They, in the mean time, had reared on the shore a vast pile of logs of pine and oak, the sides of which they had interlaced with smaller boughs.  After having carefully washed and purified the body of Misenus, they first made a couch upon the pyre, with the apparel of the dead man, and then, with renewed cries of grief, placed the body upon it.  His arms, too, they laid beside him, and having poured incense and oil abundantly upon the pile, they set it on fire.  When only smouldering embers were left, these were quenched with wine, and the ashes of the dead were carefully collected and placed in a brazen urn.  This urn was afterwards deposited in a lofty tomb which AEneas erected on a promontory that henceforth bore the name of Misenus.

The funeral ceremonies having thus duly been performed, the hero proceeded to the cave of the Sibyl, and called upon her to fulfill her promise, and accompany him to the kingdom of the dead.  She led him to the mouth of the black cavern at the side of Lake Avernus, and there offered up sacrifices of black cattle and sheep, uttering various invocations.  Presently the ground began to rumble beneath their feet; upon which the Sibyl ordered those of AEneas’s followers who had attended him to withdraw from the spot, and exhorted the chief himself, drawing his sword from its sheath, to march firmly forward.  So saying she plunged into the cave, nor did he hesitate to follow.

At first they moved along through a region that was utterly waste, void, and covered with an intense gloom, deep as that of a winter’s night when the moon is obscured by clouds.  But this desolate tract was not wholly untenanted, for AEneas saw flitting about certain hideous shadowy forms.  The spirits of Grief and Revenge and pale Disease, Fear and Famine and deformed Indigence, had their abode in this vestibule of Hades; and so, too, Death and Toil, and murderous War, and frantic Discord, her head crowned with curling vipers and bound by a blood-dyed fillet.  Here, also, were the iron chambers in which dwelt the terrible Furies.  In the midst rose a gloomy elm, which was the haunt of vain Dreams, who dwelt under every leaf.  Beyond this tree were many huge and misshapen monsters,—­Centaurs, and double-formed Scyllas, and the great dragon of the Lernaean lake, which, when it plagued the upper earth, was slain by Hercules.  Here, also, was the huge Chimaera, with its three heads vomiting flames; Gorgons, Harpies, and other ghastly forms flitted about.  At so fearful a sight.  AEneas was seized with sudden fear; he drew his sword, and would have struck at the monsters, if the Sibyl had not restrained his hand and reminded him that they were but disembodied shadows.