Curiosities & wonders > History of the heathen gods and heroes of antiquity, very necessary for understanding the writings of the ancients, and the modern English poets

THE HEATHEN GODS. 145
The Harpyes, fo called from their rapacity, were
torn of Oceanus and Terra, with the faces of vir¬
gins, and bodies of birds : their hands were armed
with claws, and they lived in the illands. Their
names were Aeiio, Ocypete, and Celaeno, which
laft brought forth Zephyrus, and Balius and Xan-
thus the horfes of Achilles. The three Gorgons,
Medufa, Sthenio, and Uryale, were the daughters
of Phorcus and Cete: their heads were dreadful with
vipers inftead of hairs, by which they ftruck fo
greatterror into beholders, that they prefently hard¬
ened into ftones. By this fable they would repre-
fent the wonderful beauty of thefe (tilers, which was
fuch, that thofe, who faw them, feemed to (land,
with amazement, in the fame place, as if they were
ftones.
The Lamia:, or Empufe, as others call them,
were defcended of the fame parents: they had on¬
ly one eye, and one tooth common to them all,
which they kept at home in a certain little veflel,
and whofoever of them went abroad, Ihe ufed
them. They had the faces and alfo the necks and
breads of women; but their inferior parts were
covered with fcales and ended in ferpents. They
ufed to entice men by deceit, and then devour
them : for with their naked breafts, open bofoms,
and down-caft eyes, as it were out of modefty,
they tempted beholders firft to difeourfe, and then
they flew to their throats, ftrangled and tore them
mod barbaroufly.
The Chimr-ra is a monfter which vomits forth tire,
having the head and bread of a lion, the belly of
a goat, and the tail of a dragon. A mountain of
Lycia, from whence flames of fire break forth, gave
occahor. to the fcble ; tor lions dwell in the top of