“‘Dark goddesses, swift-footed, serpent-haired, Red-eyed, black-lipped, hell’s offspring, earth’s annoy, Avaunt, I spit upon ye! King Apollo, Lord of the beaming bow and echoing string, Fair-browed, far-darting, Prince of Poetry, Art thou a juggler? are thine oracles Mere webs for witching flies? Behold! they come! Railing and roasting, scampering and scaring, All hot from hissing Tartarus! Ο God, Pæan, Lycean, God of music, god of day, Delian, Patarean, Help, help! and let me see an End of these calamities as soon as I may.’” DAM. Ha! ha! May Æsculapius put life into my father’s ashes, if I do not love thee entirely. The poet is under infinite obligations to thee; if thou wouldst only study this trade, the dirty Quirites would run from their bread--by Pollux! I think they would run from their games, to hear thee. And now the answer, pretty Saleius, the response of the Avengers! CYA. Let me unfasten my mitra, and perform it in costume. There! “Now, Cyane,” he says, “thou must suppose, what doubtless thou hast already suspected, that the goddesses rush in with their shrivelled arms and terrible eyebrows, dancing, in groups of three or four, a dance dreadful to look upon, such a dance as Pomponia’s slave performs when he is whipped, or Paulus’s mistress when she is intoxicated; thus, Cyane, a rapid agitation of the right foot, then a corresponding movement of the left, with vibrations of the arms and contortions of the neck in unison. Presently the chief of them chants these terrible verses in a low and dismal scream: “‘Ye raven-headed goddesses, Who, in your cloudy bodices, Hover with me around this ball of earth, And ever love to mix Dark drops from your own Styx With every rivulet of living mirth, Fit followers of mortality, Fine teachers of morality, Eternal servants of the Olympian thunder,-- Dwellers in mirky mists, By whose unyielding wrists Strong frames are racked, fine heart-strings rent asunder,-- Come hither, solemn sisters, Rain, rain your boils and blisters, Heart-thrilling ache, swift stripe, and searing cinder, Come hither, oh! come hither, And let him waste and wither, Roaring like twenty bulls, and rotting into tinder!’”