[[5]]
And even as he who, from the deep emerged
with sorely troubled breath upon the shore,
turns round, and gazes at the dangerous water;
even so my mind, which still was fleeing on,
turned back to look again upon the pass
which ne’er permitted any one to live.
When I had somewhat eased my weary body,
o’er the lone slope I so resumed my way,
that e’er the lower was my steady foot.
Then lo, not far from where the ascent began,

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Dante and Virgil in the Gloomy WoodThe Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 23

a Leopard which, exceeding light and swift,
was covered over with a spotted hide,
and from my presence did not move away;
nay, rather, she so hindered my advance,
that more than once I turned me to go back.
Some time had now from early morn elapsed,
and with those very stars the sun was rising
that in his escort were, when Love Divine
in the beginning moved those beauteous things;
I therefore had as cause for hoping well
of that wild beast with gaily mottled skin,
the hour of daytime and the year’s sweet season;
but not so, that I should not fear the sight,
which next appeared before me, of a Lion,
— against me this one seemed to be advancing
with head erect and with such raging hunger,
that even the air seemed terrified thereby —
[[7]]
and of a she-Wolf, which with every lust
seemed in her leanness laden, and had caused
many ere now to lead unhappy lives.
The latter so oppressed me with the fear
that issued from her aspect, that I lost
the hope I had of winning to the top.
And such as he is, who is glad to gain,
and who, when times arrive that make him lose,
weeps and is saddened in his every thought;
such did that peaceless animal make me,
which, ’gainst me coming, pushed me, step by step,
back to the place where silent is the sun.
While toward the lowland I was falling fast,
the sight of one was offered to mine eyes,
who seemed, through long continued silence, weak.
When him in that vast wilderness I saw,
“Have pity on me,” I cried out to him,
“whate’er thou be, or shade, or very man!”
“Not man,” he answered, “I was once a man;
and both my parents were of Lombardy,
and Mantuans with respect to fatherland.

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’Neath Julius was I born, though somewhat late,
and under good Augustus’ rule I lived
in Rome, in days of false and lying gods.
I was a poet, and of that just man,
Anchises’ son, I sang, who came from Troy
after proud Ilion had been consumed.
[[9]]
But thou, to such sore trouble why return?
Why climbst thou not the Mountain of Delight,
which is of every joy the source and cause?”
“Art thou that Virgil, then, that fountain-head
which poureth forth so broad a stream of speech?”
I answered him with shame upon my brow.
“O light and glory of the other poets,
let the long study, and the ardent love
which made me con thy book, avail me now.
Thou art my teacher and authority;
thou only art the one from whom I took
the lovely manner which hath done me honor.
Behold the beast on whose account I turned;
from her protect me, O thou famous Sage,
for she makes both my veins and pulses tremble!”
“A different course from this must thou pursue,”
he answered, when he saw me shedding tears,
“if from this wilderness thou wouldst escape;
for this wild beast, on whose account thou criest,
alloweth none to pass along her way,
but hinders him so greatly, that she kills;
and is by nature so malign and guilty,
that never doth she sate her greedy lust,
but after food is hungrier than before.
Many are the animals with which she mates,
and still more will there be, until the Hound
shall come, and bring her to a painful death.
[[11]]
He shall not feed on either land or wealth,
but wisdom, love and power shall be his food,
and ’tween two Feltros shall his birth take place.
Of that low Italy he ’ll be the savior,

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for which the maid Camilla died of wounds,
with Turnus, Nisus and Eurỳalus.
And he shall drive her out of every town,
till he have put her back again in Hell,
from which the earliest envy sent her forth.
I therefore think and judge it best for thee
to follow me; and I shall be thy guide,
and lead thee hence through an eternal place,
where thou shalt hear the shrieks of hopelessness
of those tormented spirits of old times,
each one of whom bewails the second death;
then those shalt thou behold who, though in fire,
contented are, because they hope to come,
whene’er it be, unto the blessèd folk;
to whom, thereafter, if thou wouldst ascend,
there ’ll be for that a worthier soul than I.
With her at my departure I shall leave thee,
because the Emperor who rules up there,
since I was not obedient to His law,
wills none shall come into His town through me.
He rules as emperor everywhere, and there
as king; there is His town and lofty throne.
O happy he whom He thereto elects!”
[[13]]
And I to him: “O Poet, I beseech thee,
even by the God it was not thine to know,
so may I from this ill and worse escape,
conduct me thither where thou saidst just now,
that I may see Saint Peter’s Gate, and those
whom thou describest as so whelmed with woe.”
He then moved on, and I behind him kept.
[[15]]

INFERNO

II

Introduction to the Inferno | The Mission of Virgil

Daylight was going, and the dusky air
was now releasing from their weary toil

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all living things on earth; and I alone
was making ready to sustain the war
both of the road and of the sympathy,
which my unerring memory will relate.
O Muses, O high Genius, help me now!
O Memory, that wrotest what I saw,
herewith shall thy nobility appear!
I then began: “Consider, Poet, thou
that guidest me, if strong my virtue be,
or e’er thou trust me to the arduous course.
Thou sayest that the sire of Silvio entered,
when still corruptible, the immortal world,
and that while in his body he was there.
Hence, that to him the Opponent of all ill
was courteous, considering the great result
that was to come from him, both who, and what,
seems not unfitting to a thoughtful man;
for he of fostering Rome and of her sway
in the Empyrean Heaven was chosen as sire;
[[17]]
and both of these, if one would tell the truth,
were foreordained unto the holy place,
where greatest Peter’s follower hath his seat.
While on this quest, for which thou giv’st him praise,
he heard the things which of his victory
the causes were, and of the Papal Robe.
The Chosen Vessel went there afterward,
to bring thence confirmation in the faith,
through which one enters on salvation’s path.
But why should I go there, or who concedes it?
I ’m not Aeneas, nor yet Paul am I;
me worthy of this, nor I nor others deem.
If, therefore, I consent to come, I fear
lest foolish be my coming; thou art wise,
and canst much better judge than I can talk.”
And such as he who unwills what he willed,
and changes so his purpose through new thoughts,
that what he had begun he wholly leaves;
such on that gloomy slope did I become;

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for, as I thought it over, I gave up
the enterprise so hastily commenced.
“If I have rightly understood thy words,”
replied the shade of that Great-hearted man,
“thy soul is hurt by shameful cowardice,
which many times so sorely hinders one,
that from an honored enterprise it turns him,
as seeing falsely doth a shying beast.
[[19]]
In order that thou rid thee of this fear,
I ’ll tell thee why I came, and what I heard
the first time I was grieved on thy account.
Among the intermediate souls I was,
when me a Lady called, so beautiful
and happy, that I begged her to command.
Her eyes were shining brighter than a star,
when sweetly and softly she began to say,
as with an angel’s voice she spoke to me:
‘O courteous Mantuan spirit, thou whose fame
is still enduring in the world above,
and will endure as long as lasts the world,
a friend of mine, but not a friend of Fortune,
is on his journey o’er the lonely slope
obstructed so, that he hath turned through fear;
and, from what I have heard of him in Heaven,
I fear lest he may now have strayed so far,
that I have risen too late to give him help.
Bestir thee, then, and with thy finished speech,
and with whatever his escape may need,
assist him so that I may be consoled.
I, who now have thee go, am Beatrice;
thence come I, whither I would fain return;
’t was love that moved me, love that makes me speak.
When in the presence of my Lord again,
often shall I commend thee unto Him.’
Thereat she ceased to speak, and I began:
[[21]]
‘O Lady of virtue, thou through whom alone
the human race excels all things contained

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within the heaven that hath the smallest circles,
thy bidding pleases me so much, that late
I ’d be, hadst thou already been obeyed;
thou needst but to disclose to me thy will.
But tell me why thou dost not mind descending
into this center from that ample place,
whither thou art so eager to return.’
‘Since thou wouldst know thereof so inwardly,
I ’ll tell thee briefly,’ she replied to me,
‘why I am not afraid to enter here.
Of those things only should one be afraid,
that have the power of doing injury;
not of the rest, for they should not be feared.
I, of His mercy, am so made by God,
that me your wretchedness doth not affect,
nor any flame of yonder fire molest.
There is a Gentle Lady up in Heaven,
who grieves so at this check, whereto I send thee,
that broken is stern judgment there above.
She called Lucìa in her prayer, and said:
‘Now hath thy faithful servant need of thee,
and I, too, recommend him to thy care.’
Lucìa, hostile to all cruelty,
set forth thereat, and came unto the place,
where I with ancient Rachel had my seat.
[[23]]
‘Why, Beatrice,’ she said, ‘true Praise of God,
dost thou not succour him who loved thee so,
that for thy sake he left the common herd?
Dost thou not hear the anguish of his cry?
see’st not the death that fights him on the flood,
o’er which the sea availeth not to boast?
Ne’er were there any in the world so swift
to seek their profit and avoid their loss,
as I, after such words as these were uttered,
descended hither from my blessèd seat,
confiding in that noble speech of thine,
which honors thee and whosoe’er has heard it.’
Then, after she had spoken to me thus,

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weeping she turned her shining eyes away;
which made me hasten all the more to come;
and, even as she wished, I came to thee,
and led thee from the presence of the beast,
which robbed thee of the fair Mount’s short approach.
What is it, then? Why, why dost thou hold back?
Why dost thou lodge such baseness in thy heart,
and wherefore free and daring art thou not,
since three so blessèd Ladies care for thee
within the court of Heaven, and my words, too,
give thee the promise of so much that’s good?”
As little flowers by the chill of night
bowed down and closed, when brightened by the sun,
stand all erect and open on their stems;
[[25]]
so likewise with my wearied strength did I;
and such good daring coursed into my heart,
that I began as one who had been freed:
“O piteous she who hastened to my help,
and courteous thou, that didst at once obey
the words of truth that she addressed to thee!
Thou hast with such desire disposed my heart
toward going on, by reason of thy words,
that to my first intention I ’ve returned.
Go on now, since we two have but one will;
thou Leader, and thou Lord, and Teacher thou!”
I thus addressed him; then, when he had moved,
I entered on the wild and arduous course.[[27]]

INFERNO III
The Gate and Vestibule of Hell. Cowards and Neutrals. Acheron

Through me one goes into the town of woe,
through me one goes into eternal pain,
through me among the people that are lost.
Justice inspired my high exalted Maker;
I was created by the Might divine,
the highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

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Before me there was naught created, save
eternal things, and I eternal last;
all hope abandon, ye that enter here!
These words of gloomy color I beheld
inscribed upon the summit of a gate;
whence I: “Their meaning, Teacher, troubles me.”
And he to me, like one aware, replied:
“All fearfulness must here be left behind;
all forms of cowardice must here be dead.
We ’ve reached the place where, as I said to thee,
thou ’lt see the sad folk who have lost the Good
which is the object of the intellect.”
Then, after he had placed his hand in mine
with cheerful face, whence I was comforted,
he led me in among the hidden things.
[[29]]
There sighs and wails and piercing cries of woe
reverberated through the starless air;
hence I, at first, shed tears of sympathy.
Strange languages, and frightful forms of speech,
words caused by pain, accents of anger, voices
both loud and faint, and smiting hands withal,
a mighty tumult made, which sweeps around
forever in that timelessly dark air,
as sand is wont, whene’er a whirlwind blows.
And I, whose head was girt about with horror,
said: “Teacher, what is this I hear? What folk
is this, that seems so overwhelmed with woe?”
And he to me: “This wretched kind of life
the miserable spirits lead of those
who lived with neither infamy nor praise.
Commingled are they with that worthless choir
of Angels who did not rebel, nor yet
were true to God, but sided with themselves.
The heavens, in order not to be less fair,
expelled them; nor doth nether Hell receive them,
because the bad would get some glory thence.”
And I: “What is it, Teacher, grieves them so,
it causes them so loudly to lament?”

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 31

“I ’ll tell thee very briefly,” he replied.
“These have no hope of death, and so low down
is this unseeing life of theirs, that envious
they are of every other destiny.
[[31]]
The world allows no fame of them to live;
Mercy and Justice hold them in contempt.
Let us not talk of them; but look, and pass!”
And I, who gazed intently, saw a flag,
which, whirling, moved so swiftly that to me
contemptuous it appeared of all repose;
and after it there came so long a line
of people, that I never would have thought
that death so great a number had undone.
When some I ’d recognized, I saw and knew
the shade of him who through his cowardice
the great Refusal made. I understood
immediately, and was assured that this
the band of cowards was, who both to God
displeasing are, and to His enemies.
These wretched souls, who never were alive,
were naked, and were sorely spurred to action
by means of wasps and hornets that were there.
The latter streaked their faces with their blood,
which, after it had mingled with their tears,
was at their feet sucked up by loathsome worms.
When I had given myself to peering further,
people I saw upon a great stream’s bank;
I therefore said: “Now, Teacher, grant to me
that I may know who these are, and what law
makes them appear so eager to cross over,
as in this dim light I perceive they are.”
[[33]]
And he to me: “These things will be made clear
to thee, as soon as on the dismal strand
of Acheron we shall have stayed our steps.”
Thereat, with shame-suffused and downcast eyes,
and fearing lest my talking might annoy him,
up to the river I abstained from speech.

