The Last Man | Page 2

we
scrambled up, and came to another passage with still more of illumination, and this led to

another ascent like the former.
After a succession of these, which our resolution alone permitted us to surmount, we
arrived at a wide cavern with an arched dome-like roof. An aperture in the midst let in the
light of heaven; but this was overgrown with brambles and underwood, which acted as a
veil, obscuring the day, and giving a solemn religious hue to the apartment. It was
spacious, and nearly circular, with a raised seat of stone, about the size of a Grecian
couch, at one end. The only sign that life had been here, was the perfect snow-white
skeleton of a goat, which had probably not perceived the opening as it grazed on the hill
above, and had fallen headlong. Ages perhaps had elapsed since this catastrophe; and the
ruin it had made above, had been repaired by the growth of vegetation during many
hundred summers.
The rest of the furniture of the cavern consisted of piles of leaves, fragments of bark, and
a white filmy substance, resembling the inner part of the green hood which shelters the
grain of the unripe Indian corn. We were fatigued by our struggles to attain this point, and
seated ourselves on the rocky couch, while the sounds of tinkling sheep-bells, and shout
of shepherd-boy, reached us from above.
At length my friend, who had taken up some of the leaves strewed about, exclaimed,
"This is the Sibyl's cave; these are Sibylline leaves." On examination, we found that all
the leaves, bark, and other substances, were traced with written characters. What
appeared to us more astonishing, was that these writings were expressed in various
languages: some unknown to my companion, ancient Chaldee, and Egyptian
hieroglyphics, old as the Pyramids. Stranger still, some were in modern dialects, English
and Italian. We could make out little by the dim light, but they seemed to contain
prophecies, detailed relations of events but lately passed; names, now well known, but of
modern date; and often exclamations of exultation or woe, of victory or defeat, were
traced on their thin scant pages. This was certainly the Sibyl's Cave; not indeed exactly as
Virgil describes it, but the whole of this land had been so convulsed by earthquake and
volcano, that the change was not wonderful, though the traces of ruin were effaced by
time; and we probably owed the preservation of these leaves, to the accident which had
closed the mouth of the cavern, and the swift-growing vegetation which had rendered its
sole opening impervious to the storm. We made a hasty selection of such of the leaves,
whose writing one at least of us could understand; and then, laden with our treasure, we
bade adieu to the dim hypaethric cavern, and after much difficulty succeeded in rejoining
our guides.
During our stay at Naples, we often returned to this cave, sometimes alone, skimming the
sun-lit sea, and each time added to our store. Since that period, whenever the world's
circumstance has not imperiously called me away, or the temper of my mind impeded
such study, I have been employed in deciphering these sacred remains. Their meaning,
wondrous and eloquent, has often repaid my toil, soothing me in sorrow, and exciting my
imagination to daring flights, through the immensity of nature and the mind of man. For
awhile my labours were not solitary; but that time is gone; and, with the selected and
matchless companion of my toils, their dearest reward is also lost to me--

Di mie tenere frondi altro lavoro Credea mostrarte; e qual fero pianeta Ne' nvidio insieme,
o mio nobil tesoro?
I present the public with my latest discoveries in the slight Sibylline pages. Scattered and
unconnected as they were, I have been obliged to add links, and model the work into a
consistent form. But the main substance rests on the truths contained in these poetic
rhapsodies, and the divine intuition which the Cumaean damsel obtained from heaven.
I have often wondered at the subject of her verses, and at the English dress of the Latin
poet. Sometimes I have thought, that, obscure and chaotic as they are, they owe their
present form to me, their decipherer. As if we should give to another artist, the painted
fragments which form the mosaic copy of Raphael's Transfiguration in St. Peter's; he
would put them together in a form, whose mode would be fashioned by his own peculiar
mind and talent. Doubtless the leaves of the Cumaean Sibyl have suffered distortion and
diminution of interest and excellence in my hands. My only excuse for thus transforming
them, is that they were unintelligible in their pristine condition.
My labours have cheered long hours of solitude, and taken me out of a