Aeneid lines 6.282-336 (class translation)

In the middle an ancient elm extended its branches and dark limbs, huge, which the empty Dreams they say hold everywhere as a seat, and cling below all the leaves. And furthermore, many signs of various beasts, the Centaurs stable in the gates and the two-shaped Scyllae and hundred-armed Briareus and also the wild beast of Lerna horribly screeching, and the Chimaera armed with flames, the Gorgons and Harpies and the beauty of the three-bodied shadow. Here agitated by the sudden terror Aeneas snatches his sword and presents the drawn blade to those coming, and unless his learned companion (had) warned that the slight beings without body fly under the empty likeness of form, he would have rushed on and in vain to scatter the shadows with his sword.

From here (is) the road of Tartarus which leads to the waves to Acheron. Here the gulf thick with mud and vast whirling (water) seethes and vomits all its sand to Cocytus. The dreadful ferryman, Charon, terribly filthy protects these waters and streams, on whose chin lies much unkempt grey hair, his eyes are aflame, a dirty cloak hangs from his shoulders in a knot. He himself forces the raft with a pole and tends the sails and carries the bodies in his rusty boat, already old, but the raw and green old age of a god. To this point, to the bank the whole scattered crowd rushed, mothers and men and bodies devoid of life of great-hearted heroes, boys and unwed girls, and youths placed upon pyres before the faces of their parents, as many falling leaves drop in the woods in the first cold of autumn, or as many birds gather on the land from the high whirlwind, when the cold season chases and sends (them) across the sea upon the sunny lands. The first stood begging to cross the stream and were extending their hands in their desire for the farther bank, but the sad ferryman accepts now these, now those but keeps off others moved far along the sand. Aeneas indeed wondered at and moved by the uproar says, “Tell me, maiden, what does the gathering at the river want? What do the souls seek? Or by what distinction do these leave the banks, those scour the dark fords with oars?” Thus briefly aged prophetess spoke to that one: “Son of Anchises, most undoubtedly offspring of the gods, you see the deep marshes of Cocytus and Stygian swamp, the power of which the gods fear to swear and prove false to. This is the whole helpless and unburied crowd which you see; that the ferryman Charon; these whom the wave carries are buried. It is not given to the dreadful banks and roaring stream to carry (them) before he bones have rested in their tomb. They wander a hundred years and fly around these shores; then at last allowed they see the hoped-for lakes.” The son of Anchises stood and held his step thinking many things and pitied their unequal lot in his mind. He discerns there those sad and lacking the honor of death, Leucaspis and Orontes, leader of the Lycian fleet, whom Auster overwhelmed, as they were carried from Troy through the windy waters, engulfing both ship and men with water.