him in dismay.  As he passed on, after exchanging affectionate words with many of his old comrades, he met Deiphobus, that son of Priam who, after the death of Paris, became the husband of Helen.  The spectre of the prince was cruelly mutilated,—­so that AEneas scarcely knew him.  “Who, O Deiphobus,” he exclaimed, “could have inflicted such shameful wounds upon you?  After I had escaped from Troy a story was brought to me that you had indeed perished, but honorably and in fair fight, having slain many of the enemy.  Then I erected in your honor an empty tomb on the shore under Mount Ida, and offered proper funeral rites, for your body I was unable to find.”

“You, my friend,” answered Deiphobus, “omitted no duty towards my corpse that you could perform.  But I owe my death and these infamous wounds to the wickedness of Helen; they are the marks of her love.  On the night after the fatal horse was brought into Troy, I was lying asleep in my chamber, enjoying needful repose.  Then my faithless wife removed all the arms from my palace, and even took away my sword from the side of my couch.  That done, she threw open the gates, and herself summoned her former husband, Menelaus, and he and Ulysses burst into my apartment and inflicted on me these wounds, for which I pray the Gods that they may be requited.”

AEneas would have spent yet more time in conversing with the shades of his former comrades; but the Sibyl reminded him that the hour was approaching when he must return to the upper world.  “Here,” she said, “the path is divided.  To the right, past the palace of Pluto, lies our way to the Elysian Fields; on the left is the way to Tartarus, the place of punishment for the wicked.”

As they proceeded toward Elysium, AEneas looked around him, and beheld to the left a vast prison, enclosed by mighty walls, at the foot of which ran Phlegethon, the river of fire, whirling along great rocks in its furious current.  Across the stream, just opposite to where he was standing, was a lofty gate, with columns of solid adamant.  In an iron tower adjoining sat Tisiphone, the eldest of the Furies, watching the gate.  From within sounds were heard—­groans of pain, the sound of cruel lashes, and the clanking of chains.  AEneas asked his companion what punishments were being inflicted within, and who were the sufferers.  “This,” replied the Sibyl, “is Tartarus, whereinto no righteous person can enter.  Here Rhadamanthus presides:  he searches into the deeds of all who are sent hither, obliges them to confess all the crimes they have committed in the upper world, and awards the punishment.  As soon as the sentence is pronounced, Tisiphone scourges the doomed one with a whip of scorpions, and then consigns him to the fierce attendants of her sister Furies.  Immediately the gates, creaking on their hinges, fly open.  Within, the entrance is guarded by a hideous Hydra, with fifty black and gaping mouths.  In the pit of Tartarus beyond, the giants who waged war against