membered that such had been the frequent warning of Cassandra—the prophetess to whom none would listen. They re-embarked accordingly. After a storm of three days and three nights, when no pilot could keep the course, they were cast upon the islands of the Harpies[1]—the monster sisters, half women and half birds, foul and loathsome, who are hateful to gods and men. With them they had to do battle for the meal which they had spread; and one of those hags, in her wrath, prophesied that before they reached their promised Hesperia they should be forced "to eat their tables."
The description of the ensuing voyage, in Mr Conington's tasteful translation, reads like a passage from the 'Lord of the Isles,' yet presents a fair equivalent, especially in the last fine touch, to the Latin original:—
"The south wind freshens in the sail;
We hurry o'er the tide,
Where'er the helmsman and the gale
Conspire our course to guide;
Now rises o'er the foamy flood
- ↑ There is a fine description of these hags in Morris's 'Jason,' where the voyagers
"Beheld the daughters of the Earth and Sea,
The dreadful Snatchers, who like women were
Down to the breast, with scanty close black hair
About their heads, and dim eyes ringed with red,
And bestial mouths set round with lips of lead.
But from their gnarled necks there 'gan to spring
Half hair, half feathers, and a sweeping wing
Grew out instead of arm on either side,
And thick plumes underneath the breast did hide
The place where joined the fearful natures twain.
