et Phlegethonteae requierunt murmura ripae):
[119] illa ς; Birt reads ille with the better MSS.
cycle of years them sendest souls once more into mortal bodies—seek not to break the stablished treaty of peace which our distaffs have spun and given thee, and overturn not in civil war the compact fixed ’twixt thee and thy two brothers. Why raisest thou unrighteous standards of war? Why freest the foul band of Titans to the open air? Ask of Jove; he will give thee a wife.”
Scarce had she spoken when Pluto stopped, shamed by her prayer, and his grim spirit grew mild though little wont to be curbed: even so great Boreas, armed with strident blasts and tempestuous with congealed snow, his wings all frozen with Getic hail as he seeks battle, threatens to overwhelm the sea, the woods, and the fields with sounding storm; but should Aeolus chance to bar against him the brazen doors idly his fury dies away and his storms retire baulked to their prison-house.
Then he bids summon Mercury, the son of Maia, that he may carry these flaming words to Jove. Straightway the wingèd god of Cyllene stands at his side shaking his sleepy wand, his herald cap upon his head. Pluto himself sits propped on his rugged throne, awful in funereal majesty; foul with age-long dust is his mighty sceptre; boding clouds make grim his lofty head; unpitying is the stiffness of his dread shape; rage heightened the terror of his aspect. Then with uplifted head he thunders forth these words, while, as the tyrant speaks, his halls tremble and are still; the massy hound, guardian of the gate, restrains the barking of his triple head, and Cocytus sinks back repressing his fount of tears; Acheron is dumb with silent wave, and the banks of Phlegethon cease their murmuring.
“Atlantis Tegeaee nepos, commune profundis
et superis numen, qui fas per limen utrumque 90
solus habes geminoque facis commercia mundo,