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 32

Behold then, coming toward us in a boat,
an agèd man, all white with ancient hair,
who shouted: “Woe to you, ye souls depraved!
Give up all hope of ever seeing Heaven!
I come to take you to the other shore,
into eternal darkness, heat and cold.
And thou that yonder art, a living soul,
withdraw thee from those fellows that are dead.”
But when he saw that I did not withdraw,
he said: “By other roads and other ferries
shalt thou attain a shore to pass across,
not here; a lighter boat must carry thee.”
To him my Leader: “Charon, be not vexed;
thus is it yonder willed, where there is power
to do whate’er is willed; so ask no more!”
Thereat were quieted the woolly cheeks
of that old boatman of the murky swamp,
who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.
Those spirits, though, who nude and weary were,
their color changed, and gnashed their teeth together,
as soon as they had heard the cruel words.
[[35]]
They kept blaspheming God, and their own parents,
the human species, and the place, and time,
and seed of their conception and their birth.
Then each and all of them drew on together,
weeping aloud, to that accursèd shore
which waits for every man that fears not God.
Charon, the demon, with his ember eyes
makes beckoning signs to them, collects them all,
and with his oar beats whoso takes his ease.
Even as in autumn leaves detach themselves,
now one and now another, till their branch
sees all its stripped off clothing on the ground;
so, one by one, the evil seed of Adam
cast themselves down that river-bank at signals,
as doth a bird to its recalling lure.
Thus o’er the dusky waves they wend their way;
and ere they land upon the other side,

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another crowd collects again on this.
“My son,” the courteous Teacher said to me,
“all those that perish in the wrath of God
from every country come together here;
and eager are to pass across the stream,
because Justice Divine so spurs them on,
that what was fear is turned into desire.
A good soul never goes across from hence;
if Charon, therefore, findeth fault with thee,
well canst thou now know what his words imply.”
[[37]]
The darkling plain, when this was ended, quaked
so greatly, that the memory of my terror
bathes me even now with sweat.
The tear-stained ground
gave forth a wind, whence flashed vermilion light
which in me overcame all consciousness;
and down I fell like one whom sleep o’ertakes.
[[39]]

INFERNO IV
The First Circle. The BorderlandUnbaptized Worthies. Illustrious Pagans

A heavy thunder-clap broke the deep sleep
within my head, so that I roused myself,
as would a person who is waked by force;
and standing up erect, my rested eyes
I moved around, and with a steady gaze
I looked about to know where I might be.
Truth is I found myself upon the verge
of pain’s abysmal valley, which collects
the thunder-roll of everlasting woes.
So dark it was, so deep and full of mist,
that, howsoe’er I gazed into its depths,
nothing at all did I discern therein.
“Into this blind world let us now descend!”
the Poet, who was death-like pale, began,

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“I will be first, and thou shalt second be.”
And I, who of his color was aware,
said: “How am I to come, if thou take fright,
who ’rt wont to be my comfort when afraid?”
“The anguish of the people here below,”
he said to me, “brings out upon my face
the sympathy which thou dost take for fear.
[[41]]
Since our long journey drives us, let us go!”
Thus he set forth, and thus he had me enter
the first of circles girding the abyss.
Therein, as far as one could judge by list’ning,
there was no lamentation, saving sighs
which caused a trembling in the eternal air;
and this came from the grief devoid of torture
felt by the throngs, which many were and great,
of infants and of women and of men.
To me then my good Teacher: “Dost not ask
what spirits these are whom thou seest here?
Now I would have thee know, ere thou go further,
that these sinned not; and though they merits have,
’t is not enough, for they did not have baptism,
the gateway of the creed believed by thee;
and if before Christianity they lived,
they did not with due worship honor God;
and one of such as these am I myself.
For such defects, and for no other guilt,
we ’re lost, and only hurt to this extent,
that, in desire, we live deprived of hope.”
Great sorrow filled my heart on hearing this,
because I knew of people of great worth,
who in that Borderland suspended were.
“Tell me, my Teacher, tell me, thou my Lord,”
I then began, through wishing to be sure
about the faith which conquers every error;
[[43]]
“came any ever, by his own deserts,
or by another’s, hence, who then was blest?”
And he, who understood my covert speech,

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 35

replied: “To this condition I was come
but newly, when I saw a Mighty One
come here, crowned with the sign of victory.
From hence He drew the earliest parent’s shade,
and that of his son, Abel, that of Noah,
and Moses the law-giver and obedient;
Abram the patriarch, and David king,
Israel, with both his father and his sons,
and Rachel, too, for whom he did so much,
and many others; and He made them blest;
and I would have thee know that, earlier
than these, there were no human spirits saved.”
Because he talked we ceased not moving on,
but all the while were passing through the wood,
the wood, I mean, of thickly crowded shades.
Nor far this side of where I fell asleep
had we yet gone, when I beheld a fire,
which overcame a hemisphere of gloom.
Somewhat away from it we were as yet,
but not so far, but I could dimly see
that honorable people held that place.
“O thou that honorest both art and science,
who are these people that such honor have,
that it divides them from the others’ life?”
[[45]]
And he to me: “The honorable fame,
which speaks of them in thy live world above,
in Heaven wins grace, which thus advances them.”
And hereupon a voice was heard by me:
“Do honor to the loftiest of poets!
his shade, which had departed, now returns.”
And when the voice had ceased and was at rest,
four mighty shades I saw approaching us;
their looks were neither sorrowful nor glad.
My kindly Teacher then began to say:
“Look at the one who comes with sword in hand
before the three, as if their lord he were.
Homer he is, the sovreign poet; Horace,
the satirist, the one that cometh next;

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 36

the third is Ovid, Lucan is the last.
Since each of them in common shares with me
the title which the voice of one proclaimed,
they do me honor, and therein do well.”
Thus gathered I beheld the fair assembly
of those the masters of the loftiest song,
which soareth like an eagle o’er the rest.
Then, having talked among themselves awhile,
they turned around to me with signs of greeting;
and, when he noticed this, my Teacher smiled.
And even greater honor still they did me,
for one of their own company they made me,
so that amid such wisdom I was sixth.
[[47]]
Thus on we went as far as to the light,
talking of things whereof is silence here
becoming, even as speech was, where we spoke.
We reached a noble Castle’s foot, seven times
encircled by high walls, and all around
defended by a lovely little stream.
This last we crossed as if dry land it were;
through seven gates with these sages I went in,
and to a meadow of fresh grass we came.
There people were with slow and serious eyes,
and, in their looks, of great authority;
they spoke but seldom and with gentle voice.
We therefore to one side of it drew back
into an open place so luminous
and high, that each and all could be perceived.
There on the green enamel opposite
were shown to me the spirits of the great,
for seeing whom I glory in myself.
I saw Electra with companions many,
of whom I knew both Hector and Aeneas,
and Caesar armed, with shining falcon eyes.
I saw Camilla with Penthesilea
upon the other side, and King Latinus,
who with Lavinia, his own daughter, sat.
I saw that Brutus who drove Tarquin out,

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 37

Lucretia, Julia, Martia and Cornelia,
and, all alone, I saw the Saladin.
[[49]]
Then, having raised my brows a little higher,
the Teacher I beheld of those that know,
seated amid a philosophic group.
They all look up to him, all honor him;
there Socrates and Plato I beheld,
who nearer than the rest are at his side;
Democritus, who thinks the world chance-born,
Diogenes, Anaxagoras and Thales,
Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Zeno;
of qualities I saw the good collector,
Dioscorides I mean; Orpheus I saw,
Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca;
Euclid, the geometer, and Ptolemy,
Hippocrates, Avicenna, Galen,
Averrhoès, who made the famous comment.
I cannot speak of all of them in full,
because my long theme drives me on so fast,
that oft my words fall short of what I did.
The sixfold band now dwindles down to two;
my wise Guide leads me by a different path
out of the calm into the trembling air;
and to a place I come, where naught gives light.
[[51]]

INFERNO V
The Second Circle. Sexual Intemperance
The Lascivious and Adulterers

Thus from the first of circles I went down
into the second, which surrounds less space,
and all the greater pain, which goads to wailing.
There Minos stands in horrid guise, and snarls;
inside the entrance he examines sins,
judges, and, as he girds himself, commits.
I mean that when an ill-born soul appears

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before him, it confesses itself wholly;
and thereupon that Connoisseur of sins
perceives what place in Hell belongs to it,
and girds him with his tail as many times,
as are the grades he wishes it sent down.
Before him there are always many standing;
they go to judgment, each one in his turn;
they speak and hear, and then are downward hurled.
“O thou that comest to the inn of woe,”
said Minos, giving up, on seeing me,
the execution of so great a charge,
“see how thou enter, and in whom thou put
thy trust; let not the gate-way’s width deceive thee!”
To him my Leader: “Why dost thou, too, cry?
[[53]]
Hinder thou not his fate-ordained advance;
thus is it yonder willed, where there is power
to do whate’er is willed; so ask no more!”
And now the woeful sounds of actual pain
begin to break upon mine ears; I now
am come to where much wailing smiteth me.
I reached a region silent of all light,
which bellows as the sea doth in a storm,
if lashed and beaten by opposing winds.
The infernal hurricane, which never stops,
carries the spirits onward with its sweep,
and, as it whirls and smites them, gives them pain.
Whene’er they come before the shattered rock,
there lamentations, moans and shrieks are heard;
there, cursing, they blaspheme the Power Divine.
I understood that to this kind of pain
are doomed those carnal sinners, who subject
their reason to their sensual appetite.
And as their wings bear starlings on their way,
when days are cold, in full and wide-spread flocks;
so doth that blast the evil spirits bear;
this way and that, and up and down it leads them;
nor only doth no hope of rest, but none
of lesser suffering, ever comfort them.

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 39

And even as cranes move on and sing their lays,
forming the while a long line in the air;
thus saw I coming, uttering cries of pain,
[[55]]
shades borne along upon the aforesaid storm;
I therefore said: “Who, Teacher, are the people
the gloomy air so cruelly chastises?”
“The first of those of whom thou wouldst have news,”
the latter thereupon said unto me,
“was empress over lands of many tongues.
To sexual vice so wholly was she given,
that lust she rendered lawful in her laws,
thus to remove the blame she had incurred.
Semiramis she is, of whom one reads
that she gave suck to Ninus, and became
his wife; she held the land the Soldan rules.
The next is she who killed herself through love,
and to Sichaeus’ ashes broke her faith;
the lustful Cleopatra follows her.
See Helen, for whose sake so long a time
of guilt rolled by, and great Achilles see,
who fought with love when at the end of life.
Paris and Tristan see;” and then he showed me,
and pointed out by name, a thousand shades
and more, whom love had from our life cut off.
When I had heard my Leader speak the names
of ladies and their knights of olden times,
pity o’ercame me, and I almost swooned.
“Poet,” I then began, “I ’d gladly talk
with those two yonder who together go,
and seem to be so light upon the wind.”
[[57]]
“Thou ’lt see thy chance when nearer us they are;”
said he, “beseech them then by that same love
which leadeth them along, and they will come.”
Soon as the wind toward us had bent their course.
I cried: “O toil-worn souls, come speak with us,
so be it that One Else forbid it not!”
As doves, when called by their desire, come flying

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with raised and steady pinions through the air
to their sweet nest, borne on by their own will;
so from the band where Dido is they issued,
advancing through the noisome air toward us,
so strong with love the tone of my appeal.
“O thou benign and gracious living creature,
that goest through the gloomy purple air
to visit us, who stained the world blood-red;
if friendly were the universal King,
for thy peace would we pray to Him, since pity
thou showest for this wretched woe of ours.
Of whatsoever it may please you hear
and speak, we will both hear and speak with you,
while yet, as now it is, the wind is hushed.
The town where I was born sits on the shore,
whither the Po descends to be at peace
together with the streams that follow him.
Love, which soon seizes on a well-born heart,
seized him for that fair body’s sake, whereof
I was deprived; and still the way offends me.
[[59]]
Love, which absolves from loving none that ’s loved,
seized me so strongly for his love of me,
that, as thou see’st, it doth not leave me yet.
Love to a death in common led us on;
Cain’s ice awaiteth him who quenched our life.”
These words were wafted down to us from them.
When I had heard those sorely troubled souls,
I bowed my head, and long I held it low,
until the Poet said: “What thinkest thou?”
When I made answer I began: “Alas!
how many tender thoughts and what desire
induced these souls to take the woeful step!”
I then turned back to them again and spoke,
and I began: “Thine agonies, Francesca,
cause me to weep with grief and sympathy.
But tell me: at the time of tender sighs,
whereby and how did Love concede to you
that ye should know each other’s veiled desires?”

