Of women strange to look at sleepeth there,

Before this wanderer, seated on their stools;

Not women they, but Gorgons[[479]] I must call them;

Nor yet can I to Gorgon forms compare them:

I have seen painted shapes that bear away

50

The feast of Phineus.[[480]] Wingless, though, are these,

And swarth, and every way abominable.

[*]They snort with breath that none may dare approach,

And from their eyes a loathsome humour pours,