For the Harpies are wont evermore to snatch from my lips my bread,
Swooping adown from a den of destruction, a viewless lair.
Neither find I any device for mine help: nay, easier it were
To escape the ken of mine own heart’s thoughts when I crave to be fed,
Than theirs; so swift through the welkin on hovering wings are they sped.
But if haply ever they leave but a morsel of meat on my board,
It reeketh with most unendurable strength of a stench abhorred.
No man, no, not for an instant, might dare draw nigh to the same, {230}
Not though in his breast were a heart forged all of adamant frame.
But me of a surety doth hard compelling of hunger constrain