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 41

And she to me: “There is no greater pain
than to remember happy days in days
of misery; and this thy Leader knows.
But if to know the first root of our love
so yearning a desire possesses thee,
I ’ll do as one who weepeth while he speaks.
One day, for pastime merely, we were reading
of Launcelot, and how love o’erpowered him;
alone we were, and free from all misgiving.
[[61]]
Oft did that reading cause our eyes to meet,
and often take the color from our faces;
and yet one passage only overcame us.
When we had read of how the longed-for smile
was kissed by such a lover, this one here,
who nevermore shall be divided from me,
trembling all over, kissed me on my mouth.
A Gallehault the book, and he who wrote it!
No further in it did we read that day.”
While one was saying this, the other spirit
so sorely wept, that out of sympathy
I swooned away as though about to die,
and fell as falls a body that is dead.
[[63]]

INFERNO VI
The Third Circle. Intemperance in Food
Gluttons

On my return to consciousness, which closed
before the kindred couple’s piteous case,
which utterly confounded me with grief,
new torments all around me I behold,
and new tormented ones, where’er I move,
where’er I turn, and wheresoe’er I gaze.
In the third circle am I, that of rain
eternal, cursèd, cold and burdensome;
its measure and quality are never new.

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Coarse hail, and snow, and dirty-colored water
through the dark air are ever pouring down;
and foully smells the ground receiving them.
A wild beast, Cerberus, uncouth and cruel,
is barking with three throats, as would a dog,
over the people that are there submerged.
Red eyes he hath, a dark and greasy beard,
a belly big, and talons on his hands;
he claws the spirits, flays and quarters them.
The rainfall causes them to howl like dogs;
with one side they make shelter for the other;
oft do the poor profaners turn about.
[[65]]
When Cerberus, the mighty worm, perceived us,
his mouths he opened, showing us his fangs;
nor had he any limb that he kept still.
My Leader then stretched out his opened palms,
and took some earth, and with his fists well filled,
he threw it down into the greedy throats.
And like a dog that, barking, yearns for food,
and, when he comes to bite it, is appeased,
since only to devour it doth he strain
and fight; even such became those filthy faces
of demon Cerberus, who, thundering, stuns
the spirits so, that they would fain be deaf.
Over the shades the heavy rain beats down
we then were passing, as our feet we set
upon their unreal bodies which seem real.
They each and all were lying on the ground,
excepting one, which rose and sat upright,
when it perceived us pass in front of it.
“O thou that through this Hell art being led,”
it said to me, “recall me, if thou canst;
for thou, before I unmade was, wast made.”
And I to it: “The anguish thou art in
perchance withdraws thee from my memory so,
it doth not seem that thee I ever saw.
But tell me who thou art, that in so painful
a place art set, and to such punishment,

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that none, though greater, so repulsive is.”
[[67]]
And he to me: “Thy town, which is so full
of envy that the bag o’erflows already,
owned me when I was in the peaceful life.
Ciacco, you townsmen used to call me then;
for my injurious fault of gluttony
I ’m broken, as thou seest, by the rain;
nor yet am I, sad soul, the only one,
for all these here are subject, for like fault,
unto like pain.” Thereat he spoke no more.
“Thy trouble, Ciacco,” I replied to him,
“so burdens me that it invites my tears;
but tell me, if thou canst, to what will come
the citizens of our divided town;
if any one therein is just; and tell me
the reason why such discord hath assailed her.”
And he to me then: “After struggling long
they ’ll come to bloodshed, and the boorish party
will drive the other out with much offence.
Then, afterward, the latter needs must fall
within three suns, and the other party rise,
by help of one who now is ‘on the fence.’
A long time will it hold its forehead up,
keeping the other under grievous weights,
howe’er it weep therefor, and be ashamed.
Two men are just, but are not heeded there;
the three sparks that have set men’s hearts on fire,
are overweening pride, envy and greed.”
[[69]]
Herewith he closed his tear-inspiring speech.
And I to him: “I ’d have thee teach me still,
and grant the favor of some further talk.
Farinàta and Tegghiàio, who so worthy were,
Jàcopo Rusticùcci, Arrigo and Mosca,
and the others who were set on doing good,
tell me where these are, and let me know of them;
for great desire constraineth me to learn
if Heaven now sweeten, or Hell poison them.”

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And he: “Among the blackest souls are these;
a different fault weighs toward the bottom each;
if thou descend so far, thou mayst behold them.
But when in the sweet world thou art again,
recall me, prithee, unto others’ minds;
I tell no more, nor further answer thee.”
His fixed eyes thereupon he turned askance;
a while he looked at me, then bowed his head,
and fell therewith among the other blind.
Then said my Leader: “He ’ll not wake again
on this side of the angel-trumpet’s sound.
What time the hostile Podestà shall come,
each soul will find again its dismal tomb,
each will take on again its flesh and shape,
and hear what through eternity resounds.”
We thus passed through with slowly moving steps
the filthy mixture of the shades and rain,
talking a little of the future life;
[[71]]
because of which I said: “These torments, Teacher,
after the Final Sentence will they grow,
or less become, or burn the same as now.”
And he to me: “Return thou to thy science,
which holdeth that the more a thing is perfect,
so much the more it feels of weal or woe.
Although this cursèd folk shall nevermore
arrive at true perfection, it expects
to be more perfect after, than before.”
As in a circle, round that road we went,
speaking at greater length than I repeat,
and came unto a place where one descends;
there found we Plutus, the great enemy.

INFERNO XII
The Seventh Circle. The First Ring. Violence against one’s Fellow Man. Murderers and Spoilers.
Phlegethon

The place, where to descend the bank we came,

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was Alp-like, and, through what was also there,
such that all eyes would be repelled by it.
As is that downfall on the hither side
of Trent, which sidewise smote the Àdige,
through earthquake or through failure of support;
since from the mountain’s summit, whence it moved
down to the plain, the rock is shattered so,
that it would yield a path for one above;
even such was the descent of that ravine;
and on the border of the broken bank
was stretched at length the Infamy of Crete,
who in the seeming heifer was conceived;
and when he saw us there he bit himself,
like one whom inward anger overcomes.
In his direction then my Sage cried out:
“Dost thou, perhaps, think Athens’ duke is here,
who gave thee death when in the world above?
Begone, thou beast! for this man cometh not
taught by thy sister, but is going by,
in order to behold your punishments.”
[[129]]
As doth a bull, who from his leash breaks free
the moment he receives the mortal blow,
and cannot walk, but plunges here and there;
so doing I beheld the Minotaur;
and he, aware, cried out: “Run to the pass!
’t is well that, while he rages, thou descend.”
Thereat we made our way adown that heap
of fallen rocks, which often ’neath my feet
were moved, because of their unwonted load.
I went along in thought; and he: “Perchance
thou thinkest of this landslide, which is guarded
by that beast’s anger which I quenched just now.
Now I would have thee know that, when down here
to nether Hell I came, that other time,
this mass of rock had not yet fallen down.
But certainly, if I remember well,
not long ere He arrived, who carried off
from Dis the highest circle’s mighty prey,

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on every side the deep and foul abyss
so trembled that I thought the universe
had felt the love, whereby, as some believe,
the world to Chaos hath been oft reduced;
and at that moment this old mass of rock
was thus, both here and elsewhere, overthrown.
But turn thine eyes down yonder now; for lo,
the stream of blood is drawing near to us,
wherein boils who by violence harms others.”[[131]] . . .

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Dante and Virgil meet the MinotaurThe Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 48

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 49

INFERNO XXXIV
The Ninth Circle. Treachery. Cocytus
Traitors to their Benefactors. Lucifer

. . . Raising mine eyes, I thought that I should still
see Lucifer the same as when I left him;
but I beheld him with his legs held up.
And thereupon, if I became perplexed,
let those dull people think, who do not see
what kind of point that was which I had passed.
“Stand up” my Teacher said, “upon thy feet!
the way is long and difficult the road,
and now to middle-tierce the sun returns.”
It was no palace hallway where we were,
but just a natural passage under ground,
which had a wretched floor and lack of light.
“Before I tear myself from this abyss,
Teacher,” said I on rising, “talk to me
a little, and correct my wrong ideas.[[395]]
Where is the ice? And how is this one fixed
thus upside down? And in so short a time
how hath the sun from evening crossed to morn?”
Then he to me: “Thou thinkest thou art still
beyond the center where I seized the hair
of that bad Worm who perforates the world.
While I was going down, thou wast beyond it;
but when I turned, thou then didst pass the point
to which all weights are drawn on every side;
thou now art come beneath the hemisphere
opposed to that the great dry land o’ercovers,
and ’neath whose zenith was destroyed the Man,
who without sinfulness was born and died;
thy feet thou hast upon the little sphere,
which forms the other surface of Judecca.
’T is morning here, whenever evening there;
and he who made our ladder with his hair,
is still fixed fast, ev’n as he was before.
He fell on this side out of Heaven; whereat,
the land, which hitherto was spread out here,

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through fear of him made of the sea a veil,
and came into our hemisphere; perhaps
to flee from him, what is on this side seen
left the place empty here, and upward rushed.”
There is a place down there, as far removed
from Beelzebub, as e’er his tomb extends,
not known by sight, but by a brooklet’s sound,[[397]]
which flows down through a hole there in the rock,
gnawed in it by the water’s spiral course,
which slightly slopes. My Leader then, and I,
in order to regain the world of light,
entered upon that dark and hidden path;
and, without caring for repose, went up,
he going on ahead, and I behind,
till through a rounded opening I beheld
some of the lovely things the sky contains;
thence we came out, and saw again the stars.

PARADISO XXXIII
The Empyrean. GOD. St. Bernard’s Prayer to Mary
The Vision of God. Ultimate Salvation

“O Virgin Mother, Daughter of thy Son,
humbler and loftier than any creature,
eternal counsel’s predetermined goal,
thou art the one that such nobility
didst lend to human nature, that its Maker
scorned not to make Himself what He had made.
Within thy womb rekindled was the Love,
through whose warm influence in the eternal Peace
this Flower hath blossomed thus. Here unto us
thou art a noonday torch of Charity;
and down below ’mong mortal men, thou art
a living fount of Hope. Lady, so great
thou art, and hast such worth, that one who longs
for Grace, and unto thee hath not recourse,
wingless would wish to have his longing fly.

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Not only doth thy Kindliness give help
to him that asketh it, but many times
it freely runs ahead of his request.
In thee is Mercy, Pity is in thee,
in thee Magnificence, and all there is
of Goodness in a creature meets in thee.[[387]]
Now doth this man, who from the lowest drain
of the Universe hath one by one beheld,
as far as here, the forms of spirit-life,
beseech thee, of thy grace, for so much strength
that with his eyes he may uplift himself
toward Ultimate Salvation higher still.
And I, who never for mine own sight burned
more than I do for his, offer thee all
my prayers, and pray that they be not too poor,
that thou with thy prayers so dissolve each cloud
of his mortality, that unto him
the Highest Pleasure may unfold Itself.
And furthermore, I pray to thee, O Queen,
who canst whate’er thou wilt, that, after such
a sight, thou keep all his affections sound.
His human promptings let thy care defeat;
see with how many blest ones Beatrice
is clasping for my prayers her hands to thee!”
The eyes belovèd and revered by God,
intent on him who prayed, revealed to us
how grateful unto her are earnest prayers.
Thence they addressed them to the Eternal Light,
wherein it may not be believed the eye
of any creature finds so clear a way.
And I, who to the End of all desires
was drawing near, within me, as I ought,
brought to its goal the ardor of desire.
[[389]]
Bernard was smiling, and was making signs
for me to look on high; but, as he wished,
I was already of mine own accord;
because my sight, as purer it became,
was penetrating more and more the radiance

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of that High Light, which of Itself is true.
From this time onward greater was my sight
than is our speech, which yields to such a vision,
and memory also yields to such excess.
And such as he, who seeth in a dream,
and after it, the imprinted feeling stays,
while all the rest returns not to his mind;
even such am I; for almost wholly fades
my vision, yet the sweetness which was born
of it is dripping still into my heart.
Even thus the snow is in the sun dissolved;
even thus the Sibyl’s oracles, inscribed
on flying leaves, were lost adown the wind.
O Light Supreme, that dost uplift Thyself
so far from mortal thought, relend my mind
a little of what Thou didst seem to be,
and cause my tongue to be so powerful,
that of Thy Glory it may leave at least
a spark unto the people still to come;
for to my mem’ry if it but a while
return, and speak a little in these lines,
more of Thy Victory will be conceived.
[[391]]
I think the keenness of the living Ray
which I endured would have confounded me,
if from it I had turned away mine eyes.
And I recall that I, because of this,
the bolder was to bear it, till I made
my vision one with Value Infinite.
O the abundant Grace, whereby I dared
to pierce the Light Eternal with my gaze,
until I had therein exhausted sight!
I saw that far within its depths there lies,
by Love together in one volume bound,
that which in leaves lies scattered through the world;
substance and accident, and modes thereof,
fused, as it were, in such a way, that that,
whereof I speak, is but One Simple Light.
This union’s general form I think I saw,

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since, saying so, I feel that I the more
rejoice. Of more forgetfulness for me
one moment is, than centuries twenty-five
are for the enterprise which once caused Neptune
to wonder at the shadow Argo cast.
My mind, thus wholly in suspense, was gazing
steadfast and motionless, and all intent,
and, gazing, grew enkindled more and more.
Such in that Light doth one at last become,
that one can never possibly consent
to turn therefrom for any other sight;
[[393]]
because the Good, which is the will’s real object,
is therein wholly gathered, and, outside,
that is defective which is perfect there.
Ev’n as to what I do remember, mine
will now be shorter than an infant’s speech,
who at the breast still bathes his tongue. ’T was not
that there was other than a simple semblance
within the Living Light wherein I gazed,
which always is what It hath been before;
but through my sight, which in me, as I looked,
was gathering strength, because I changed, one sole
appearance underwent a change for me.
Within the Lofty Light’s profound and clear
subsistence there appeared to me three Rings,
of threefold color and of one content;
and one, as Rainbow is by Rainbow, seemed
reflected by the other, while the third
seemed like a Fire breathed equally from both.
Oh, how, to my conception, short and weak
is speech! And this, to what I saw, is such,
that it is not enough to call it small.
O Light Eternal, that alone dost dwell
within Thyself, alone dost understand
Thyself, and love and smile upon Thyself,
Self-understanding and Self-understood!
That Circle which appeared to be conceived
within Thyself as a Reflected Light,

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ParadiseThe Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 55

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

********

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EAST COKER
(No. 2 of ‘Four Quartets’)

I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.

