the mortal horses and earthly chariot of Diomed groan and strain under their immortal burden, when Minerva takes her seat beside the champion.
Cerberus, in spite of Hercules, is at home again, and on the watch. His three heads and snake-wreathed neck are lifted in fury at the sight of strangers, and his bark rings through the shades. But the Sibyl has brought with her a medicated cake, which she throws down to him; he eats, and falls at once into a heavy sleep.
Then, led by the Sibyl, the Trojan chief passes through the various regions of the world below. First they hear the cries of those infants who but just knew life in the world above, and then were snatched away from its enjoyment.[1] Next them come those who have been condemned to death by an unjust judgment, and for whom Minos here sits as judge of appeals. In the next region are those unhappy ones—
- ↑ We have here the foundation of the fanciful doctrine of a Limbo Infantum, held by some doctors of the Romish Church—a kind of vestibule to the greater Purgatory, in which were placed the souls of such children as died before they were old enough to be admitted to the sacraments.
it seemed, they reached the opposite coast—a voyage which in their own boats they hardly made in a whole day and night. When they touched the shore of Britain still they saw no shape, but they heard voices welcoming their ghostly passengers, and calling each of the dead by name and rank. Then having got rid, as it seemed, of their invisible freight, they put off again for home, feeling their boats so sensibly lightened that hardly more than the keel touched the water.—See Gesner's Notes on Claudian, iii. 123; Procopius, De Bell. Goth., iv. 20.
