And so Aeneas prayed, clasping the altar; the prophetess began: “Born of the blood of gods and son of Troy’s Anchises, easy— 175 the way that leads into Avernus: day and night the door of darkest Dis is open. But to recall your steps, to rise again into the upper air: that is the labor; that is the task. A few, whom Jupiter 180 has loved in kindness or whom blazing worth has raised to heaven as gods’ sons, returned. Through all the central region runs a forest encircled by the black curves of Cocytus. But if your mind is moved by such a love, 185 so great a longing, twice to swim the
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