In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.

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Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

II

What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly

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Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.

That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The houses are all gone under the sea.
The dancers are all gone under the hill.

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The Magician’s Nephew
Chapter one: the wrong door

This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather
was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings
and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began.
In those days Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bas-
tables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you
were a boy you had to wear a stiff Eton collar every day, and schools were usu-
ally nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and as for sweets, I won’t tell you
how cheap and good they were, because it would only make your mouth water
in vain. And in those days there lived in London a girl called Polly Plummer.
She lived in one of a long row of houses which were all joined together. One
morning she was out in the back garden when a boy scrambled up from the gar-
den next door and put his face over the wall. Polly was very surprised because
up till now there had never been any children in that house, but only Mr Ketter-
ley and Miss Ketterley, a brother and sister, old bachelor and old maid, living to-
gether. So she looked up, full of curiosity. The face of the strange boy was very
grubby. It could hardly have been grubbier if he had first rubbed his hands in the
earth, and then had a good cry, and then dried his face with his hands. As a mat-
ter of fact, this was very nearly what he had been doing.

“Hullo,” said Polly.
“Hullo,” said the boy. “What’s your name?”
“Polly,” said Polly. “What’s yours?”
“Digory,” said the boy.
“I say, what a funny name!” said Polly.
“It isn’t half so funny as Polly,” said Digory.
“Yes it is,” said Polly.
“No, it isn’t,” said Digory.

“At any rate I do wash my face,” said Polly, “Which is what you need to do; es-
pecially after -” and then she stopped. She had been going to say “After you’ve
been blubbing,” but she thought that wouldn’t be polite.

“Alright, I have then,” said Digory in a much louder voice, like a boy who was so miser-
able that he didn’t care who knew he had been crying. “And so would you,” he went
on, “if you’d lived all your life in the country and had a pony, and a river at the bottom
of the garden, and then been brought to live in a beastly Hole like this.”

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“London isn’t a Hole,” said Polly indignantly. But the boy was too wound up to
take any notice of her, and he went on “And if your father was away in India –
and you had to come and live with an Aunt and an Uncle who’s mad (who would
like that?) – and if the reason was that they were looking after your Mother – and
if your Mother was ill and was going to – going to – die.”

Then his face went the wrong sort of shape as it does if you’re trying to keep
back your tears.

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” said Polly humbly. And then, because she hardly knew
what to say, and also to turn Digory’s mind to cheerful subjects, she asked:
“Is Mr Ketterley really mad?”

“Well either he’s mad,” said Digory, “or there’s some other mystery. He has a
study on the top floor and Aunt Letty says I must never go up there. Well, that
looks fishy to begin with. And then there’s another thing. Whenever he tries to
say anything to me at meal times – he never even tries to talk to her – she al-
ways shuts him up. She says, “Don’t worry the boy, Andrew” or “I’m sure Digory
doesn’t want to hear about that” or else “Now, Digory, wouldn’t you like to go
out and play in the garden?”

“What sort of things does he try to say?”

“I don’t know. He never gets far enough. But there’s more than that. One night
– it was last night in fact – as I was going past the foot of the attic-stairs on my
way to bed (and I don’t much care for going past them either) I’m sure I heard a
yell.” “Perhaps he keeps a mad wife shut up there.”

“Yes, I’ve thought of that.”
“Or perhaps he’s a coiner.”
“Or he might have been a pirate, like the man at the beginning of Treasure Island,
and be always hiding from his old shipmates.”
“How exciting!” said Polly, “I never knew your house was so interesting.”

“You may think it interesting,” said Digory. “But you wouldn’t like it if you had to
sleep there. How would you like to lie awake listening for Uncle Andrew’s step
to come creeping along the passage to your room? And he has such awful eyes.”

That was how Polly and Digory got to know one another: and as it was just the

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beginning of the summer holidays and neither of them was going to the sea that
year, they met nearly every day. Their adventures began chiefly because it was
one of the wettest and coldest summers there had been for years. That drove
them to do indoor things: you might say, indoor exploration. It is wonderful how
much exploring you can do with a stump of candle in a big house, or in a row of
houses. Polly had discovered long ago that if you opened a certain little door in
the box-room attic of her house you would find the cistern and a dark place be-
hind it which you could get into by a little careful climbing. The dark place was
like a long tunnel with brick wall on one side and sloping roof on the other. In
the roof there were little chunks of light between the slates. There was no floor
in this tunnel: you had to step from rafter to rafter, and between them there
was only plaster. If you stepped on this you would find yourself falling through
the ceiling of the room below. Polly had used the bit of the tunnel just beside
the cistern as a smugglers’ cave. She had brought up bits of old packing cases
and the seats of broken kitchen chairs, and things of that sort, and spread them
across from rafter to rafter so as to make a bit of floor. Here she kept a cash-box
containing various treasures, and a story she was writing and usually a few ap-
ples. She had often drunk a quiet bottle of ginger-beer in there: the old bottles
made it look more like a smugglers’ cave.

Digory quite liked the cave (she wouldn’t let him see the story) but he was more
interested in exploring. “Look here,” he said. “How long does this tunnel go on
for? I mean, does it stop where your house ends?”

“No,” said Polly. “The walls don’t go out to the roof. It goes on. I don’t know how
far.”

“Then we could get the length of the whole row of houses.”

“So we could,” said Polly, “And oh, I say!”
“What?”
“We could get into the other houses.”
“Yes, and get taken up for burglars! No thanks.”
“Don’t be so jolly clever. I was thinking of the house beyond yours.” , “What
about it?”

“Why, it’s the empty one. Daddy says it’s always been empty since we came
here.” “I suppose we ought to have a look at it then,” said Digory. He was a good
deal more excited than you’d have thought from the way he spoke. For of course

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he was thinking, just as you would have been, of all the reasons why the house
might have been empty so long. So was Polly. Neither of them said the word
“haunted”. And both felt that once the thing had been suggested, it would be
feeble not to do it.

“Shall we go and try it now?” said Digory.
“Alright,” said Polly.
“Don’t if you’d rather not,” said Digory.
“I’m game if you are,” said she.

“How are we to know we’re in the next house but one?” They decided they
would have to go out into the boxroom and walk across it taking steps as long
as the steps from one rafter to the next. That would give them an idea of how
many rafters went to a room. Then they would allow about four more for the
passage between the two attics in Polly’s house, and then the same number for
the maid’s bedroom as for the box-room. That would give them the length of
the house. When they had done that distance twice they would be at the end of
Digory’s house; any door they came to after that would let them into an attic of
the empty house.

“But I don’t expect it’s really empty at all,” said Digory.
“What do you expect?”
“I expect someone lives there in secret, only coming in and out at night, with a
dark lantern. We shall probably discover a gang of desperate criminals and get
a reward. It’s all rot to say a house would be empty all those years unless there
was some mystery.”
“Daddy thought it must be the drains,” said Polly.

“Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations,” said Digo-
ry. Now that they were talking by daylight in the attic instead of by candlelight in
the Smugglers’ Cave it seemed much less likely that the empty house would be
haunted.

When they had measured the attic they had to get a pencil and do a sum. They
both got different answers to it at first, and even when they agreed I am not
sure they got it right. They were in a hurry to start on the exploration.

“We mustn’t make a sound,” said Polly as they climbed in again behind the cis-
tern. Because it was such an important occasion they took a candle each (Polly

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had a good store of them in her cave).

It was very dark and dusty and draughty and they stepped from rafter to rafter
without a word except when they whispered to one another, “We’re opposite
your attic now” or “this must be halfway through our house”. And neither of
them stumbled and the candles didn’t go out, and at last they came where they
could see a little door in the brick wall on their right. There was no bolt or handle
on this side of it, of course, for the door had been made for getting in, not for
getting out; but there was a catch (as there often is on the inside of a cupboard
door) which they felt sure they would be able to turn.

“Shall I?” said Digory.
“I’m game if you are,” said Polly, just as she had said before. Both felt that it was
becoming very serious, but neither would draw back. Digory pushed round the
catch with some difficultly. The door swung open and the sudden daylight made
them blink. Then, with a great shock, they saw that they were looking, not into
a deserted attic, but into a furnished room. But it seemed empty enough. It was
dead silent. Polly’s curiosity got the better of her. She blew out her candle and
stepped out into the strange room, making no more noise than a mouse.
It was shaped, of course, like an attic, but furnished as a sitting-room. Every bit
of the walls was lined with shelves and every bit of the shelves was full of books.
A fire was burning in the grate (you remember that it was a very cold wet sum-
mer that year) and in front of the fire-place with its back towards them was a
high-backed armchair. Between the chair and Polly, and filling most of the mid-
dle of the room, was a big table piled with all sorts of things: printed books, and
books of the sort you write in, and ink bottles and pens and sealing-wax and
a microscope. But what she noticed first was a bright red wooden tray with a
number of rings on it. They were in pairs – a yellow one and a green one togeth-
er, then a little space, and then another yellow one and another green one.

They were no bigger than ordinary rings, and no one could help noticing them
because they were so bright. They were the most beautiful shiny little things you
can imagine. If Polly had been a very little younger she would have wanted to
put one in her mouth.

The room was so quiet that you noticed the ticking of the clock at once. And
yet, as she now found, it was not absolutely quiet either. There was a faint – a
very, very faint – humming sound. If Hoovers had been invented in those days
Polly would have thought it was the sound of a Hoover being worked a long way

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off—several rooms away and several floors below. But it was a nicer sound than
that, a more musical tone: only so faint that you could hardly hear it. “It’s alright;
there’s no one here,” said Polly over her shoulder to Digory. She was speaking
above a whisper now. And Digory came out, blinking and looking extremely dirty
—as indeed Polly was too.

“This is no good,” he said. “It’s not an empty house at all. We’d better bunk be-
fore anyone comes.”

“What do you think those are?” said Polly, pointing at the coloured rings.’
“Oh come on,” said Digory. “The sooner–”

He never finished what he was going to say for at that moment something hap-
pened. The high-backed chair in front of the fire moved suddenly and there rose
up out of it—like a pantomime demon coming up out of a trapdoor the alarming
form of Uncle Andrew. They were not in the empty house at all; they were in
Digory’s house and in the forbidden study! Both children said “O-o-oh” and real-
ized their terrible mistake. They felt they ought to have known all along that they
hadn’t gone nearly far enough.

Uncle Andrew was tall and very thin. He had a long clean-shaven face with a
sharply-pointed nose and extremely bright eyes and a great tousled mop of grey
hair.

Digory was quite speechless, for Uncle Andrew looked a thousand times more
alarming than he had ever looked before. Polly was not so frightened yet; but
she soon was. For the very first thing Uncle Andrew did was to walk across
to the door of the room, shut it, and turn the key in the lock. Then he turned
round, fixed the children with his bright eyes, and smiled, showing all his teeth.

“There!” he said. “Now my fool of a sister can’t get at you!”

It was dreadfully unlike anything a grown-up would be expected to do. Polly’s
heart came into her mouth, and she and Digory started backing towards the
little door they had come in by. Uncle Andrew was too quick for them. He got
behind them and shut that door too and stood in front of it. Then he rubbed his
hands and made his knuckles crack. He had very long, beautifully white, fingers.

“I am delighted to see you,” he said. “Two children are just what I wanted.”

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“Please, Mr Ketterley,” said Polly. “It’s nearly my dinner time and I’ve got to go
home. Will you let us out, please?”

“Not just yet,” said Uncle Andrew. “This is too good an opportunity to miss. I
wanted two children. You see, I’m in the middle of a great experiment. I’ve tried
it on a guinea-pig and it seemed to work. But then a guinea-pig can’t tell you
anything. And you can’t explain to it how to come back.”

“Look here, Uncle Andrew,” said Digory, “it really is dinner time and they’ll be
looking for us in a moment. You must let us out.”

“Must?” said Uncle Andrew.

Digory and Polly glanced at one another. They dared not say anything, but the
glances meant “Isn’t this dreadful?” and “We must humour him.”

“If you let us go for our dinner now,” said Polly, “we could come back after din-
ner.” “Ah, but how do I know that you would?” said Uncle Andrew with a cunning
smile. Then he seemed to change his mind.

“Well, well,” he said, “if you really must go, I suppose you must. I can’t expect
two youngsters like you to find it much fun talking to an old buffer like me.” He
sighed and went on. “You’ve no idea how lonely I sometimes am. But no matter.
Go to your dinner. But I must give you a present before you go. It’s not every
day that I see a little girl in my dingy old study; especially, if I may say so, such a
very attractive young lady as yourself.”

Polly began to think he might not really be mad after all.
“Wouldn’t you like a ring, my dear?” said Uncle Andrew to Polly.
“Do you mean one of those yellow or green ones?” said Polly. “How lovely!”
“Not a green one,” said Uncle Andrew. “I’m afraid I can’t give the green ones
away. But I’d be delighted to give you any of the yellow ones: with my love.
Come and try one on.”

Polly had now quite got over her fright and felt sure that the old gentleman was
not mad; and there was certainly something strangely attractive about those
bright rings. She moved over to the tray.

“Why! I declare,” she said. “That humming noise gets louder here. It’s almost as if

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the rings were making it.”

“What a funny fancy, my dear,” said Uncle Andrew with a laugh. It sounded a
very natural laugh, but Digory had seen an eager, almost a greedy, look on his
face. “Polly! Don’t be a fool!” he shouted. “Don’t touch them.”

It was too late. Exactly as he spoke, Polly’s hand went out to touch one of the
rings. And immediately, without a flash or a noise or a warning of any sort, there
was no Polly. Digory and his Uncle were alone in the room.

Chapter two: digory and his uncle

It was so sudden, and so horribly unlike anything that had ever happened to
Digory even in a nightmare, that he let out a scream. Instantly Uncle Andrew’s
hand was over his mouth. “None of that!” he hissed in Digory’s ear. “If you start
making a noise your Mother’ll hear it. And you know what a fright might do to
her.”

As Digory said afterwards, the horrible meanness of getting at a chap in that
way, almost made him sick. But of course he didn’t scream again.

“That’s better,” said Uncle Andrew. “Perhaps you couldn’t help it. It is a shock
when you first see someone vanish. Why, it gave even me a turn when the guin-
ea-pig did it the other night.”

“Was that when you yelled?” asked Digory.
“Oh, you heard that, did you? I hope you haven’t been spying on me?”
“No, I haven’t,” said Digory indignantly. “But what’s happened to Polly?”
“Congratulate me, my dear boy,” said Uncle Andrew, rubbing his hands. “My ex-
periment has succeeded. The little girl’s gone – vanished – right out of the world.”

“What have you done to her?”
“Sent her to – well – to another place.”
“What do you mean?” asked Digory.

Uncle Andrew sat down and said, “Well, I’ll tell you all about it. Have you ever
heard of old Mrs Lefay?”
“Wasn’t she a great-aunt or something?” said Digory.

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“Not exactly,” said Uncle Andrew. “She was my godmother. That’s her, there, on
the wall.”

Digory looked and saw a faded photograph: it showed the face of an old woman
in a bonnet. And he could now remember that he had once seen a photo of the
same face in an old drawer, at home, in the country. He had asked his Mother
who it was and Mother had not seemed to want to talk about the subject much.
It was not at all a nice face, Digory thought, though of course with those early
photographs one could never really tell.

“Was there – wasn’t there – something wrong about her, Uncle Andrew?” he
asked. “Well,” said Uncle Andrew with a chuckle, “it depends what you call
wrong. People are so narrow-minded. She certainly got very queer in later life.
Did very unwise things. That was why they shut her up.”

“In an asylum, do you mean?”

“Oh no, no, no,” said Uncle Andrew in a shocked voice. “Nothing of that sort.
Only in prison.”
“I say!” said Digory. “What had she done?”
“Ah, poor woman,” said Uncle Andrew. “She had been very unwise. There were
a good many different things. We needn’t go into all that. She was always very
kind to me.”

“But look here, what has all this got to do with Polly? I do wish you’d—”
“All in good time, my boy,” said Uncle Andrew. “They let old Mrs Lefay out before
he died and I was one of the very few people whom she would allow to see her
in her last illness. She had got to dislike ordinary, ignorant people, you under-
stand. I do myself. But she and I were interested in the same sort of things. It
was only a few days before her death that she told me to go to an old bureau in
her house and open a secret drawer and bring her a little box that I would find
there. The moment I picked up that box I could tell by the pricking in my fingers
that I held some great secret in my hands. She gave it me and made me promise
that as soon as she was dead I would burn it, unopened, with certain ceremo-
nies. That promise I did not keep.”

“Well, then, it was jolly rotten of you,” said Digory.
“Rotten?” said Uncle Andrew with a puzzled look.
“Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true:

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most right and proper, I’m sure, and I’m very glad you have been taught to do
it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excel-
lent they may be for little boys – and servants – and women – and even people
in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great
thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are
freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours,
my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.”

As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious that for
a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he
remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle’s face the moment before
Polly had vanished: and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew’s grand words.
“All it means,” he said to himself, “Is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to
get anything he wants.”

“Of course,” said Uncle Andrew, “I didn’t dare to open the box for a long time,
for I knew it might contain something highly dangerous. For my godmother
was a very remarkable woman. The truth is, she was one of the last mortals in
this country who had fairy blood in her. (She said there had been two others in
her time. One was a duchess and the other was a charwoman.) In fact, Digory,
you are now talking to the last man (possibly) who really had a fairy godmother.
There! That’ll be something for you to remember when you are an old man your-
self.”

“I bet she was a bad fairy,” thought Digory; and added out loud. “But what about
Polly?”

“How you do harp on that!” said Uncle Andrew. “As if that was what mattered!
My first task was of course to study the box itself. It was very ancient. And I
knew enough even then to know that it wasn’t Greek, or Old Egyptian, or Bab-
ylonian, or Hittite, or Chinese. It was older than any of those nations. Ah—that
was a great day when I at last found out the truth. The box was Atlantean; it
came from the lost island of Atlantis. That meant it was centuries older than any
of the stone-age things they dig up in Europe. And it wasn’t a rough, crude thing
like them either. For in the very dawn of time Atlantis was already a great city
with palaces and temples and learned men.”

He paused for a moment as if he expected Digory to say something. But Digory
was disliking his Uncle more every minute, so he said nothing.

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“Meanwhile,” continued Uncle Andrew, “I was learning a good deal in other ways
(it wouldn’t be proper to explain them to a child) about Magic in general. That
meant that I came to have a fair idea what sort of things might be in the box. By
various tests I narrowed down the possibilities. I had to get to know some—well,
some devilish queer people, and go through some very disagreeable experienc-
es. That was what turned my head grey. One doesn’t become a magician for
nothing. My health broke down in the end. But I got better. And at last I actually
knew.”

Although there was not really the least chance of anyone overhearing them, he
leaned forward and almost whispered as he said: “The Atlantean box contained
something that had been brought from another world when our world was only
just beginning.”

“What?” asked Digory, who was now interested in spite of himself.

“Only dust,” said Uncle Andrew. “Fine, dry dust. Nothing much to look at. Not
much to show for a lifetime of toil, you might say. Ah, but when I looked at that
dust (I took jolly good care not to touch it) and thought that every grain had
once been in another world—I don’t mean another planet, you know; they’re
part of our world and you could get to them if you went far enough—but a really
Other World—another Nature another universe—somewhere you would nev-
er reach even if you travelled through the space of this universe for ever and
ever—a world that could be reached only by Magic—well!” Here Uncle Andrew
rubbed his hands till his knuckles cracked like fireworks.

“I knew,” he went on, “that if only you could get it into the right form, that dust
would draw you back to the place it had come from. But the difficulty was to get
it into the right form. My earlier experiments were all failures. I tried them on
guinea-pigs. Some of them only died. Some exploded like little bombs—”

“It was a jolly cruel thing to do,” said Digory who had once had a guinea-pig of
his own.

“How you do keep getting off the point!” said Uncle Andrew. “That’s what the
creatures were for. I’d bought them myself. Let me see—where was I? Ah yes. At
last I succeeded in making the rings: the yellow rings. But now a new difficulty
arose. I was pretty sure, now, that a yellow ring would send any creature that
touched it into the Other Pace. But what would be the good of that if I couldn’t

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get them back to tell me what they had found there?”
“And what about them?” said Digory. “A nice mess they’d be in if they couldn’t
get back!”

“You will keep on looking at everything from the wrong point of view,” said Un-
cle Andrew with a look of impatience. “Can’t you understand that the thing is a
great experiment? The whole point of sending anyone into the Other Place is
that I want to find out what it’s like.”
“Well why didn’t you go yourself then?”

Digory had hardly ever seen anyone so surprised and offended as his Uncle did
at this simple question. “Me? Me?” he exclaimed. “The boy must be mad! A man
at my time of life, and in my state of health, to risk the shock and the dangers of
being flung suddenly into a different universe? I never heard anything so prepos-
terous in my life! Do you realize what you’re saying? Think what Another World
means – you might meet anything anything.”

“And I suppose you’ve sent Polly into it then,” said Digory. His cheeks were flam-
ing with anger now. “And all I can say,” he added, “even if you are my Uncle—is
that you’ve behaved like a coward, sending a girl to a place you’re afraid to go to
yourself.”

“Silence, sir!” said Uncle Andrew, bringing his hand down on the table. “I will not
be talked to like that by a little, dirty, schoolboy. You don’t understand. I am the
great scholar, the magician, the adept, who is doing the experiment. Of course
I need subjects to do it on. Bless my soul, you’ll be telling me next that I ought
to have asked the guinea-pigs’ permission before I used them! No great wisdom
can be reached without sacrifice. But the idea of my going myself is ridiculous.
It’s like asking a general to fight as a common soldier. Supposing I got killed, what
would become of my life’s work?”

“Oh, do stop jawing,” said Digory. “Are you going to bring Polly back?”

“I was going to tell you, when you so rudely interrupted me,” said Uncle Andrew,
“that I did at last find out a way of doing the return journey. The green rings
draw you back.”

“But Polly hasn’t got a green ring.”
“No “ said Uncle Andrew with a cruel smile.

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“Then she can’t get back,” shouted Digory. “And it’s exactly the same as if you’d
murdered her.

“She can get back,” said Uncle Andrew, “if someone else will go after her, wear-
ing a yellow ring himself and taking two green rings, one to bring himself back
and one to bring her back.”

And now of course Digory saw the trap in which he was caught: and he stared
at Uncle Andrew, saying nothing, with his mouth wide open. His cheeks had
gone very pale.

“I hope,” said Uncle Andrew presently in a very high and mighty voice, just as if
he were a perfect Uncle who had given one a handsome tip and some good ad-
vice, “I hope, Digory, you are not given to showing the white feather. I should be
very sorry to think that anyone of our family had not enough honour and chival-
ry to go to the aid of—er—a lady in distress.”

“Oh shut up!” said Digory. “If you had any honour and all that, you’d be going
yourself. But I know you won’t. Alright. I see I’ve got to go. But you are a beast.
I suppose you planned the whole thing, so that she’d go without knowing it and
then I’d have to go after her.”

“Of course,” said Uncle Andrew with his hateful smile.

“Very well. I’ll go. But there’s one thing I jolly well mean to say first. I didn’t be-
lieve in Magic till today. I see now it’s real. Well if it is, I suppose all the old fairy
tales are more or less true. And you’re simply a wicked, cruel magician like the
ones in the stories. Well, I’ve never read a story in which people of that sort
weren’t paid out in the end, and I bet you will be. And serve you right.”

Of all the things Digory had said this was the first that really went home. Un-
cle Andrew started and there came over his face a look of such horror that,
beast though he was, you could almost feel sorry for him. But a second later he
smoothed it all away and said with a rather forced laugh, “Well, well, I suppose
that is a natural thing for a child to think—brought up among women, as you
have been. Old wives’ tales, eh? I don’t think you need worry about my danger,
Digory. Wouldn’t it be better to worry about the danger of your little friend?
She’s been gone some time. If there are any dangers Over There—well, it would
be a pity to arrive a moment too late.”

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“A lot you care,” said Digory fiercely. “But I’m sick of this jaw. What have I got to
do?”

“You really must learn to control that temper of yours, my boy,” said Uncle An-
drew coolly. “Otherwise you’ll grow up like your Aunt Letty. Now. Attend to me.”
He got up, put on a pair of gloves, and walked over to the tray that contained
the rings. “They only work,” he said, “if they’re actually touching your skin. Wear-
ing gloves, I can pick them up—like this—and nothing happens. If you carried one
in your pocket nothing would happen: but of course you’d have to be careful
not to put your hand in your pocket and touch it by accident. The moment you
touch a yellow ring, you vanish out of this world. When you are in the Other
Place I expect—of course this hasn’t been tested yet, but I expect—that the mo-
ment you touch a green ring you vanish out of that world and—I expect—reap-
pear in this. Now. I take these two greens and drop them into your right-hand
pocket. Remember very carefully which pocket the greens are in. G for green
and R for right. G.R. you see: which are the first two letters of green. One for
you and one for the little girl. And now you pick up a yellow one for yourself. I
should put it on on your finger—if I were you. There’ll be less chance of dropping
it.”

Digory had almost picked up the yellow ring when he suddenly checked himself.
“Look here,” he said. “What about Mother? Supposing she asks where I am?”
“The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back,” said Uncle Andrew cheerfully.
“But you don’t really know whether I can get back.”

Uncle Andrew shrugged his shoulders, walked across to the door, unlocked it,
threw it open, and said: “Oh very’ well then. Just as you please. Go down and
have your dinner. Leave the little girl to be eaten by wild animals or drowned or
starved in Otherworld or lost there for good, if that’s what you prefer. It’s all one
to me. Perhaps before tea time you’d better drop in on Mrs Plummer and explain
that she’ll never see her daughter again; because you were afraid to put on a
ring.”

“By gum,” said Digory, “don’t I just wish I was big enough to punch your head!”
Then he buttoned up his coat, took a deep breath, and picked up the ring. And
he thought then, as he always thought afterwards too, that he could not decent-
ly have done anything else.

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 73

Chapter three : The wood between the worlds

Uncle Andrew and his study vanished instantly. Then, for a moment, everything
became muddled. The next thing Digory knew was that there was a soft green
light coming down on him from above, and darkness below. He didn’t seem to
be standing on anything, or sitting, or lying. Nothing appeared to be touching
him. “I believe I’m in water,” said Digory. “Or under water.” This frightened him
for a second, but almost at once he could feel that he was rushing upwards.
Then his head suddenly came out into the air and, he found himself scrambling
ashore, out on to smooth grassy ground at the edge of a pool.

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for
breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were per-
fectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool – not more than ten feet
from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy
that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came
through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for
this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could
possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You
could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not
the only pool. There were dozens of others – a pool every few yards as far as
his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with
their roots. This wood was very much alive. When he tried to describe it after-
wards Digory always said, “It was a rich place: as rich as plumcake.”

The strangest thing was that, almost before he had looked about him, Digo-
ry had half forgotten how he had come there. At any rate, he was certainly not
thinking about Polly, or Uncle Andrew, or even his Mother. He was not in the
least frightened, or excited, or curious. If anyone had asked him “Where did you
come from?” he would probably have said, “I’ve always been here.” That was
what it felt like – as if one had always been in that place and never been bored
although nothing had ever happened. As he said long afterwards, “It’s not the
sort of place where things happen. The trees go on growing, that’s all.”

After Digory had looked at the wood for a long time he noticed that there was a
girl lying on her back at the foot of a tree a few yards away. Her eyes were near-
ly shut but not quite, as if she were just between sleeping and waking. So he
looked at her for a long time and said nothing. And at last she opened her eyes
and looked at him for a long time and she also said nothing. Then she spoke, in a

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 74

dreamy, contented sort of voice.

“I think I’ve seen you before,” she said.
“I rather think so too,” said Digory. “Have you been here long?”
“Oh, always,” said the girl. “At least – I don’t know a very long time.”
“So have I,” said Digory.
“No you haven’t, said she. “I’ve just seen you come up out of that pool.”
“Yes, I suppose I did,” said Digory with a puzzled air, “I’d forgotten.” Then for quite
a long time neither said any more.

“Look here,” said the girl presently, “I wonder did we ever really meet before? I
had a sort of idea – a sort of picture in my head – of a boy and a girl, like us – liv-
ing somewhere quite different – and doing all sorts of things. Perhaps it was only
a dream.”

“I’ve had that same dream, I think,” said Digory. “About a boy and a girl, living
next door – and something about crawling among rafters. I remember the girl
had a dirty face.”

“Aren’t you getting it mixed? In my dream it was the boy who had the dirty face.”
“I can’t remember the boy’s face,” said Digory: and then added, “Hullo! What’s
that?” “Why! it’s a guinea-pig,” said the girl. And it was – a fat guinea-pig, nosing
about in he grass. But round the middle of the guinea-pig there ran a tape, and,
tied on to it by the tape, was a bright yellow ring.

“Look! look,” cried Digory, “The ring! And look! You’ve got one on your finger.
And so have I.”

The girl now sat up, really interested at last. They stared very hard at one an-
other, trying to remember. And then, at exactly the same moment, she shouted
out “Mr Ketterley” and he shouted out “Uncle Andrew”, and they knew who they
were and began to remember the whole story. After a few minutes hard talking
they had got it straight. Digory explained how beastly Uncle Andrew had been.
“What do we do now?” said Polly. “Take the guinea-pig and go home?”

“There’s no hurry,” said Digory with a huge yawn.

“I think there is,” said Polly. “This place is too quiet. It’s so – so dreamy. You’re
almost asleep. If we once give in to it we shall just lie down and drowse for ever

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 75

and ever.”
“It’s very nice here,” said Digory.
“Yes, it is,” said Polly.

“But we’ve got to get back.” She stood up and began to go cautiously towards
the guinea-pig. But then she changed her mind.

“We might as well leave the guinea-pig,” she said. “It’s perfectly happy here, and
your uncle will only do something horrid to it if we take it home.”
“I bet he would,” answered Digory. “Look at the way he’s treated us. By the way,
how do we get home?”
“Go back into the pool, I expect.”
They came and stood together at the edge looking down into the smooth water.
It was full of the reflection of the green, leafy branches; they made it look very
deep.

“We haven’t any bathing things,” said Polly.
“We shan’t need them, silly,” said Digory. “We’re going in with our clothes on.
Don’t you remember it didn’t wet us on the way up?”
“Can you swim?”
“A bit. Can you?”
“Well – not much.”
“I don’t think we shall need to swim,” said Digory “We want to go down, don’t
we?”

Neither of them much liked the idea of jumping into that pool, but neither said
so to the other. They took hands and said “One—Two—Three—Go” and jumped.
There was a great splash and of course they closed their eyes. But when they
opened them again they found they were still standing, hand in hand, in the
green wood, and hardly up to their ankles in water. The pool was apparently only
a couple of inches deep. They splashed back on to the dry ground.

“What on earth’s gone wrong?” said Polly in a frightened voice; but not quite so
frightened as you might expect, because it is hard to feel really frightened in that
wood. The place is too peaceful.

“Oh! I know,” said Digory, “Of course it won’t work. We’re still wearing our yel-
low rings. They’re for the outward journey, you know. The green ones take you
home. We must change rings. Have you got pockets? Good. Put your yellow ring

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 76

in your left. I’ve got two greens. Here’s one for you.”
They put on their green rings and came back to the pool. But before they tried
another jump Digory gave a long “O-ooh!”
“What’s the matter?” said Polly.
“I’ve just had a really wonderful idea,” said Digory. “What are all the other pools?”
“How do you mean?”
“Why, if awe can get back to our own world by jumping into this pool, mightn’t
we get somewhere else by jumping into one of the others? Supposing there was
a world at the bottom of every pool.”

“But I thought we were already in your Uncle Andrew’s Other World or Other
Place or whatever he called it. Didn’t you say -”
“Oh bother Uncle Andrew,” interrupted Digory. “I don’t believe he knows any-
thing about it. He never had the pluck to come here himself. He only talked of
one Other World. But suppose there were dozens?”
“You mean, this wood might be only one of them?”
“No, I don’t believe this wood is a world at all. I think it’s just a sort of in-be-
tween place.”

Polly looked puzzled. “Don’t you see?” said Digory. “No, do listen. Think of our
tunnel under the slates at home. It isn’t a room in any of the houses. In a way, it
isn’t really part of any of the houses. But once you’re in the tunnel you can go
along it and come into any of the houses in the row. Mightn’t this wood be the
same? – a place that isn’t in any of the worlds, but once you’ve found that place
you can get into them all.”

“Well, even if you can—” began Polly, but Digory went on as if he hadn’t heard
her. “And of course that explains everything,” he said. “That’s why it is so quiet
and sleepy here. Nothing ever happens here. Like at home. It’s in the houses
that people talk, and do things, and have meals. Nothing goes on in the inbe-
tween places, behind the walls and above the ceilings and under the floor, or
in our own tunnel. But when you come out of our tunnel you may find yourself
in any house. I think we can get out of this place into jolly well Anywhere! We
don’t need to jump back into the same pool we came up by. Or not just yet.”
“The Wood between the Worlds,” said Polly dreamily. “It sounds rather nice.”
“Come on,” said Digory. “Which pool shall we try?”

“Look here,” said Polly, “I’m not going to try any new pool till we’ve made sure
that we can get back by the old one. We’re not even sure if it’ll work yet.”

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 77

“Yes,” said Digory. “And get caught by Uncle Andrew and have our rings taken
away before we’ve had any fun. No thanks.”

“Couldn’t we just go part of the way down into our own pool,” said Polly. “Just
to see if it works. Then if it does, we’ll change rings and come up again before
we’re really back in Mr Ketterley’s study.”

“Can we go part of the way down?
“Well, it took time coming up. I suppose it’ll take a little time going back.”

Digory made rather a fuss about agreeing to this, but he had to in the end be-
cause Polly absolutely refused to do any exploring in new worlds until she had
made sure about getting back to the old one. She was quite as brave as he
about some dangers (wasps, for instance) but she was not so interested in find-
ing out things nobody had ever heard of before; for Digory was the sort of per-
son who wants to know everything, and when he grew up he became the fa-
mous Professor Kirke who comes into other books.

After a good deal of arguing they agreed to put on their green rings (“Green for
safety,” said Digory, “so you can’t help remembering which is which”) and hold
hands and jump. But as soon as they seemed to be getting back to Uncle An-
drew’s study, or even to their own world, Polly was to shout “Change” and they
would slip off their greens and put on their yellows. Digory wanted to be the
one who shouted “Change” but Polly wouldn’t agree.

They put on the green rings, took hands, and once more shouted “One—Two
—Three—Go”. This time it worked. It is very hard to tell you what it felt like, for
everything happened so quickly. At first there were bright lights moving about
in a black sky; Digory always thinks these were stars and even swears that he
saw Jupiter quite close -close enough to see its moon. But almost at once there
were rows and rows of roofs and chimney pots about them, and they could see
St Paul’s and knew they were looking at London. But you could see through the
walls of all the houses. Then they could see Uncle Andrew, very vague and shad-
owy, but getting clearer and more solid-looking all the time, just as if he were
coming into focus. But before he became quite real Polly shouted “Change”, and
they did change, and our world faded away like a dream, and the green light
above grew stronger and stronger, till their heads came out of the pool and they
scrambled ashore. And there was the wood all about them, as green and bright
and still as ever. The whole thing had taken less than a minute.

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 78

“There!” said Digory. “That’s alright. Now for the adventure. Any pool will do.
Come on. Let’s try that one.”
“Stop!” said Polly- “Aren’t we going to mark this pool?”

They stared at each other and turned quite white as they realized the dreadful
thing that Digory had just been going to do. For there were any number of pools
in the wood, and the pools were all alike and the trees were all alike, so that if
they had once left behind the pool that led to our own world without making
some sort of landmark, the chances would have been a hundred to one against
their ever finding it again.

Digory’s hand was shaking as he opened his penknife and cut out a long strip of
turf on the bank of the pool. The soil (which smelled nice) was of a rich reddish
brown and showed up well against the green. “It’s a good thing one of us has
some sense,” said Polly.

“Well don’t keep on gassing about it,” said Digory. “Come along, I want to see
what’s in one of the other pools.” And Polly gave him a pretty sharp answer and
he said something even nastier in reply. The quarrel lasted for several minutes
but it would be dull to write it all down. Let us skip on to the moment at which
they stood with beating hearts and rather scared faces on the edge of the un-
known pool with their yellow rings on and held hands and once more said “One
—Two—Three—Go!”

Splash! Once again it hadn’t worked. This pool, too, appeared to be only a pud-
dle. Instead of reaching a new world they only got their feet wet and splashed
their legs for the second time that morning (if it was a morning: it seems to be
always the same time in the Wood between the Worlds).

“Blast and botheration!” exclaimed Digory. “What’s gone wrong now? We’ve put
our yellow rings on all right. He said yellow for the outward journey.”

Now the truth was that Uncle Andrew, who knew nothing about the Wood be-
tween the Worlds, had quite a wrong idea about the rings. The yellow ones
weren’t “outward” rings and the green ones weren’t “homeward” rings; at least,
not in the way he thought. The stuff of which both were made had all come
from the wood. The stuff in the yellow rings had the power of drawing you into
the wood; it was stuff that wanted to get back to its own place, the in-between
place. But the stuff in the green rings is stuff that is trying to get out of its own

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 79

place: so that a green ring would take you out of the wood into a world. Uncle
Andrew, you see, was working with things he did not really understand; most
magicians are. Of course Digory did not realize the truth quite clearly either, or
not till later. But when they had talked it over, they decided to try their green
rings on the new pool, just to see what happened.

“I’m game if you are,” said Polly. But she really said this because, in her heart of
hearts, she now felt sure that neither kind of ring was going to work at all in the
new pool, and so there was nothing worse to be afraid of than another splash. I
am not quite sure that Digory had not the same feeling. At any rate, when they
had both put on their greens and come back to the edge of the water, and taken
hands again, they were certainly a good deal more cheerful and less solemn than
they had been the first time.

“One—Two—Three—Go!” said Digory. And they jumped.

The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 80

The Aeneid and

The Divine Comedy

The labyrinth of initiation, the underworld, and the sacred grove

Publius Vergilius Maro
70 – 21 BCE

Virgil was regarded by the Romans as their greatest poet.

His influence on Dante and Western literature, like that

of Ovid, is profound. The Aeneid is his most famous work

and became Rome’s national epic.

The son of a farmer in northern Italy, Virgil came to be

regarded as one of Rome’s greatest poets. Virgil devoted

his life life to poetry and to studies connected with it. He

never married, and the first half of his life was that of a

scholar and near recluse. But, as his poetry won him

fame, he gradually won the friendship of many important

men in the Roman world.

(adapted from Encyclopedia Britannica and poetry foundation.org)

Dante Alighieri
1265 – 1321 CE

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy to a notable family of modest

means. His mother died when he was seven years old, and his father

remarried, having two more children.

Dante was never married to his “Beatrice.” They met twice, at a nine

year interval (although it might be a symbolic time period). They were

both married to other people, and she died at 25. But he continued to

write about throughout his life. We consider his love for her to be a

type of “courtly love.” It is otherworldly and has a spiritual aspect.

His most famous work is the Divine Comedy. The story begins when he

finds himself lost in a woods in middle age. Virgil finds him and leads

him through hell and purgatory. Beatrice is his guide in Paradise.

(adapted from poets.)

Dante is very important to western literature.
T. S. Eliot claimed:
Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them, there is no third.

And Virgil is very important to Dante.

Dante, addressing Virgil in Canto 1 of the Divine Comedy: Thou art my master.

We will start with The Aeneid.

Who is Aeneas?

There are multiple myths about the founding of Rome. One very

important one is told in The Aeneas, the story of a Trojan prince who

brought together the survivors from Troy. They boarded ships and

sailed in search of a new home. The Aeneid tells their story, focused

of course on their leader.

As The Aeneid opens, Aeneas and the Trojans come to Carthage,

where he falls in love with the Queen Dido. His bliss is short lived, as

he is told by the gods that he must leave her. Our reading, Book 6,

comes half way through the story. Aeneas’s father has died along the

way, and Aeneas wants to see him. To do that, he must descend into

the underworld—and come back. Very few have ever made the round

trip journey. He is guided by the priestess of Apollo.

The Temple of Apollo built by Daedalus.

Book 6 of The Aeneid gives an elaborate description of
how Daedalus had depicted the story of Theseus, the
minotaur, Ariadne, and his escape from Crete on the
doors.

Aeneas must go through these doors, get advice from
the Sybil, enter the wood sacred to Persephone and
Diana, find the Golden Bough and make it all the way
to Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, give her the
Golden Bough and get her permission to see his father.

And then he has to make it back to the upper world.

The Sybil—
Prophetess and guide

“son of Trojan Anchises, easy is
the descent to Avernus: night and
day the door of gloomy Dis stands
open; but to recall one’s steps and
pass out to the upper air, this is
the task, this the toil! ”

Diana (trivia) Persephone Hecate
all three of these goddesses are mentioned in Book 6

All three of these goddesses are associated in Book 6 with a/the sacred wood:

Diana: “But Aeneas the True made his way to the fastness where Apollo rules

enthroned on high.and to the vast cavern beyond, which is the Sibyl’s own

secluded place; here the prophetic Delian god [Apollo] breathes into her the

spirits visionary might, revealing things to come. They were already drawing

near to Diana’s Wood and to the golden temple there.”

Hecate: Aeneas to the Sibyl,“. . . not without reason did Hecate appoint you to

be mistress over the forest of Avernus [where the Golden Bough is found].”

Persephone: “Hiding in a tree’s thick shade there is a bough, and it is golden,

with both leaves and pliant stem of gold. It is dedicated as sacred to Juno of

the Lower World [Persephone]. All the forest gives it protection, and it is

enclosed by shadows in a valley of little light.”

These two statues depict Diana as well in

her Diana of Ephesus version. We used to

think she just had an odd bosum to indicate

her significance as a fertility deity.

New theories (1979) are that she is

decorated with the body parts of sacrificed

bulls. Given the images of bulls (and bees)

on the statue this seems very plausible to

me, especially since bulls and bees were

also important in the myth of the minotaur

of the iconography (images and symbols) of

Crete.

So . . . Aeneas goes to Apollo’s temple, with its
depiction of the story of the labyrinth, Minotaur,
Theseus etc. The temple is located in Diana’s
wood, which is also the forest of Avernus and the
sacred grove of Persephone.

He must enter that wood and find the Golden
Bough, pluck it, descend to the Underworld, and
give the bough to Persephone. Then, hopefully he
can see his father and return from the Underworld
with new knowledge. In ancient mythology, a
descent and return to the Underworld symbolized
a type of initiation.

If you can make the round trip journey, you return
wiser and triumphant. Threading through the
labyrinth is in many ways a symbolically similar
journey, and this is likely one of the reasons that
the labyrinth story is depicted on Apollo’s temple
and relayed by Virgil.

When Aeneas enters the wood, he sees two doves
who lead him to the Golden Bough.

Doves are a symbol of Aphrodite (Venus) who is
the mother of Aeneas. A dove was also released
by Noah to see if there was dry land. It came back
with an olive twig in its mouth. And, of course, the
dove is also the symbol of the Holy Spirit who
guides Christians.

Aeneas and the Sibyl go to the Underworld

Just before the entrance, even within the very jaws of Hell, Grief and avenging Cares have set their bed;
there pale Diseases dwell, sad Age, and Fear, and Hunger, temptress to sin, and loathly Want, shapes
terrible to view; and Death and Distress; next, Death’s own brother Sleep, and the soul’s Guilty Joys, and,
on the threshold opposite, the death-dealing War, and the Furies’ iron cells, and maddening Strife, her
snaky locks entwined with bloody ribbons.

In the midst an elm, shadowy and vast, spreads her boughs and aged arms, the home which, men say,
false Dreams hold, clinging under every leaf. And many monstrous forms besides of various beasts are
stalled at the doors, Centaurs and double-shaped Scyllas, and he hundredfold Briareus, and the beast of
Lerna, hissing horribly, and the Chimaera armed with flame, Gorgons and Harpies, and the shape of the
three-bodied shade [Geryon]. Here on a sudden, in trembling terror, Aeneas grasps his sword, and turns
the naked edge against their coming; and did not his wise companion warn him that these were but faint,
bodiless lives, flitting under a hollow semblance of form, he would rush upon them and vainly cleave
shadows with steel.

From here a road leads to the waters of Tartarean Acheron. Here, thick with mire and of fathomless
flood, a whirlpool seethes and belches into Cocytus all its sand.

On the left: One of
Piranesci’s (1720–1778)
imaginary prison
etchings. Keep in mind
that the Underworld is a
prison, like the labyrinth
on Crete which held
first the Minotaur and
then Daedalus.

Remember Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone?

These realms huge Cerberus makes
ring with his triple-throated baying,
his monstrous bulk crouching in a
cavern opposite. To him, seeing the
snakes now bristling on his necks,
the seer flung a morsel drowsy
with honey and drugged meal. He,
opening his triple throat in
ravenous hunger, catches it when
thrown and, with monstrous frame
relaxed, sinks to earth and
stretches his bulk over all the den.
The warder buried in sleep, Aeneas
wins the entrance, and swiftly
leaves the bank of that stream
whence none return.

Aeneas meets his “Mal” in the Underworld

. . . the Mourning Fields; such is the name they bear.
Here those whom stern Love has consumed with cruel
wasting are hidden in walks withdrawn, embowered in a
myrtle grove; even in death the pangs leave them not.

“Unhappy Dido! Was the tale true then that came to
me, that you were dead and had sought your doom with
the sword? Was I, alas! the cause of your death? By the
stars I swear, by the world above, and whatever is
sacred in the grave below, unwillingly, queen, I parted
from your shores. . . . Stay your step and withdraw not
from our view. Whom do you flee? This is the last word
Fate suffers me to say to you.” . . .She, turning away,
kept her looks fixed on the ground and no more
changes her countenance as he essays to speak than if
she were set in hard flint or Marpesian rock. At length
she flung herself away and, still his foe, fled back to the
shady grove, where Sychaeus, her lord of former days,
responds to her sorrows and gives her love for love.

Minos, Judge of the Underworld.

Here is another connection
between the labyrinth story and
the underworld. Both Aeneas and
Dante encounter Minos on their
journeys through hell.

She ended, and, advancing side by side along the dusky way, they
haste over the mid-space and draw near the doors. Aeneas wins
the entrance, sprinkles his body with fresh water, and plants the
bough full on the threshold.

This at length performed and the task of the goddess fulfilled,
they came to a land of joy, the pleasant lawns and happy seats of
the Blissful Groves.
.

Aeneas has a long conversation with Anchises, who can now see the future and tells him about his
descendants and the great civilization, Rome, that he will found.

A couple of interesting points at the end:

Reincarnation:
All these that you see, when they have rolled time’s wheel through a thousand years, the god
summons in vast throng to Lethe’s river, so that, their memories effaced, they may once more revisit
the vault above and conceive the desire of return to the body.” Anchises also tells Aeneas that all of
life is part of a universal intelligence,

And then the curious (and rather abrupt) end:
Two gates of Sleep there are, whereof the one, they say, is horn and offers a ready exit to true
shades, the other shining with the sheen of polished ivory, but delusive dreams issue upward through
it from the world below. Thither Anchises, discoursing thus, escorts his son and with him the Sibyl,
and sends them forth by the ivory gate: Aeneas speeds his way to the ships and rejoins his comrades;
then straight along the shore he sails for Caieta’s haven.

The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy is
divided into three
main sections, the
inferno, purgatory and
paradise.

The final rhyme for
each section is stelle,
or the word star . . .

INFERNO I
Introduction to the Divine Comedy;
The Wood and the Mountain

How does Dante begin his story?

When half way through the journey of our life
I found that I was in a gloomy wood,
because the path which led aright was lost.
And ah, how hard it is to say just what
this wild and rough and stubborn woodland was,
the very thought of which renews my fear!
So bitter ’t is, that death is little worse;
but of the good to treat which there I found,
I ’ll speak of what I else discovered there.
I cannot well say how I entered it,
so full of slumber was I at the moment
when I forsook the pathway of the truth;

This passage should also put you in mind of the
verse in the gospel of Matthew “for the gate is
narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and
those who find it are few.” Dante isn’t just
physically lost—he is spiritually lost.

The word that is translated as “narrow” here is
translated as “straight” in the King James
version—for us, straight means without bend or
curve, but straight also used to mean narrow.
Essentially the message is that the path to
salvation or enlightenment is difficult and, like
the path through a maze, it is hard to find.

In the middle of his life (midlife crisis, anyone?), he’s lost the
“straight way” and found himself in a “gloomy forest.” He
doesn’t remember how he got there—he was “full of
slumber”—like Cobb, in a dream. This line also evokes the
end of the Aeneid chapter 6.

It also recalls the wood of Avernus which occupy the “mid
space” between the world and Hades’ realm in The Aeneid.
Chapter 6 is the “mid-point” of the Aeneid.

He sees the sun on the mountain, and is
comforted:

. . . after I had reached a mountain’s foot,
where that vale ended which had pierced my
heart
with fear, I looked on high,
and saw its shoulders
mantled already with that planet’s rays
which leadeth one aright o’er every path.
Then quieted a little was the fear,
which in the lake-depths of my heart had lasted
throughout the night I passed so piteously.[[5]]
And even as he who, from the deep emerged
with sorely troubled breath upon the shore,
turns round, and gazes at the dangerous water;
even so my mind, which still was fleeing on,
turned back to look again upon the pass
which ne’er permitted any one to live.

Until he sees the beasts.

He is bewildered and terrified. He sees a lion, a
leopard and a she-wolf. These ravenous beasts
might remind you of the Minotaur—and, perhaps,
the three headed dog of hell, Cerberus. They are
also, arguably, a type of unholy trinity. They
could be seen as lust or fraud (the spotted
leopard), pride/ambition and violence (the lion)
and avarice/greed (she-wolf), which correspond
to areas or categories of the Inferno.

There is also a reference to the Bible: Jeremiah
5:6 reads, “Wherefore a lion out of the forest
shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall
spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities:
everyone that goeth out thence shall be torn into
pieces: because their transgressions are many
and their backslidings are increased.”

He tries to make his way to and up the mountain,
but the leopard and the other beasts block his way:

. . . she so hindered my advance,
that more than once I turned me to go back.
Some time had now from early morn elapsed,
and with those very stars the sun was rising
that in his escort were, when Love Divine
in the beginning moved those beauteous things; . . .

Here he references the creation of the world when
the stars sang, and this reference ties the beginning
of the Divine Comedy to the end.

The East is the direction of the rising sun, and has
significance spiritually.

