riously growing around him, which he no sooner
advanced to touch, than the wind blew them into the clouds.

CHAPTER X.

_Monsters of Hell._

HARPYIAE, _or_ HARPIES, were three in number, their names, Celaeno, Aello,
and Ocyp{)e}te. The ancients looked on them as a sort of Genii, or
Daemons. They had the faces of virgins, the ears of bears, the bodies of
vultures, human arms and feet, and long claws, hooked like the talons of
carnivorous birds. Phineas, king of Arcadia, being a prophet, and
revealing the mysteries of Jupiter to mortals, was by that deity struck
blind, and so tormented by the Harpies that he was ready to perish for
hunger; they devouring whatever was set before him, till the sons of
Boreas, who attended Jason in his expedition to Colchis, delivered the
good old king, and drove these monsters to the islands called
Stroph{)a}des: compelling them to swear never more to return.

The Harpies, according to the ingenious Abbe la Pluche, had their origin
in Egypt. He further observes, in respect to them, that during the
months of April, May, and June, especially the two latter, Egypt being
very subject to tempests, which laid waste their olive grounds, and
carried thither numerous swarms of grasshoppers, and other troublesome
insects from the shores of the Red Sea, the Egyptians gave to their
emblematic figures of these months a female face, with the bodies and
claws of birds, calling them _Harop_, or winged destroyers. This
solution of the fable corresponds with the opinion of Le Clerc, who
takes the harpies to have been a swarm of locusts, the word _Arbi_,
whence Harpy is formed, signifying, in their language, a locust.

GORGONS were three in number, and daughters of Phorcus or Porcys, by his
sister Ceto. Their names were Med{=u}sa, Eury{)a}le, and Stheno, and
they are represented as having scales on their bodies, brazen hands,
golden wings, tusks like boars, and snakes for hair. The last
distinction, however, is confined by Ovid to Med{=u}sa.

According to some mythologists, Perseus having been sent against
Med{=u}sa by the gods, was supplied by Mercury with a falchion, by
Minerva with a mirror, and by Pluto with a helmet, which rendered the
wearer invisible. Thus equipped, through the aid of winged sandals, he
steered his course towards Tartessus, where, finding the object of his
search, by the reflection of his mirror, he was enabled to aim his
weapon, without meeting her eye, (for her look wou