Away with him to sea! This is our sentence;
thus far be our messenger.”
Jove had spoken, and Mercury was preparing to execute
the great sire’s command: first he binds to his feet his 25
sandals, all of gold, which carry him, uplifted by their
pinions, over sea no less than land, with the swiftness of
the wind that wafts him. Then he takes his rod—the
rod with which he is wont to call up pale spectres from the
place of death, to send others on their melancholy way to 30
Tartarus, to give sleep or take it away, and to open the