re was {now} an end of their stories; and still do the daughters of
Minyas go on with their work, and despise the God, and desecrate his
festival; when, on a sudden, tambourines unseen resound with their
jarring noise; the pipe, too, with the crooked horn, and the tinkling
brass, re-echo; myrrh and saffron shed their fragrant odors; and,
a thing past all belief, their webs begin to grow green, and the cloth
hanging {in the loom} to put forth foliage like ivy. Part changes into
vines, and what were threads before, are {now} turned into vine shoots.
Vine branches spring from the warp, and the purple lends its splendor to
the tinted grapes.

And now the day was past, and the time came on, which you could neither
call darkness nor light, but yet the {very} commencement of the dubious
night along with the light. The house seemed suddenly to shake, and
unctuous torches to burn, and the building to shine with glowing fires,
and the fictitious phantoms of savage wild beasts to howl. Presently,
the sisters are hiding themselves throughout the smoking house, and in
different places are avoiding the fires and the light. While they are
seeking a hiding-place, a membrane is stretched over their small limbs,
and covers their arms with light wings; nor does the darkness suffer
them to know by what means they have lost their former shape. No
feathers bear them up; yet they support themselves on pellucid wings;
and, endeavoring to speak, they utter a voice very diminutive {even} in
proportion to their bodies, and express their low complaints with a
squeaking sound. They frequent houses, not woods; and, abhorring the
light, they fly {abroad} by night. And from the late evening do they
derive their name.[53]

[Footnote 53: _Derive their name._--Ver. 415. In Greek they are
called +nukterides+, from +nux+, 'night;' and in Latin,
'vespertiliones,' from 'vesper,' 'evening,' on account of their
habits.]

FABLE VII. [IV.416-562]

Tisiphone, being sent by Juno to the Palace of Athamas, causes him to
become mad; on which he dashes his son Learchus to pieces against a
wall. He then pursues his wife Ino, who throws herself headlong from
the top of a rock into the sea, with her other son Melicerta in her
arms: when Neptune, at the intercession of Venus, changes them into
Sea Deities. The attendants of Ino, who have followed her in her
flight, are changed, some into stone, and others into birds, as they
are abou