ng in the deep? Can he impel
"The mother's hands to seize her bleeding son
"And tear his entrails? Dares he then to clothe
"The Minyeid sisters with un'custom'd wings?
"And is Saturnia's utmost power confin'd
"Wrongs unreveng'd to weep? Suffices such
"For me? Is this a goddess' utmost might?
"But he instructs me;--wisdom may be taught
"Ev'n by a foe. The wretched Pentheus' fate,
"Shews all-sufficient, what may madness do.
"Why should not Ino, stung with frantic rage,
"The well-known track her sisters trode pursue?"

A path declivitous, with baleful yew
Dark shaded, leads, a dreary silent road,
Down to th' infernal regions: sluggish Styx
Dank mists exhales: here travel new-made ghosts,
With rites funereal blest: pale winter's gloom
Wide rules the squalid place: the stranger shades
Wander, unknowing which the path to tread,
Straight to the infernal city, where is held
Black Pluto's savage court. A thousand gates,
Wide ope, surround the town on every side.
As boundless ocean every stream receives,
From earth pour'd numerous,--so each wandering soul
Flocks to this city; whose capacious bounds
Full space for all affords; nor ever feels
Th' increasing crowd: of flesh depriv'd, and bones,
The bloodless shadows wander. Some frequent
The forum; some th' infernal monarch's court;
Some various arts employ, resembling much
Their former daily actions; numbers groan
In punishments severe. Here Juno came,
Braving the region's horrors, from her throne
Celestial,--so did ire and hatred goad
Her bosom with their stings! Sacred she press'd
The groaning threshold,--instant as she stepp'd,
Fierce Cerberus his triple head uprais'd,
And howl'd with triple throat. The goddess calls
The night-born sisters, fierce, implacable:
Before the close-barr'd adamantine gates
They sit; their tresses twisting round with snakes.
The queen through clouds of midnight gloom they see,
And instant rise. Here dwell the suffering damn'd.
Here Tityus, stretcht o'er nine wide acres, yields
His entrails to be torn. Thou, Tantalus,
Art seen, the stream forbid to taste;--the fruit
Thy lips o'erhanging, flies! Thou, Sisyphus,
Thy stone pursuing downwards; or its weight
Straining aloft, with oft exerted power!
Ixion whirling, too; with swift pursuit,
Thou follow'st, and art follow'd! Belides!
Your husband-cousins who in death dar'd steep,
And ceasele