Lo! from the one the far-discerning light Beams upon earthly dwellers; but a cloud Of pitchy blackness veils the other round: Pernicious Night: aye-leading in her hand [219]Sleep, Death’s half-brother: sons of gloomy Night There hold they habitation, Death and Sleep; Dread deities: [220]nor them the shining Sun E’er with his beam contemplates, when he climbs The cope of heaven, or when from heaven descends. Of these the one glides gentle o’er the space Of earth and broad expanse of ocean waves, Placid to man. The other has a heart Of iron; yea, the heart within his breast Is brass, unpitying: whom of men he grasps Stern he retains: e’en [221]to immortal gods A foe. The hollow-sounding palaces Of Pluto strong the subterranean god, [222]And stern Prosérpina, there full in front Ascend: a grisly dog, implacable, Holds watch before the gates: a stratagem Is his, malicious: them who enter there, With tail and bended ears he fawning soothes: But suffers not that they with backward step Repass: whoe’er would issue from the gates Of Pluto strong and stern Prosérpina, For them with marking eye he lurks; on them Springs from his couch, and pitiless devours. There, odious to immortals, dreadful Styx Inhabits: refluent Ocean’s eldest-born: She from the gods apart for ever dwells In far-re-echoing mansions, [223]with arch’d roofs Of loftiest rock o’erhung: and all around The silver columns lean upon the skies. Swift-footed Iris, nymph of Thaumas born, Takes with no frequent embassy her way O’er the broad main’s expanse, when haply strife Be risen, and midst the gods dissension sown: And if there be among th’ Olympian race Who falsehood utters, [224]Jove sends Iris down To bring the great oath in a golden ewer: The far-famed water, from steep, sky-capt rock Distilling in cold stream. Beneath wide Earth Abundant from [225]the sacred river-head, Through shades of blackest night, the Stygian horn Of ocean flows: a tenth of all the streams To the dread oath allotted. In nine streams Circling the round of earth and the broad seas, With silver whirlpools twined in many a maze, It falls into the deep: one stream alone Flows from the rock; a mighty bane to gods. Who of immortals, that inhabit still Olympus top’d with snow, [226]libation pours And is forsworn, he one whole year entire Lies reft of breath: nor yet approaches once The nectar’d and ambrosial sweet repast: But still reclines on the spread festive couch Mute, breathless; and a mortal lethargy O’erwhelms him: but, his malady absolved With the great round of the revolving year, More ills on ills afflictive seize: nine years From ever-living deities remote His lot is cast: in council nor in feast Once joins he, till nine years entire are full: