But they with gait direct to Lacon ran.
And first of all each serpent doth enwrap
The bodies small of his two tender sons;
Whose wretched limbs they bit, and fed
thereon.

20

Then raught they him, who had his weapon caught

To rescue them; twice winding him about,
With folded knots and circled tails, his waist:
Their scaled backs did compass twice his neck,
With reared heads aloft and stretched throats.
He with his hands strave to unloose the knots, 26
(Whose sacred fillets all-besprinkled were
With filth of gory blood, and venom rank)
And to the stars such dreadful shout he sent,
Like to the sound the roaring bull forth lows, 30
Which from the altar wounded doth astart,

1 Reached.

Down slid into the ocean flood apart,
The Bear, that in the Irish seas had dipt

His grisly feet, with speed from thence he whipt;

For Thetis, hasting from the Virgin's bed Pursued the Bear, that ere she came was fled. 35

And Phaeton now reaching to his race

With glistering beams, gold streaming where they bent,

Was prest to enter in his resting place.
Erythius that in the cart first went,

Had even now attained his journey's stent: 40
And fast declining hid away his head,
While Titan couched him in his purple bed.

And pale Cynthéa with her borrowed light,
Beginning to supply her brother's place,
Was past the noonstead six degrees in sight, 45
When sparkling stars amid the heaven's face,
With twinkling light shone on the earth apace,
That while they brought about the nightės
chare,7

The dark had dimmed the day ere I was ware.

Thou canst not dure with sorrow thus attaint."
And with that word of sorrow all forfaint,
She looked up, and, prostrate as she lay,
With piteous sound, lo, thus she gan to say, 105

"Alas, I wretch whom thus thou seest distrained

With wasting woes, that never shall aslake,
Sorrow I am, in endless torments pained
Among the Furies in the infernal lake;
Where Pluto, god of hell, so grisly black
Doth hold his throne and Letheus deadly taste
Doth reave remembrance of each thing forepast.

"Whence come I am, the dreary destiny
And luckless lot for to bemoan of those,
Whom Fortune in this maze of misery,

110

115

136

"O Sorrow, alas, sith sorrow is thy name,
And that to thee this drere18 doth well pertain,
In vain it were to seek to cease the same:
But as a man himself with sorrow slain,
So I, alas, do comfort thee in pain,
That here in sorrow art forsunk so deep,

That at thy sight I can but sigh and weep." 140

I had no sooner spoken of a stike, 19
But that the storm so rumbled in her breast,
As Eolus could never roar the like,

And showers down rained from her eyen so fast,

That all bedreynt 20 the place, till at the last 145 Well eased they the dolour of her mind,

As rage of rain doth swage the stormy wind.

190

But lo, while thus amid the desert dark,
We passed on with steps and pace unmeet:
A rumbling roar, confused with howl and bark
Of dogs, shook all the ground under our feet,
And struck the din within our ears so deep
As, half distraught, unto the ground I fell, 195
Besought return, and not to visit hell.

But she, forthwith, uplifting me apace,
Removed my dread, and with a steadfast mind
Bade me come on, for here was now the place,
The place where we our travail's end should
find.

200

lies,

Which up in the air such stinking vapours throws,

That over there may fly no fowl but dies,
Choked with the pestilent savours that arise. 215
Hither we came, whence forth we still did pace,
In dreadful fear amid the dreadful place.

And first within the porch and jaws of hell,
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent
With tears: and to her self oft would she tell 220
Her wretchedness, and cursing, never stent31
To sob and sigh: but ever thus lament,
With thoughtful care, as she that, all in vain,
Would wear and waste continually in pain.
26 Thicket. 27 Astonished.
30 Swollen masses.

26 Sway. Called.

28 Going.

31 Cease.