As for me, first before everything, may the sweet Muses,
for whom I bear an enormous sacred love,
accept me and show me the roads of the stars,
the eclipses of the sun and the various labors of the moon,
the origin of earthquakes, by what force the deep seas swell
to burst their bounds and then sink back into themselves... Blessed is one who has been able to know the causes of things,
and has cast beneath his feet all fear and inexorable fate,
and the roar of greedy Acheron.
[Acheron, the River of Grief, is one of the five rivers of the
Roman Underworld. The others are Cocytus (Woe), Phlegethon (Fire),
Lethe (Forgetfulness), and Styx (Unbreakable Oath).]
Vergilius