“See yon huge cavern, yawning wide around,

Where still the shattered mountain spreads the ground:

That spacious hold grim Cacus once possessed,

Tremendous fiend! half human, half a beast:

Deep, deep as hell, the dismal dungeon lay,

Dark and impervious to the beams of day.

With copious slaughter smoked the purple floor,

Pale heads hung horrid on the lofty door,