Dante sees Virgil, recognizes and praises him, and begs
for his help. Virgil replies:

“A different course from this must thou pursue,”
he answered, when he saw me shedding tears,
“if from this wilderness thou wouldst escape;
for this wild beast, on whose account thou criest,
alloweth none to pass along her way, . . .

I therefore think and judge it best for thee
to follow me; and I shall be thy guide,
and lead thee hence through an eternal place,
where thou shalt hear the shrieks of hopelessness
of those tormented spirits of old times,
each one of whom bewails the second death;

Virgil tells him that after he has lead him as far as he
can, he will turn Dante over to a worthier guide.

INFERNO II
Introduction to the Inferno | The Mission of Virgil

At first Dante says yes!, but then he vascillates:

First response: Let’s Go!
. . . conduct me thither where thou saidst just now,
that I may see Saint Peter’s Gate, and those
whom thou describest as so whelmed with woe.

On second thought: Well, I’m not so sure . . .
I ’m not Aeneas, nor yet Paul am I;
me worthy of this, nor I nor others deem.
If, therefore, I consent to come, I fear
lest foolish be my coming; thou art wise,
and canst much better judge than I can talk.”
And such as he who unwills what he willed,
and changes so his purpose through new thoughts,
that what he had begun he wholly leaves;
such on that gloomy slope did I become.

This vascillation is a literary reflection of the winding
path of the psychological labyrinth of error and sin. It
also references a verse in the book of James: “A double-
minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

Virgil tells him he has been sent by Beatrice, St.
Lucia and the Virgin Mary. Then he takes him on a
tour of hell and purgatory.

“ . . . a friend of mine, but not a friend of Fortune,*
is on his journey o’er the lonely slope
obstructed so, that he hath turned through fear;
and, from what I have heard of him in Heaven,
I fear lest he may now have strayed so far,
that I have risen too late to give him help.
Bestir thee, then, and with thy finished speech,
and with whatever his escape may need,
assist him so that I may be consoled.
I, who now have thee go, am Beatrice;
thence come I, whither I would fain return;
’t was love that moved me, love that makes me
speak.

This love is an idealized, spiritual love.

*by this she means that he is not lucky. But Fortune or Fortuna
is also a Roman goddess, and this has a more nuanced meaning
as well. Fortune and fate are two different things. Your fate is,
essentially, the destination. Fortune turns like a wheel.

INFERNO III
The Gate and Vestibule of Hell. Cowards and
Neutrals. Acheron

Through me one goes into the town of woe,
through me one goes into eternal pain,
through me among the people that are lost.
. . . all hope abandon, ye that enter here!
These words of gloomy color I beheld
inscribed upon the summit of a gate;
whence I: “Their meaning, Teacher, troubles me.”
. . . Then, after he had placed his hand in mine
with cheerful face, whence I was comforted,
he led me in among the hidden things.

At the left is one version (perhaps the first) of
Rodin’s Gates of Hell—which was inspired by Dante.
The famous thinker sits above the gate, paralyzed
by indecision. Different figures represent persons
and creatures that Dante meets in hell.

Botticelli’s
illustration for the
9 circles of hell.

1. Limbo
2. Lust
3. Gluttony
4. Greed
5. Anger
6. Heresy
7. Violence
8. Fraud
9. Treachery

Crossing the Acheron

As with Aeneas, Charon is reluctant to convey the living Dante
across the river of death. Virgil explains that this is because Dante,
being essentially good, does not belong in hell:

“My son,” the courteous Teacher said to me,
“all those that perish in the wrath of God
from every country come together here;
and eager are to pass across the stream,
because Justice Divine so spurs them on,
that what was fear is turned into desire.
A good soul never goes across from hence;
if Charon, therefore, findeth fault with thee,
well canst thou now know what his words imply.”

They pass by the neutrals and the damned, ride with Charon, and
on reaching the other side, Dante essentially faints:

“The tear-stained ground
gave forth a wind, whence flashed vermilion light
which in me overcame all consciousness;
and down I fell like one whom sleep o’ertakes.”

INFERNO IV
The First Circle. The Borderland
Unbaptized Worthies. Illustrious Pagans

So dark it was, so deep and full of mist,
that, howsoe’er I gazed into its depths,
nothing at all did I discern therein.
“Into this blind world let us now descend!

. . .
Thus he set forth, and thus he had me enter
the first of circles girding the abyss.
Therein, as far as one could judge by list’ning,
there was no lamentation, saving sighs
which caused a trembling in the eternal air;
and this came from the grief devoid of torture
felt by the throngs, which many were and great,
of infants and of women and of men.”

To me then my good Teacher: “Dost not ask
what spirits these are whom thou seest here?
Now I would have thee know, ere thou go
further,
that these sinned not; and though they merits
have,
’t is not enough, for they did not have baptism,
the gateway of the creed believed by thee;
and if before Christianity they lived,
they did not with due worship honor God;
and one of such as these am I myself.
For such defects, and for no other guilt,
we ’re lost, and only hurt to this extent,
that, in desire, we live deprived of hope.”

Where the illustrious pagans dwell in limbo:

We reached a noble Castle’s foot, seven times
encircled by high walls, and all around
defended by a lovely little stream.
This last we crossed as if dry land it were;
through seven gates with these sages I went in,
and to a meadow of fresh grass we came.

The Harrowing of Hell

“Tell me, my Teacher, tell me, thou my Lord,”
I then began, through wishing to be sure
about the faith which conquers every error;
“came any ever, by his own deserts,
or by another’s, hence, who then was blest?”

Virgil tells him of Christ’s saving the
patriarchs—Adam, Abel, Moses, Noah,
Abraham, Rachel, King David and many
others.

INFERNO V
The Second Circle. Sexual Intemperance
The Lascivious and Adulterers

Hell proper starts here. Minos, who is given a
serpent’s tail by Dante, judges the damned:

thereupon that Connoisseur of sins
perceives what place in Hell belongs to it,
and girds him with his tail as many times,
as are the grades he wishes it sent down.
Before him there are always many standing;
they go to judgment, each one in his turn;
they speak and hear, and then are downward
hurled.

The lustful are essentially caught up in a whirling
tornado that is the “poetic justice” for their lack
of self control. They are whirled around and
dashed against rocks.

Here Dante speaks with Paolo and Francesco,
lovers who were tempted to adultery by reading
a romance—the story of Launcelot and
Guinevere. Paolo was the brother of Francesca’s
husband, who murdered them and will be found
deeper in hell.

Dante also sees Dido, who killed herself for love
of Aeneas:

“The next is she who killed herself through love,
and to Sichaeus’ ashes broke her faith; . . . “

At the end of the fifth canto, Dante faints:
out of sympathy
I swooned away as though about to die,
and fell as falls a body that is dead

INFERNO VI
The Third Circle. Intemperance in Food
Gluttons

In the third circle am I, that of rain
eternal, cursèd, cold and burdensome;
its measure and quality are never new.
The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove
and the Under/After World p. 42
Coarse hail, and snow, and dirty-colored water
through the dark air are ever pouring down;
and foully smells the ground receiving them.

A wild beast, Cerberus, uncouth and cruel,
is barking with three throats, as would a dog,
over the people that are there submerged.
Red eyes he hath, a dark and greasy beard,
a belly big, and talons on his hands;
he claws the spirits, flays and quarters them.

My Leader then stretched out his opened
palms,
and took some earth, and with his fists well
filled,
he threw it down into the greedy throats.
And like a dog that, barking, yearns for food,
and, when he comes to bite it, is appeased,
since only to devour it doth he strain
and fight;

“These torments, Teacher,
after the Final Sentence will they grow,
or less become, or burn the same as now.”
And he to me: “Return thou to thy science,
which holdeth that the more a thing is perfect,
so much the more it feels of weal or woe.
Although this cursèd folk shall nevermore
arrive at true perfection, it expects
to be more perfect after, than before.”
As in a circle, round that road we went,
speaking at greater length than I repeat,
and came unto a place where one descends;
there found we Plutus, the great enemy.

Dante reflects:

Dis and the City of Dis are mentioned in The
Aeneid and Dante’s Inferno. Essentially, this is the
Father of the Underworld, and you can picture
Pluto or Hades.

Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an
illustration by Stradanus. There is a drop from the
sixth circle to the three rings of the seventh circle,
then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle,
and, at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle.

Dante emphasizes the city aspect of Dis by
describing its architectural features: towers, gates,
walls, ramparts, bridges, and moats. Dis is an
antithesis to the heavenly city or Jerusalem.

Dante’s “City of Dis” is quite convoluted (literally).

INFERNO XII
The Seventh Circle. The First Ring. Violence
against one’s Fellow Man.

“. . . on the border of the broken bank
was stretched at length the Infamy of Crete,
who in the seeming heifer was conceived;
and when he saw us there he bit himself,
like one whom inward anger overcomes.
In his direction then my Sage cried out:
“Dost thou, perhaps, think Athens’ duke is here,
who gave thee death when in the world above?
Begone, thou beast! for this man cometh not
taught by thy sister, but is going by,
in order to behold your punishments.”

INFERNO XXXIV
The Ninth Circle. Treachery. Cocytus
Traitors to their Benefactors. Lucifer

. . . Raising mine eyes, I thought that I should still
see Lucifer the same as when I left him;
but I beheld him with his legs held up.
And thereupon, if I became perplexed,
let those dull people think, who do not see
what kind of point that was which I had passed.
“Stand up” my Teacher said, “upon thy feet!
the way is long and difficult the road,
and now to middle-tierce the sun returns.”
It was no palace hallway where we were,
but just a natural passage under ground,
which had a wretched floor and lack of light.

Where is the ice? And how is this one fixed
thus upside down? And in so short a time
how hath the sun from evening crossed to morn?”
Then he to me: “Thou thinkest thou art still
beyond the center where I seized the hair
of that bad Worm who perforates the world.
While I was going down, thou wast beyond it;
but when I turned, thou then didst pass the point
to which all weights are drawn on every side;
thou now art come beneath the hemisphere
opposed to that the great dry land o’ercovers,
and ’neath whose zenith was destroyed the Man,
who without sinfulness was born and died;
thy feet thou hast upon the little sphere,
which forms the other surface of Judecca.

There is a place down there, as far removed
from Beelzebub, as e’er his tomb extends,
not known by sight, but by a brooklet’s sound,
which flows down through a hole there in the rock,
gnawed in it by the water’s spiral course,
which slightly slopes. My Leader then, and I,
in order to regain the world of light,
entered upon that dark and hidden path;
and, without caring for repose, went up,
he going on ahead, and I behind,
till through a rounded opening I beheld
some of the lovely things the sky contains;
thence we came out, and saw again the stars.

PARADISO XXXIII
The Empyrean. GOD. St. Bernard’s Prayer to Mary
The Vision of God. Ultimate Salvation

“O Virgin Mother, Daughter of thy Son,
humbler and loftier than any creature,
eternal counsel’s predetermined goal,
thou art the one that such nobility
didst lend to human nature, that its Maker
scorned not to make Himself what He had made.
Within thy womb rekindled was the Love,
through whose warm influence in the eternal Peace
this Flower hath blossomed thus.”

St. Bernard prays for Dante:

Now doth this man, who from the lowest drain
of the Universe hath one by one beheld,
as far as here, the forms of spirit-life,
beseech thee, of thy grace, for so much strength
that with his eyes he may uplift himself
toward Ultimate Salvation higher still.

Dante does his best to remember his vision;

And such as he, who seeth in a dream,
and after it, the imprinted feeling stays,
while all the rest returns not to his mind;
even such am I; for almost wholly fades
my vision, yet the sweetness which was born
of it is dripping still into my heart.
Even thus the snow is in the sun dissolved;
even thus the Sibyl’s oracles, inscribed
on flying leaves, were lost adown the wind.
O the abundant Grace, whereby I dared
to pierce the Light Eternal with my gaze,
until I had therein exhausted sight!
I saw that far within its depths there lies,
by Love together in one volume bound,
that which in leaves lies scattered through the world;
substance and accident, and modes thereof,
fused, as it were, in such a way, that that,
whereof I speak, is but One Simple Light.

Within the Lofty Light’s profound and clear
subsistence there appeared to me three Rings,
of threefold color and of one content;
and one, as Rainbow is by Rainbow, seemed
reflected by the other, while the third
seemed like a Fire breathed equally from both.
. . . O Light Eternal, that alone dost dwell
within Thyself, alone dost understand
Thyself, and love and smile upon Thyself,
Self-understanding and Self-understood!
That Circle which appeared to be conceived
within Thyself as a Reflected Light,

when somewhat contemplated by mine eyes,
within Itself, of Its own very color,
to me seemed painted with our Human Form;
whence wholly set upon It was my gaze.
Like the geometer, who gives himself
wholly to measuring the circle, nor,
by thinking, finds the principle he needs;
ev’n such was I at that new sight. I wished
to see how to the Ring the Image there
conformed Itself, and found therein a place;
but mine own wings were not enough for this;
had not my mind been smitten by a flash
of light, wherein what it was willing came.
Here power failed my high imagining;
but, like a smoothly moving wheel, that Love
was now revolving my desire and will,
which moves the sun and all the other stars.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.