Interea superos praenuntia convocat Iris. qui fluvios, qui stagna colunt, cinguntur et ipsi auxilio Manes; nec te, Proserpina, longe umbrosae tenuere fores; rex ipse silentum 45 Lethaeo vehitur curru lucemque timentes insolitam mirantur equi trepidoque volatu spissas caeruleis tenebras e naribus efflant. ac velut hostilis cum machina terruit urbem, undique concurrunt arcem defendere cives: 50 haud secus omnigenis coeuntia numina turmis ad patris venere domos. tum Iuppiter infit: “O numquam peritura cohors, o debita semper caelo progenies, nullis obnoxia fatis: cernitis ut Tellus nostrum coniuret in orbem 55 prole nova dederitque alios interrita partus? ergo, quot dederit natos, tot funera matri reddamus: longo maneat per saecula luctu tanto pro numero paribus damnata sepulcris.” Iam tuba nimborum sonuit, iam signa ruendi 60 his Aether, his Terra dedit confusaque rursus pro domino Natura timet. discrimina rerum miscet turba potens: nunc insula deserit aequor, nunc scopuli latuere mari. quot litora restant nuda! quot antiquas mutarunt flumina ripas! 65 hic rotat Haemonium praeduris viribus Oeten; hic iuga conixus manibus Pangaea coruscat; hunc armat glacialis Athos; hoc Ossa movente tollitur; his Rhodopen Hebri cum fonte revellit * * * * * Page 285 Meanwhile Iris, messenger of the gods, summons the immortal council. There come the deities of river and lake; the very ghosts were there in heaven’s defence. Hell’s shady portals could not hold Proserpine afar; the king of the silent himself advances in his Lethaean chariot. His horses fear the light which hitherto their astonished eyes have never looked upon and, swerving this way and that, they breathe forth thick vapour from their soot-black nostrils. As, when an enemy’s siege-engine affrights a town, the citizens run together from all sides to defend their citadel, so gods of all shapes and forms came together to protect their father’s home. Them Jove thus addressed: “Deathless army, whose dwelling-place is, and must ever be, the sky, ye whom no adverse fortune can ever harm, mark ye how Earth with her new children conspires against our kingdom and undismayed has given birth to another brood? Wherefore, for all the sons she bore, let us give back to their mother as many dead; let her mourning last through the ages as she weeps by as many graves as she now has children.”