Kitap 6
For things unlawful, lest they hear again
1
Its fearful accents: men whose limbs were quick
With vital power she thrust within the grave
Despite the fates who owed them years to come:
The funeral reversed brought from the tomb
Those who were dead no longer; and the pyre
Yields to her shameless clutch still smoking dust
And bones enkindled, torches which but now
Some grieving father held, and fragments mixed
In sable smoke and ceremental cloths
Singed with the redolent fire that burned the dead.
But those who lie within a stony cell
Untouched by fire, whose dried and mummied frames
No longer know corruption, limb by limb
Venting her rage she tears, the bloodless eyes
Drags from their cavities, and mauls the nail
Upon the withered hand: she gnaws the noose
By which some wretch has died, and from the tree
Drags down a pendent corpse, its members torn
Asunder to the winds: forth from the palms
Wrenches the iron, and from the unbending bond
Hangs by her teeth, and with her hands collects
The slimy gore which drips upon the limbs.
Where lay a corpse upon the naked earth
On ravening birds and beasts of prey the hag
Kept watch, nor marred by knife or hand her spoil,
Till on his victim seized some nightly wolf; 'As if that piece were sweeter which the wolf had bitten.' Note to'The Masque of Queens,' in which the first hag says: I have been all day, looking after A raven feeding on a quarter, And soon as she turned her beak to the south I snatched this morsel out of her mouth.' Ben Jonson. But more probably the meaning is that the wolf's bite gave the flesh magical efficacy.
Then dragged the morsel from his thirsty fangs;
Nor fears she murder, if some banquet fell
Need blood fresh issued from the gaping throat,
Or panting entrail. By unnatural means
Wombs yield to her the infant to be placed
On glowing altars: and whene'er she needs
Some fierce undaunted ghost, he fails not her
Who has all deaths in use. Her hand has chased
From smiling cheeks the rosy bloom of life;
And with sinister hand from dying youth
Has shorn the fatal lock: and holding oft
In foul embraces some departed friend
Severed the head, and through the ghastly lips,
