Crouched in a fronting cave, huge Cerberus wakes These kingdoms with his three-mouthed bark.

His head The priestess marked, all bristling now with snakes, And flung a sop of honied drugs and bread.
He, famine-stung, with triple jaws dispread, The morsel snaps, then prone along the cave Lies stretched on earth, with loosened limbs, as dead.
The sentry lulled, AEneas, blithe and brave, Seizes the pass, and leaves the irremeable wave.
LVII.

Loud shrieks are heard, and wails of the distrest, The souls of babes, that on the threshold cry, Reft of sweet life, and ravished from the breast, And early plunged in bitter death.

Hard by Are those, whom slanderous charges doomed to die.
Not without judgment these abodes they win.
Here, urn in hand, dread Minos sits to try The charge anew; he summons from within The silent court, and learns each several life and sin.
LVIII.

And next are those, who, hateful of the day, With guiltless hands their sorrowing lives have ta'en, And miserably flung their souls away.
How gladly now, in upper air again, Would they endure their poverty and pain! It may not be.