Aeneas and Deiphobë descend through a gloomy region haunted by dreadful spirits and monsters and eventually reach Acheron, one of the underworld's rivers. With these tasks completed, Deiphobë leads Aeneas to the underworld's entrance, a deep cavern at whose threshold sacrifices are made to the gods of darkness. Afterward, he and his companions give their fallen comrade the due rites of cremation and burial. The doves lead him to the golden bough, and Aeneas seizes it and takes it to the sibyl's cave. While hacking pine trees to construct a proper funeral pyre for Misenus, Aeneas sees twin doves, which he instinctively knows were sent by his mother, Venus.
Returning to the beach, Aeneas discovers that the dead man whom the sibyl mentioned is the trumpeter Misenus, who was drowned by the sea god Triton for daring to challenge him in a trumpeting contest. First, however, he must find and bury the body of a dead comrade. The bough will allow him to enter the underworld.
The sibyl tells Aeneas that he must find and pluck a golden bough from a tree in an adjacent forest. Wanting to descend to the underworld in order to visit the spirit of his father, he begs her for help in going there. Aeneas tells the sibyl that he is accustomed to trouble and has already foreseen that many more difficulties lie ahead. Aeneas prays to Apollo for help in his endeavors to find a new homeland for his people.įollowing Aeneas's petition to Apollo, Deiphobë, possessed now by Apollo, predicts much hardship ahead for the Trojans in Italy: They will fight a bloody war, and Juno will continue to oppose them. She tells Aeneas to sacrifice seven young bulls and seven ewes to Apollo, after which she leads the Trojan prince into a cavern with a hundred mouths that amplify her voice when she delivers Apollo's prophecies. Saddened by the loss of Palinurus, Aeneas leads his fleet to Cumae, where Deiphobë, the sibyl of Cumae, is led by Achatës to Aeneas while he is visiting a temple built to honor Apollo.
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