From the rock Hangs motionless the torrent: rivers run Uphill; the summer heat no longer swells Nile in his course; Maeander's stream is straight; Slow Rhone is quickened by the rush of Saone; Hills dip their heads and topple to the plain; Olympus sees his clouds drift overhead; And sunless Scythia's sempiternal snows Melt in mid-winter; the inflowing tides Driven onward by the moon, at that dread chant Ebb from their course; earth's axes, else unmoved, Have trembled, and the force centripetal Has tottered, and the earth's compacted frame Struck by their voice has gaped, (34) till through the void Men saw the moving sky.

All beasts most fierce And savage fear them, yet with deadly aid Furnish the witches' arts.

Tigers athirst For blood, and noble lions on them fawn With bland caresses: serpents at their word Uncoil their circles, and extended glide Along the surface of the frosty field; The viper's severed body joins anew; And dies the snake by human venom slain.
Whence comes this labour on the gods, compelled To hearken to the magic chant and spells, Nor daring to despise them?
Doth some bond Control the deities?
Is their pleasure so, Or must they listen?
and have silent threats Prevailed, or piety unseen received So great a guerdon?
Against all the gods Is this their influence, or on one alone Who to his will constrains the universe, Himself constrained?
Stars most in yonder clime Shoot headlong from the zenith; and the moon Gliding serene upon her nightly course Is shorn of lustre by their poisonous chant, Dimmed by dark earthly fires, as though our orb Shadowed her brother's radiance and barred The light bestowed by heaven; nor freshly shines Until descending nearer to the earth She sheds her baneful drops upon the mead.
These sinful rites and these her sister's songs Abhorred Erichtho, fiercest of the race, Spurned for their piety, and yet viler art Practised in novel form.

To her no home Beneath a sheltering roof her direful head Thus to lay down were crime: deserted tombs Her dwelling-place, from which, darling of hell, She dragged the dead.

Nor life nor gods forbad But that she knew the secret homes of Styx And learned to hear the whispered voice of ghosts At dread mysterious meetings.