t to throw themselves into the sea after their mistress.
But then the Divine power of Bacchus is famed throughout all Thebes; and
his aunt is everywhere telling of the great might of the new Divinity;
she alone,[54] out of so many sisters, is free from sorrow, except that
which her sisters have occasioned. Juno beholds her, having her soul
elevated with her {children}, and her alliance with Athamas, and the God
her foster-child. She cannot brook this, and says to herself, "Was the
child of a concubine able to transform the Maeonian sailors, and to
overwhelm them in the sea, and to give the entrails of the son to be
torn to pieces by his mother, and to cover the three daughters of Minyas
with newly formed wings? Shall Juno be able to do nothing but lament
these griefs unrevenged? And is that sufficient for me? Is this my only
power? He himself instructs me what to do. It is right to be taught even
by an enemy. And what madness can do, he shows enough, and more than
enough, by the slaughter of Pentheus. Why should not Ino, {too}, be
goaded by madness, and submit to an example kindred to those of her
sisters?"
There is a shelving path, shaded with dismal yew, which leads through
profound silence to the infernal abodes. {Here} languid Styx exhales
vapors; and the new-made ghosts descend this way, and phantoms when they
have enjoyed[55] funeral rites. Horror and winter possess these dreary
regions far and wide, and the ghosts newly arrived know not where the
way is that leads to the Stygian city, {or} where is the dismal palace
of the black Pluto. The wide city has a thousand passages, and gates
open on every side. And as the sea {receives} the rivers for the whole
earth, so does that spot[56] receive all the souls; nor is it {too}
little for any {amount of} people, nor does it perceive the crowd to
increase. The shades wander about, bloodless, without body and bones;
and some throng the place of judgment; some the abode of the infernal
prince. Some pursue various callings, in imitation of their former life;
their own punishment confines others.
Juno, the daughter of Saturn, leaving her celestial habitation, submits
to go thither, so much does she give way to hatred and to anger. Soon as
she has entered there, and the threshold groans, pressed by her sacred
body, Cerberus raises his threefold mouth, and utters triple barkings at
the same moment. She summons the Sisters,[57] begotten of Night,
terrible and implacable God
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