<P>...The God of Sleep there hides his heavy head,
<P>And empty dreams on ev'ry leaf are spread.
<P>Of various forms unnumber'd specters more,
<P>Centaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door.
<P>Before the passage, horrid Hydra stands,
<P>And Briareus with all his hundred hands;
<P>Gorgons, Geryon with his triple frame;
<P>And vain Chimaera vomits empty flame.
<P>The chief unsheath'd his shining steel, prepar'd,
<P>Tho' seiz'd with sudden fear, to force the guard,
<P>Off'ring his brandish'd weapon at their face;
<P>Had not the Sibyl stopp'd his eager pace,
<P>And told him what those empty phantoms were:
<P>Forms without bodies, and impassive air.
<P>Hence to deep Acheron they take their way,
<P>Whose troubled eddies, thick with ooze and clay,
<P>Are whirl'd aloft, and in Cocytus lost...
<P>
<P>Virgil's Aeneid VI, Dryden Translation