but shadows and drowsy night: and by persisting in her ruinous course, is at length lulled into profound sleep, and becomes a true inhabitant of the phantom abodes of the dead.
Æneas having now passed over the Stygian lake, meets with the three-headed monster Cerberus, the guardian of these infernal abodes:
Tandem trans fluvium incolumis vatemque virumque
Informi limo glaucaque exponit in ulva.
Cerberus hæc ingens latratu regna trifauci
Personat, adverso recubans immanis in antro.
Where by Cerberus we must understand the discriminative part of the soul, of which a dog, on account of its sagacity, is an emblem; and the three heads signify the triple distinction of this part, into the intellective, dianoëtic, and doxastic,[1] powers.—With respect to the three kinds of persons described as situated on the borders of the infernal realms, the poet doubtless intended by this enumeration to represent to us the three most remarkable characters, who, though not apparently deserving of punishment, are yet each of them similarly merged in matter, and consequently require a similar degree of purification. The persons described are, as is well known, first, the souls of infants snatched away by untimely ends; secondly, such as are condemned to death unjustly; and thirdly, those who, weary of their lives, become guilty of suicide. And with respect to the first of these, or infants, their connection with a material nature is obvious. The second sort, too, who are condemned to death unjustly, must be supposed to represent the souls of men who, though innocent of one crime for which they were wrongfully punished, have, notwithstanding, been guilty of many crimes, for which they are receiving proper chastisement in Hades, i. e. through a profound union with a material nature. And the third sort, or suicides, though apparently separated from body, have only exchanged one place for another of a similar nature; since a conduct of this kind, according to the arcana of divine philosophy, instead of separating the soul from
- ↑ The dianoëtic is the discursive power of the soul; or according to its most accurate definition, is that power of the soul which reasons scientifically, deriving the principles of its reasoning from intellect. But the doxastic is the power which energizes according to opinion.
