Page:Metamorphoses.djvu/227

 METAMORPHOSES BOOK IV tendrils; vine-leaves sprang out along the warp, and bright-hued clusters matched the purple tapestry. And now the day was ended and the time was come when you could not say 'twas dark or light; it was the borderland of night, yet with a gleam of day. Suddenly the whole house seemed to tremble, the oil-fed lamps to flare up, and all the rooms to be ablaze with ruddy fires, while ghostly beasts howled round. Meanwhile the sisters are seeking hiding places through the smoke-fiiled rooms, in various corners trying to avoid the flames and glare of light. And while they seek to hide, a skinny covering overspreads their slender limbs, and thin wings enclose their arms. And in what fashion they have lost their forner shape they know not for the darkness No feathered pinions uplift them, yet they sustain themselves on transparent wings. They try to speak, but utter only the tiniest sound as befits their shrivelled forms, and give voice to their grief in thin squeaks. Houses, not forests, are favourite haunts; and, hating the light of day, they flit by night and from late eventide derive their their name1 Then, truly, was the divinity of Bacchus acknow ledged throughout all Thebes, and his mother's sister, Ino, would be telling of the wonderful powers of the new god everywhere. She alone of all her sisters knew naught of grief, except what she felt for them. She, proud of her children, of her husband, Athamas, and proud above all of her divine foster-son, is seen by Juno, who could not bear the sight. "That child of my rival," she said, com muning with herself, " had power to change the light," i.e. bats. 207
 * i.e. vespertiliones, "creatures that flit about in the twi-