Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/225

Why should I name the Lapith race,
Pirithous and Ixion base?
A frowning rock their heads o'ertops,
Which ever nods and almost drops:
Couches where golden pillars shine
Invite them freely to recline,
And banquets smile before their eyne
With kingly splendour proud:
When lo! fell malice in her mien,
Beside them lies the Furies' queen:
From the rich fare she bars their hand,
Thrusts in their face her sulphurous brand,
And thunders hoarse and loud.
Here those who wronged a brother's love,
Assailed a sire's grey hair,
Or for a trustful client wove
A treachery and a snare,
Who wont on hoarded wealth to brood,
In sullen selfish solitude,
Nor called their friends to share the good
(The most in number they),
With those whom vengeance robbed of life
For guilty love of other's wife,
And those who drew the unnatural sword,
Or broke the bond 'twixt slave and lord,
Await the reckoning-day.
Ask not their doom, nor seek to know
What depth receives them there below.
Some roll huge rocks up rising ground,
Or hang, to whirling wheels fast bound:
There in the bottom of the pit
Sits Theseus, and will ever sit:
And Phlegyas warns the ghostly crowd,
Proclaiming through the shades aloud,
'Behold, and learn to practise right,
Nor do the blessed gods despite.'