But the dread Fates brought these threats to naught, and, fearing for the world, gravely laid their hoary locks before the feet and throne of the lord of Hell, and with suppliant tears touched his knees with their hands--those hands beneath whose rule are all things set, whose thumbs twist the thread of fate and spin the long ages with their iron spindles. First Lachesis, her hair unkempt and disordered, thus called out upon the cruel king: “Great lord of night, ruler over the shades, thou at whose command our threads are spun, who appointest the end and origin of all things and ordainest the alternation of birth and destruction; arbiter thou of life and death--for whatsoever thing comes anywhere into being it is by thy gift that it is created and owes its life to thee, and after a fixed * * * * * Page 298 rursus corporeos animae mittuntur in artus): ne pete firmatas pacis dissolvere leges, quas dedimus nevitque colus, neu foedera fratrum civili converte tuba. cur impia tollis 65 signa? quid incestis aperis Titanibus auras? posce Iovem; dabitur coniunx.” Vix illa[119]: pepercit erubuitque preces, animusque relanguit atrox quamvis indocilis flecti: ceu turbine rauco cum gravis armatur Boreas glacieque nivali 70 hispidus et Getica concretus grandine pennas disrumpit pelagus, silvas camposque sonoro flamine rapturus; si forte adversus aënos Aeolus obiecit postes, vanescit inanis impetus et fractae redeunt in claustra procellae. 75 Tunc Maia genitum, qui fervida dicta reportet, imperat acciri. Cyllenius adstitit ales somniferam quatiens virgam tectusque galero. ipse rudi fultus solio nigraque verendus maiestate sedet: squalent inmania foedo 80 sceptra situ; sublime caput maestissima nubes asperat et dirae riget inclementia formae; terrorem dolor augebat. tunc talia celso ore tonat (tremefacta silent dicente tyranno atria: latratum triplicem compescuit ingens 85 ianitor et presso lacrimarum fonte resedit Cocytos tacitisque Acheron obmutuit undis et Phlegethonteae requierunt murmura ripae): [119] _illa_ ς; Birt reads _ille_ with the better MSS. * * * * * Page 299 cycle of years them sendest souls once more into mortal bodies--seek not to break the stablished treaty of peace which our distaffs have spun and given thee, and overturn not in civil war the compact fixed ’twixt thee and thy two brothers. Why raisest thou unrighteous standards of war? Why freest the foul band of Titans to the open air? Ask of Jove; he will give thee a wife.”