By what rule do these leave the banks, and those sweep the lurid stream with oars?” To him thus briefly spoke the aged priestess: “Anchises’ son, true offspring of gods, you are looking at the deep pools of Cocytus and the Stygian marsh, by whose power the gods fear to swear falsely. All this crowd that you see is helpless and graveless; yonder ferryman is Charon; those whom the flood carries are the buried. He may not carry them over the dreadful banks and hoarse-voiced waters until their bones have found a resting place. A hundred years they roam and flit about these shores; then only are they admitted and revisit the longed-for pools.” Anchises’ son paused and stayed his steps, pondering much, and pitying in his heart their unjust lost.

There he espies, doleful and reft of death’s