This plague the nymph, not daring to draw near, At distance hail’d, and greeted from afar; And though she told her charge without delay, Though her arrival late, and short her stay, She felt keen famine, or she seem’d to feel, Invade her blood, and on her vitals steal. She turn’d, from the infection to remove, And back to Thessaly the serpents drove.

The fiend obey’d the goddess’s command (Though their effects in opposition stand), She cut her way, supported by the wind, And reach’d the mansion by the nymph assign’d.

’Twas night, when, entering Erisichthon’s room, Dissolv’d in sleep, and thoughtless of his doom, She clasp’d his limbs, by impious labour tired, With battish wings, but her whole self inspired; Breathed on his throat and chest a tainting blast, And in his veins infused an endless fast.