Ovid represents him finally as biting into his own flesh, that his body might thus furnish nourishment for itself. Vis tamen illa mali postquam consumserat omnem Materiam ... Ipse suos artus lacero divellere morsu Cœpit· et infelix minuendo corpus alebat. The hideous harpies were made loathsome and obscene in order that the hunger occasioned by their carrying off of the food might be the more horrible. Hear the complaints of Phineus in Apollonius:[167]— τυτθὸν δ’ ἦν ἄρα δή ποτ’ ἐδητύος ἄμμι λίπωσι, πνεῖ τόδε μυδαλέον τε καὶ οὐ τλητὸν μένος ὀδμῆς. οὔ κέ τις οὐδὲ μίνυνθα βροτῶν ἄνσχοιτο πελάσσας, οὐδ’ εἰ οἱ ἀδάμαντος ἐληλαμένον κέαρ εἴη. ἀλλά με πικρὴ δῆτά κε καὶ ἄατος ἐπίσχει ἀνάγκη μίμνειν, καὶ μίμνοντα κακῇ ἐν γαστέρι θέσθαι. I would gladly excuse in this way, if I could, Virgil’s disgusting introduction of the harpies. They, however, instead of occasioning an actual present hunger, only prophesy an inward craving; and this prophecy, moreover, is resolved finally into a mere play upon words. Dante not only prepares us for the starvation of Ugolino by a most loathsome, horrible description of him together with his former persecutor in hell, but the slow starvation itself is not free from disgusting features, as where the sons offer themselves as food for the father. I give in a note a passage from a play by Beaumont and Fletcher, which might have served me in the stead of all other examples, were it not somewhat too highly drawn.[168]