The goddess now, resolving to succeed, + 

Down to the gloomy shades descends with speed; + 

But adverse fate had otherwise decreed; + 

For, long before, her giddy, thoughtless child + 

Had broke her fast, and all her projects spoil’d. + 

As in the garden’s shady walk she stray’d, + 

A fair pomegranate charm’d the simple maid, + 

Hung in her way, and tempting her to taste, + 

She pluck’d the fruit, and took a short repast. + 

Seven times, a seed at once, she eat the food: + 

The fact Ascalaphus had only view’d, + 

Whom Acheron begot, in Stygian shades, + 

On Orphne, famed among Avernal maids; + 

He saw what pass’d, and, by discovering all, + 

Detain’d the ravish’d nymph in cruel thrall. + 

But now a queen, she with resentment heard, + 

And changed the vile informer to a bird. + 

In Phlegethon’s black stream her hand she dips, + 

Sprinkles his head, and wets his babbling lips. + 

Soon on his face, bedropp’d with magic dew, + 

A change appear’d, and gaudy feathers grew; + 

A crooked beak the place of nose supplies; + 

Rounder his head, and larger are his eyes; + 

His arms and body waste, but are supplied + 

With yellow pinions, flagging on each side; + 

His nails grow crooked, and are turn’d to claws, + 

And lazily along his heavy wings he draws: + 

Ill-omen’d in his form, the unlucky fowl, + 

Abhorr’d by men, and call’d a screeching owl. + 