These waters safely crossed, The plains beneath thick filled with spirits lost, Avernus meets the view, vast, horrid lake At Hades’ entrance; who its waters take, Sicken and die in torture that must rend With endless tooth, for such death has no end. Beyond Avernus stands the gate of Hell, With Cerberus to guard its portals well.
Unto that gate came Orpheus with his lute Whose most melodious music had made mute The wailing souls on Acheron’s sad shore, And charmed old Charon, as he ferried o’er The son of great Apollo in his quest For her whom of all women he loved best, And as he came fierce Cerberus stood still Fixed by the magic of the player’s skill: On Orpheus went and played, for he knew well The wondrous potency of this great spell Would by a pause be broken, and his fate Never to pass alive the solemn gate; He roused the Harpies, those most fearful things With heads and breasts of women and the wings Of birds, and talons of the lion fierce, Whose breath is poison and whose venoms pierce Deep in man’s soul--the hags were planning then Foul plots for planting grief in hearts of men; He stayed stern Nemesis, now poised for flight As she in darkness left her mother Night; The three great judges of the soul now paused In giving sentence, for the music caused Minos and Æacus and Rhadamanthus think What change the gods had wrought, that at the brink Of Tartarus such heavenly sounds should rise To make the heart upleap and to the eyes Communicate swift tears of sudden joy-- Had Jupiter grown mad to let this boy, This gold-haired stripling with the silver strings Enter dark Hades with such sound that brings Pity to their stern breasts?
The Gorgons stare In vain at Orpheus through their viper-hair, He sings and heeds them not, and he alone Looks at them, eye for eye, and not to stone Is turned; the Lemures, that spectral swarm, That fill the space of Hades without form, Halt in their wanderings to hear the notes That fall as from a thousand song-birds’ throats. Pale Death sits sharpening her dart and hears With sad dismay the sound that soothes her ears, Her arm grows powerless--the black dart falls With echoing clang on Hades’ marbled halls; The triple sisters who turn mad the mind With envy, rage, and hatred, and make blind The heart with judgment false, hear the high strains, And knowledge of lost joy o’erwhelms their brains; Triptolemus stands still with bated breath While on his way to that great hall of death Where his stern fellow judges sit aghast Still pondering on Orpheus.