betraying the designs of the gods.
Tantalus, for divulging the secrets of Zeus, was condemned to stand
tormented by thirst in a lake. Tityus, for an assault on Artemis, was
pinioned to the ground with two vultures plucking at his vitals. Typhoeus,
a hundred-headed giant, was slain by Zeus' thunderbolt, and buried under
Aetna. The gin on which he was tortured was probably the rack of the Middle
Ages. Cf. the bed of Procrustes. Theseus, for attempting to carry off
Persephone, was fixed to a rock in Tartarus. The "fifty sisters" are the
fifty Danaides, who, for slaying their husbands, were condemned to pour
water forever into a vessel full of holes.

322. SAD AESCULAPIUS, the god of medicine, slain by Zeus for arresting
death and diseases.

354. AND FATES EXPIRED, and the threads of life which the fates (Parcae)
had severed.

387. GREAT PAINES, AND GREATER PRAISE, etc. His praise, like his pain, is
to be eternal.

xlvii. This list of the thralls of Pride is in imitation of a similar one
in Chaucer's _Monk's Tale_, which was based on Boccaccio's _De Casibus
Illustrium Virorum_.

415. PROUD KING OF BABYLON, Nebuchadnezzar. See _Daniel_, iii and iv.

420. KING CROESUS, the last king of Lydia, who was overthrown by Cyrus in
B.C. 646. _Herodotus_, i, 26.

422. PROUD ANTIOCHUS, Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, who captured
Jerusalem twice, and defiled God's altar. He died raving mad B.C. 164.
Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, xiii, 5-9.

424. GREAT NIMROD, "the mighty hunter" (_Genesis_, x, 8), whose game,
according to Spenser, was man. Josephus tells us that through pride he
built the tower of Babel.

426. OLD NINUS, the legendary founder of Nineveh, and put to death by his
wife, Semiramis.

428. THAT MIGHTY MONARCH, Alexander the Great (B.C. 366-323), king of
Macedon. While consulting the oracle of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert
he was saluted by the priests as "Ammons Sonne." He died either of poison
(Plutarch) or of excessive drink (Diodorus).

437. GREAT ROMULUS, legendary founder of Rome (B.C. 753). See Livy, i, 16.

438. PROUD TARQUIN, Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome. He was
banished B.C. 510.

438. TOO LORDLY LENTULUS, surnamed Sura, member of a haughty patrician
family, who conspired with Catiline, and was strangled B.C. 62.

439. STOUT SCIPIO, Cornelius Scipio Africanus (B.C. 287?-183?), the
conqueror of Hannibal, and self-exiled from Rome. Livy speaks of his
inordinate pride, xx