A short command: “To Athens speed thy flight; On cursed Aglauros try thy utmost art, And fix thy rankest venoms in her heart.” This said, her spear she push’d against the ground, And mounting from it with an active bound, Flew off to heaven. The hag with eyes askew Look’d up, and mutter’d curses as she flew; For sore she fretted, and began to grieve At the success which she herself must give; Then takes her staff, hung round with wreaths of thorn, And sails along, in a black whirlwind borne, O’er fields and flowery meadows. Where she steers Her baneful course a mighty blast appears, Mildews and blights; the meadows are defaced, The fields, the flowers, and the whole year, laid waste. On mortals next and peopled towns she falls, And breathes a burning plague among their walls.