“Shades of Hades! I do. But I would rather be a slave beneath the sun than a king in the Cimmerian regions of the under-world.”
“I believe nothing, Marcius. Thou art superstitious. Show me a shade from the under-world, and I will give him a hearty greeting.
‘Away with your stories of Hades,
Which the Flamen has forged to affright us.
We laugh at your three Maiden Ladies,
Your Fates—and your sullen Cocytus.’”
“A graceful turn to a shady subject, and quite worthy of thine ever ready Muse. But, nevertheless, shades there are, my poet, and perchance they may yet give thee an unwelcome greeting.”
“Black or white, I invite them!
‘Oh! blest be the bright Epicurus,
Who taught us to laugh at such fables;