Therefore they pursue the journey h/b begun and approach the river.

The sailor, as he now saw thence from the Stygian water

that they go through the quiet forest and turn foot towards the shore,

thus first attacks with words and reproves further:

“Whoever you are, who, h/b armed, hasten to our rivers,

come, tell why you come, and now repress (your) step from where you are.

This is a place of shadows, of sleep and of slumberous night:

(it is) sin to bear living bodies on the Stygian boat.

Nor, indeed, I have rejoiced that I accepted Alcides going

on the marsh, nor Theseus and Pirithous,

although they were h/b begotten from the gods and unconquered in powers.

He sought the Tartarean guardian in chains with (his) hand

and dragged (it), trembling, from the throne of the king himself;

these have attempted to abduct the mistress of Pluto from (her) bedroom."

(To) which, in reply, the Amphrysian prophet briefly spoke:

“No such plots (are) here (cease to be moved),

nor weapons bring violence; it is permitted that the huge doorkeeper,

barking eternally in the cave, terrifies bloodless shades,

it is permitted that pure Proserpina keeps the threshold of (her) uncle.

Trojan Aeneas, distinguished in piety and in arms,

descends to the lowest shades of Erebus to (his) father.

If no image of such great piety moves you,

at least may you recognize this bough (she discloses the bough

which was hiding in (her) robe). Then (his) feelings, swollen from anger, settle;

nor more (words have been spoken) than these. He, admiring the venerable gift

of the fated branch, after h/b seen for a long time,

turns the dark ship and approaches the bank.

Thence he was driving off other spirits, who were sitting along long benches,

and clears the decks; at the same time he accepts mighty Aeneas

on the boat. The seamed boat groaned under the weight

and, full of cracks, received much marsh(water).

At length, he disembarks both the prophet and the man, safe,

across the river in the shapeless mud and in the gray sedge.

Huge Cerberus makes resound these realms with a three-throated

bark, lying in the opposite cave, monstrous.

To whom the prophet, seeing that (his) necks now bristle with snakes,

throws a cake h/b drugged with honey and meals h/b medicated.

He, opening three throats with mad hunger

snatches (the cake) h/b thrown, and relaxes huge backs,

h/b laid low on the ground, and, huge, is stretched on the whole cave.

Aeneas seizes the entrance with the guardian h/b buried

and escapes, quick, the bank of water from which there is no return.