While the spectators were applauding the feats of skill, the Trojan women,
at the instigation of Juno, set fire to the ships, that they might compel
Aeneas to remain in Sicily. By Jupiter's aid, some of the vessels were
saved, and Aeneas, acting on the advice of Nautes, allowed the women and
those Trojans who so desired, to remain in Sicily, and himself marked out
for them the foundations of their city.
While here Aeneas was urged by Anchises in a dream to visit the Cumaean
Sibyl, that, with her assistance, he might visit Elysium and talk with
him.
In the lofty temple, the Sibyl, inspired by the god, encouraged the hero.
"Success will at last be thine, and Juno will be won over to thee. But
great labors must thou undergo."
To visit the underworld was no easy task, she assured him. "The gates of
Dis stand open night and day; small trouble it is to descend thereto, but
to retrace one's steps, and regain the upper air, there lies the toil."
Aeneas must first possess a golden branch to present to Proserpina, and
celebrate the funeral rites of his friend, Misenus, who yet lay unburied.
While Aeneas worked in the forest, felling trees for Misenus's bier, the
doves of Venus descended and aided him to find the tree, from which he
plucked the gleaming branch.
Across the Styx, past the dread Cerberus, Aeneas and the Sibyl went,
through the abode of babes and those who died for deeds they did not do,
and into the mourning fields, where the disappointed in love were hedged
in with myrtle sprays.
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