of the river Eridanus, which pours its clear waters through Elysium over sands of gold, were gathered a band whose heads were adorned with snow-white fillets.  These were priests who had kept unstained the purity and sanctity of their office; poets who had sung the praises of the Gods in immortal verse; and those who had made human life more happy by the invention of useful arts.  Among them the Sibyl sought out Musseus, the father of the poets, and besought him to reveal in what retreat they should find Anchises, on whose account she and her companion had traversed all the regions of the shades.

“None of us,” answered the venerable shade, “have here any fixed abode.  We wander at our will among the shady groves and by the pleasant banks of the river.  But if you mount with me this little eminence, I will show you him whom you seek.”

As he spoke, he led them to a spot where they could survey all the shining plains around, and pointed to where Anchises, reclined in a secluded vale, was surveying the souls of his descendants who were destined in future times to visit the earth, and were enacting beforehand the achievements they were fated to accomplish during life.  As soon as he saw AEneas advancing toward him, he rose with hands stretched out and joyful tears pouring down his face.

“Are you indeed,” he exclaimed, “come to me at last, my son?  Am I permitted once more to see your face, and to listen to the tones of your dear voice?  Now indeed the hopes which I cherished are fulfilled.  By how many dangers have you been threatened since we parted!  I was filled with dread lest you should be prevented from accomplishing your task by the temptations which beset you at Carthage.”

“Thy apparition, beloved father,” answered AEneas, “continually appearing to me in dreams, urged me forward even to these regions.  Permit me now to clasp thee in my arms, and do not withdraw from my embrace.”  Thrice did he attempt to throw his arms about the shade, which being only composed of thin air, was not perceptible to his touch.  While the two conversed together, AEneas observed at no great distance from them a stream, at which prodigious numbers of ghosts were incessantly crowding to drink, swarming like bees round their hive.  Astonished at this spectacle, the hero inquired of his father what that stream was, and why those spectres were so eager to drink of it.  “These,” answered Anchises, “are souls destined by fate to occupy other bodies in the upper world; and the stream is Lethe, one draught of which is sufficient to destroy all recollection of their former condition.”

“But surely,” said AEneas, “it is not to be believed that any souls which have tasted the delights of this abode will be desirous to return again to the life of earth, with its uncertainties and its miseries.  How comes it that this impulse possesses them?”