There were Thessalian rocks with deadly herbs
Thick planted, sensible to magic chants,

Funereal, secret: and the land was full
Of violence to the gods: the Queenly guest (31)

From Colchis gathered here the fatal roots
That were not in her store: hence vain to heaven

Rise impious incantations, all unheard;
For deaf the ears divine: save for one voice

Which penetrates the furthest depths of airs
Compelling e'en th' unwilling deities

To hearken to its accents. Not the care
Of the revolving sky or starry pole

Can call them from it ever. Once the sound
Of those dread tones unspeakable has reached

The constellations, then nor Babylon
Nor secret Memphis, though they open wide

The shrines of ancient magic and entreat
The gods, could draw them from the fires that smoke

Upon the altars of far Thessaly.
To hearts of flint those incantations bring

Love, strange, unnatural; the old man's breast
Burns with illicit fire. Nor lies the power

In harmful cup nor in the juicy pledge
Of love maternal from the forehead drawn; (32)

Charmed forth by spells alone the mind decays,
By poisonous drugs unharmed. With woven threads

Crossed in mysterious fashion do they bind
Those whom no passion born of beauteous form

Or loving couch unites. All things on earth
Change at their bidding; night usurps the day;

The heavens disobey their wonted laws;
At that dread hymn the Universe stands still;

And Jove while urging the revolving wheels
Wonders they move not. Torrents are outpoured

Beneath a burning sun; and thunder roars
Uncaused by Jupiter. From their flowing locks

Vapours immense shall issue at their call;
When falls the tempest seas shall rise and foam (33)

Moved by their spell; though powerless the breeze
To raise the billows. Ships against the wind

With bellying sails move onward. From the rock
Hangs motionless the torrent: rivers run

Uphill; the summer heat no longer swells
Nile in his course; Maeander's stream is straight;

Slow Rhone is quickened by the rush of Saone;
Hills dip their heads and topple to the plain;

Olympus sees his clouds drift overhead;
And sunless Scythia's sempiternal snows

Melt in mid-winter; the inflowing tides
Driven onward by the moon, at that dread chant

Ebb from their course; earth's axes, else unmoved,
Have trembled, and the force centripetal

Has tottered, and the earth's compacted frame
Struck by their voice has gaped, (34) till through the void

Men saw the moving sky. All beasts most fierce
And savage fear them, yet with deadly aid

Furnish the witches' arts. Tigers athirst
For blood, and noble lions on them fawn

With bland caresses: serpents at their word
Uncoil their circles, and extended glide

Along the surface of the frosty field;
The viper's severed body joins anew;

And dies the snake by human venom slain.
Whence comes this labour on the gods, compelled

To hearken to the magic chant and spells,
Nor daring to despise them? Doth some bond

Control the deities? Is their pleasure so,
Or must they listen? and have silent threats

Prevailed, or piety unseen received
So great a guerdon? Against all the gods

Is this their influence, or on one alone
Who to his will constrains the universe,

Himself constrained? Stars most in yonder clime
Shoot headlong from the zenith; and the moon

Gliding serene upon her nightly course
Is shorn of lustre by their poisonous chant,

Dimmed by dark earthly fires, as though our orb
Shadowed her brother's radiance and barred

The light bestowed by heaven; nor freshly shines
Until descending nearer to the earth

She sheds her baneful drops upon the mead.
These sinful rites and these her sister's songs

Abhorred Erichtho, fiercest of the race,
Spurned for their piety, and yet viler art

Practised in novel form. To her no home
Beneath a sheltering roof her direful head

Thus to lay down were crime: deserted tombs
Her dwelling-place, from which, darling of hell,

She dragged the dead. Nor life nor gods forbad
But that she knew the secret homes of Styx

And learned to hear the whispered voice of ghosts
At dread mysterious meetings. (35) Never sun

Shed his pure light upon that haggard cheek
Pale with the pallor of the shades, nor looked

Upon those locks unkempt that crowned her brow.
In starless nights of tempest crept the hag

Out from her tomb to seize the levin bolt;
Treading the harvest with accursed foot

She burned the fruitful growth, and with her breath
Poisoned the air else pure. No prayer she breathed

Nor supplication to the gods for help
Nor knew the pulse of entrails as do men

Who worship. Funeral pyres she loves to light
And snatch the incense from the flaming tomb.

The gods at her first utterance grant her prayer
For things unlawful, lest they hear again

Its fearful accents: men whose limbs were quick
With vital power she thrust within the grave

Despite the fates who owed them years to come:
The funeral reversed brought from the tomb

Those who were dead no longer; and the pyre
Yields to her shameless clutch still smoking dust

And bones enkindled, and the torch which held
Some grieving sire but now, with fragments mixed

In sable smoke and ceremental cloths
Singed with the redolent fire that burned the dead.

But those who lie within a stony cell
Untouched by fire, whose dried and mummied frames

No longer know corruption, limb by limb
Venting her rage she tears, the bloodless eyes

Drags from their cavities, and mauls the nail
Upon the withered hand: she gnaws the noose

By which some wretch has died, and from the tree
Drags down a pendent corpse, its members torn

Asunder to the winds: forth from the palms
Wrenches the iron, and from the unbending bond

Hangs by her teeth, and with her hands collects
The slimy gore which drips upon the limbs.

Where lay a corpse upon the naked earth
On ravening birds and beasts of prey the hag