to regenerate him; to prepare him by mystic enlightenment for
the toil, peril, and triumph that await him in the accomplishment of his
divine mission. We must not look too closely into the process; it is a
strange melange of popular and philosophic ideas and scenery, made at
once intelligible and magnificent by the wonderful resources of the
poet; but we may be sure that it has the same general meaning as the
visions of Dante long afterwards. As Mr. Tozer has said, Dante's
conversion and ultimate salvation were the primary object of his journey
through the three realms of the spiritual world.[898] In this sense it
can be called an initiation, an ordeal, a sacrament.

So much has been written about this wonderful book that I do not need
to dwell upon it here. I will content myself with pointing out very
briefly a fact which struck me when I last read it. The ordeal of
preparation is not complete till the very end of the book, when the
shade of Anchises has shown his son all the great things to come, the
due accomplishment of which depends on his sense of duty, his _pietas_.
Up to that moment Aeneas is always thinking and speaking of the past,
while in the last six books he is always looking ahead, absorbed in the
work each hour placed before him, and in the prospect of the glory of
Rome and Italy. The poet had contrived that his hero should himself
narrate the story of the sack of Troy and his subsequent wanderings, and
narrate them to the very person who would have made it impossible for
him ever again to look forward on the path of duty. Surely this is
significant of a moral as well as an artistic purpose; the passionate
love of the queen urges her to keep his mind fixed on the past, to
engage him in the story of events that concerned himself and not his
mission (i. 748):

necnon et vario noctem sermone trahebat
infelix Dido, longumque bibebat amorem
multa super Priamo rogitans, super Hectore multa, etc.

After the shade of Creusa had told him of his destiny, which she was not
to share, the past was still in his mind, and he seems to have forgotten
the warning; he calls himself an exile (iii. 10):

litora cum patriae lacrimans portusque relinquo
et campos ubi Troia fuit. Feror exsul in altum--

I find an exception after the meeting with Andromache, when he thinks of
the future for a moment, but even then half-heartedly as it seems to me,
with a very distinct reluctance to face the dangers to come, and wi