When my commands, make trembling Ph?“bus reign,
His fiery steeds, their journey back again.
Such power have charms, by whose prevailing aid
The fury of the raging bulls was laid.
The Heaven-born Circe, with her magic song,
Ulysses's men, did into monsters turn.
Proteus, with this assum'd, what shape he wou'd.
I, who this art so long have understood,
Can send proud Ida's top into the main,
And make the billows bear it up again.'"
I shook with fear at such a romantick promise, and began more
intensively to view the old woman: Upon which, she cry'd out, "O
Enothea, be as good as your word"; when, carefully wiping her hands,
she lay down on the bed, and half smother'd me with kisses.
Enothea, in the middle of the altar, plac'd a turf-table, which she
heapt with burning coals, and her old crack cup (for sacrifice)
repair'd with temper'd pitch; when she had fixt it to the
smoaking-wall from which she took it; putting on her habit, she plac'd
a kettle by the fire, and took down a bag that hung near her, in
which, a bean was kept for that use, and a very aged piece of a hog's
forehead, with the print of a hundred cuts out; when opening the bag,
she threw me a part of the bean, and bid me carefully strip it. I
obey her command, and try, without daubing my fingers, to deliver the
grain from its nasty coverings; but she, blaming my dullness, snatcht
it from me, and skilfully tearing its shells with her teeth, spit the
black morsels from her, that lay like dead flies on the ground.
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