1 Yet ere then draw thou nigh the nether chambers of Dis, and in the deep tract of hell come, O son, to meet me.
2 Here is shewn a ghastly pool, a breathing-hole of the grim lord of hell, and a vast chasm breaking into Acheron yawns with pestilential throat.
3 We advance, mingling with the Grecians, under a protection not our own, and join many a battle with those we meet amid the blind night; many a Greek we send down to hell.
4 O sprung of gods' blood, child of Anchises of Troy, easy is the descent into hell; all night and day the gate of dark Dis stands open; but to recall thy steps and issue to upper air, this is the task and burden.
5 Far hence he adds the habitations of hell also, the high gates of Dis and the dooms of guilt; and thee, O Catiline, clinging on the beetling rock, and shuddering at the faces of the Furies; and far apart the good, and Cato delivering them statutes.
6 Here the priestess first arrays four black-bodied bullocks and pours wine upon their forehead; and plucking the topmost hairs from between the horns, lays them on the sacred fire for first-offering, calling aloud on Hecate, mistress of heaven and hell.
7 Before thee the Stygian pools shook for fear, before thee the warder of hell, couched on half-gnawn bones in his blood-stained cavern; to thee not any form was terrible, not Typhoeus' self towering in arms; thou wast not bereft of counsel when the snake of Lerna encompassed thee with thronging heads.
8 And first he laces to his feet the shoes of gold that bear him high winging over seas or land as fleet as the gale; then takes the rod wherewith he calls wan souls forth of Orcus, or sends them again to the sad depth of hell, gives sleep and takes it away and unseals dead eyes; in whose strength he courses the winds and swims across the tossing clouds.
9 Hence do the tribes of Italy and all the Oenotrian land seek answers in perplexity; hither the priest bears his gifts, and when he hath lain down and sought slumber under the silent night on the spread fleeces of slaughtered sheep, sees many flitting phantoms of wonderful wise, hears manifold voices, and attains converse of the gods, and hath speech with Acheron and the deep tract of hell.