But may those Ladies help this verse of mine,
Who helped Amphion in enclosing Thebes,
That from the fact the word be not diverse.
O rabble ill-begotten above all,
Who’re in the place to speak of which is hard,
’Twere better ye had here been sheep or goats!
When we were down within the darksome well,
Beneath the giant’s feet, but lower far,
And I was scanning still the lofty wall,
I heard it said to me: “Look how thou steppest!
Take heed thou do not trample with thy feet
The heads of the tired, miserable brothers!”
Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me
And underfoot a lake, that from the frost
The semblance had of glass, and not of water.
So thick a veil ne’er made upon its current
In winter-time Danube in Austria,
Nor there beneath the frigid sky the Don,
As there was here; so that if Tambernich
Had fallen upon it, or Pietrapana,
E’en at the edge ’twould not have given a creak.
And as to croak the frog doth place himself
With muzzle out of water,—when is dreaming
Of gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,—
Livid, as far down as where shame appears,
Were the disconsolate shades within the ice,
Setting their teeth unto the note of storks.
Each one his countenance held downward bent;
From mouth the cold, from eyes the doleful heart
Among them witness of itself procures.