As often a current sweeps ships unwillingly off course, so the downward breeze and the greedy void hurry you on, and the clutching shades never allow you to turn your steps backward. To travel is no toil: the path itself draws you down. Then there open up empty regions, spaces extensive enough for all the human race to enter, once plunged into the earth. Such is the light, mingled with darkness, familiar at dawn or dusk. At the outset the way is not obscured by darkness: there falls a faint brightness from the light left behind, a twilight glow of the weakened sunshine, which baffles the eye. Here the house of hateful Dis opens its mouth a tall cliff gapes wide, a cavernous abyss extends its vast jaws and spreads a broad path for all the nations. There rises in the land of Sparta a far-famed ridge, where Cape Taenarus hems the sea with its dense forests. I pray to the whole order of the universe, and to you 37 who rule the capacious kingdom, and you, sought in vain by your mother across the whole of Etna: may I speak with impunity of things rightfully hidden and buried in the earth. Intus immenso sinu 680 placido quieta labitur Lethe vado demitque curas neve remeandi amplius pateat facultas, flexibus multis gravem involvit amnem, qualis incerta vagus Maeander unda ludit et cedit sibi ut saepe puppes aestus invitas rapit, sic pronus aer urget atque avidum chaos, gradumque retro flectere haud umquam sinunt umbrae tenaces. hinc ampla vacuis spatia laxantur locis, in quae omne mersum pergat humanum genus. non caeca tenebris incipit primo via: tenuis relictae lucis a tergo nitor 670 fulgorque dubius solis affecti cadit et ludit aciem nocte sic mixta solet praebere lumen primus aut serus dies. hic ora solvit Ditis invisi domus 665 hiatque rupes alta et immenso specu ingens vorago faucibus vastis patet latumque pandit omnibus populis iter. Spartana tellus nobile attollit iugum, densis ubi aequor Taenarus silvis premit. Fas omne mundi teque dominantem precor regno capaci teque quam tota irrita 660 quaesivit Aetna mater, ut iure abdita et operta terris liceat impune eloqui.
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