So having said, a while he stood, expecting Their universal shout and high applause To fill his ear; when, contrary, he hears, On all sides, from innumerable tongues, A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn. He wondered, but not long Had leisure, wondering at himself now more; His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare, His arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining Each other, till, supplanted, down he fell A monstrous serpent on his belly prone, Reluctant, but in vain; a greater power Now ruled him, punished in the shape he sinned, According to his doom. He would have spoke, But hiss for hiss returned with forked tongue To forked tongue; for now were all transformed Alike, to serpents all, as accessories To his bold riot. Dreadful was the din Of hissing through the hall, thick-swarming now With complicated monsters, head and tail, Scorpion, and asp, and amphisbaena dire, Cerastes horned, hydrus, and ellops drear, And dipsas (not so thick swarmed once the soil Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle