he place for a belly. You would think her breast was
hanging, and was only supported from the chine[98] of the back. Leanness
had, {to appearance}, increased her joints, and the caps of her knees
were stiff, and excrescences projected from her overgrown ancles. Soon
as {Oreas} beheld her at a distance (for she did not dare come near
her), she delivered the commands of the Goddess; and, staying for so
short a time, although she was at a distance from her, {and} although
she had just come thither, still did she seem to feel hunger; and,
turning the reins, she drove aloft the dragon's back to Haemonia.

"Famine executes the orders of Ceres (although she is ever opposing her
operations), and is borne by the winds through the air to the assigned
abode, and immediately enters the bedchamber of the sacrilegious
{wretch}, and embraces him, sunk in a deep sleep ({for} it is
night-time), with her two wings. She breathes herself into the man, and
blows upon his jaws, and his breast, and his face; and she scatters
hunger through his empty veins. And having {thus} executed her
commission, she forsakes the fruitful world, and returns to her famished
abode, her wonted fields. Gentle sleep is still soothing[99] Erisicthon
with its balmy wings. In a vision of his sleep he craves for food, and
moves his jaws to no purpose, and tires his teeth {grinding} upon teeth,
and wearies his throat deluded with imaginary food; and, instead of
victuals, he devours in vain the yielding air. But when sleep is
banished, his desire for eating is outrageous, and holds sway over his
craving jaws, and his insatiate entrails. And no delay {is there}; he
calls what the sea, what the earth, what the air produces, and complains
of hunger with the tables set before him, and requires food in {the
midst of} food. And what might be enough for {whole} cities, and what
{might be enough} for a {whole} people, is not sufficient for one man.
The more, too, he swallows down into his stomach, the more does he
desire. And just as the ocean receives rivers from the whole earth, and
{yet} is not satiated with water, and drinks up the rivers of distant
countries, and as the devouring fire never refuses fuel, and burns up
beams of wood without number, and the greater the quantity that is given
to it, the more does it crave, and it is the more voracious through the
very abundance {of fuel}; so do the jaws of the impious Erisicthon
receive all victuals {presented}, and at the sa