THE TALE OF ARCHAIS 
27 
The fading moon drifts sorrowful above. 
Then Charicles must ask his weeping love 
To lead him to the fountain of her tears. 
But she, possessed by vague and violent fears, 
Spake not a little while, and then began : 
“ O thou, a child of Heaven, and a man, 
Even so my lover, shall my woeful song 
So move thy spirit for my bitter wrong 
(God-nurtured though thou be) against the rods 
Laid on me by my mother, whom the gods, 
Righteous in anger, doomed, for fiery sin 
Kindled by hell-flames, cherishéd within 
Her lustful heart, for sin most damnable, 
To suffer torment in remotest hell, 
Where the grim fiend grinds down with fiery 
stones 
The unrepentant marrow of men’s bones, 
Or chills their blood with poisonous vials of 
death, 
Or dooms them to the tooth and venomous 
breath 
Of foul black worms ;  and on the earth to dwell 
For a long space, and there (most terrible !) 
To change her shape at times, and on her take 
The fierce presentment of a loathly snake