ill, nor with the hardened steel the marvel mayst thou shear.
--Ah! further,--of thy perished friend as yet thou nothing know'st,
Whose body lying dead and cold defileth all thine host, 150
While thou beseechest answering words, and hangest on our door:
Go, bring him to his own abode and heap the grave mound o'er;
Bring forth the black-wooled ewes to be first bringing back of grace:
So shalt thou see the Stygian groves, so shalt thou see the place
That hath no road for living men."
So hushed her mouth shut close:
But sad-faced and with downcast eyes therefrom AEneas goes,
And leaves the cave, still turning o'er those coming things, so dim,
So dark to see. Achates fares nigh fellow unto him,
And ever 'neath like load of cares he lets his footsteps fall:
And many diverse words they cast each unto each withal, 160
What was the dead friend and the grave whereof the seer did teach.
But when they gat them down at last upon the barren beach,
They saw Misenus lying dead by death but lightly earned;
Misenus, son of AEolus; no man more nobly learned
In waking up the war with brass and singing Mars alight.
Great Hector's fellow was he erst, with Hector through the fight
He thrust, by horn made glorious, made glorious by the spear.
But when from Hector life and all Achilles' hand did tear,
Dardan AEneas' man became that mightiest under shield,
Nor unto any worser lord his fellowship would yield. 170
Now while by chance through hollow shell he blew across the sea,
And witless called the very Gods his singing-foes to be,
The envious Triton caught him up, if ye the tale may trow,
And sank the hero 'twixt the rocks in foaming waters' flow.
Wherefore about him weeping sore were gathered all the men,
And good AEneas chief of all: the Sibyl's bidding then
Weeping they speed, and loiter not, but heap the tree-boughs high
Upon the altar of the dead to raise it to the sky:
Then to the ancient wood they fare, high dwelling of wild things;
They fell the pine, and 'neath the axe the smitten holm-oak rings; 180
With wedge they cleave the ashen logs, and knitted oaken bole,
Full fain to split; and mighty elms down from the mountains roll.
Amid the work AEneas is, who hearteneth on his folk,
As with such very tools as t
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