Awe-struck, AEneas would the cause enquire: What streams are yonder?
what the crowd so great, That filled the river's margin?
Then the Sire Anchises answered: "They are souls, that wait For other bodies, promised them by Fate.
Now, by the banks of Lethe here below, They lose the memory of their former state, And from the silent waters, as they flow, Drink the oblivious draught, and all their cares forego.
XCV.

"Long have I wished to show thee, face to face, Italia's sons, that thou might'st joy with me To hail the new-found country of our race." "Oh father!" said AEneas, "can it be, That souls sublime, so happy and so free, Can yearn for fleshly tenements again?
So madly long they for the light ?" Then he: "Learn, son, and listen, nor in doubt remain." And thus in ordered speech the mystery made plain: XCVI.

"First, Heaven and Earth and Ocean's liquid plains, The Moon's bright globe and planets of the pole, One mind, infused through every part, sustains; One universal, animating soul Quickens, unites and mingles with the whole.
Hence man proceeds, and beasts, and birds of air, And monsters that in marble ocean roll; And fiery energy divine they share, Save what corruption clogs, and earthly limbs impair.
XCVII.

"Hence Fear and Sorrow, hence Desire and Mirth; Nor can the soul, in darkness and in chains, Assert the skies, and claim celestial birth.
Nay, after death, the traces it retains Of fleshly grossness, and corporeal stains, Since much must needs by long concretion grow Inherent.

Therefore are they racked with pains, And schooled in all the discipline of woe; Each pays for ancient sin with punishment below.
XCVIII.