It is here translated for the first time.

I believe that I am doing a service to my fellow-countrymen in making them acquainted with these pages, though doubtless they are far from forming a unique example of this class of mediaeval Latin literature.

Among the fictions that may be compared with them we may mention "The Voyage of St.Brendan," "The Vision of Albericus," and "St.Patrick's Purgatory," imaginary descriptions, like Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy," of the supposed abode of the dead.

The narrative of Marbodius is one of the latest works dealing with this theme, but it is not the least singular.
THE DESCENT OF MARBODIUS INTO HELL In the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the incarnation of the Son of God, a few days before the enemies of the Cross entered the city of Helena and the great Constantine, it was given to me, Brother Marbodius, an unworthy monk, to see and to hear what none had hitherto seen or heard.

I have composed a faithful narrative of those things so that their memory may not perish with me, for man's time is short.
On the first day of May in the aforesaid year, at the hour of vespers, I was seated in the Abbey of Corrigan on a stone in the cloisters and, as my custom was, I read the verses of the poet whom I love best of all, Virgil, who has sung of the labours: of the field, of shepherds, and of heroes.