I.


While I was thus mutely pondering within myself, and recording my
sorrowful complainings with my pen, it seemed to me that there appeared
above my head a woman of a countenance exceeding venerable. Her eyes
were bright as fire, and of a more than human keenness; her complexion
was lively, her vigour showed no trace of enfeeblement; and yet her
years were right full, and she plainly seemed not of our age and time.
Her stature was difficult to judge. At one moment it exceeded not the
common height, at another her forehead seemed to strike the sky; and
whenever she raised her head higher, she began to pierce within the very
heavens, and to baffle the eyes of them that looked upon her. Her
garments were of an imperishable fabric, wrought with the finest threads
and of the most delicate workmanship; and these, as her own lips
afterwards assured me, she had herself woven with her own hands. The
beauty of this vesture had been somewhat tarnished by age and neglect,
and wore that dingy look which marble contracts from exposure. On the
lower-most edge was inwoven the Greek letter [Greek: P], on the topmost
the letter [Greek: Th],[A] and between the two were to be seen steps,
like a staircase, from the lower to the upper letter. This robe,
moreover, had been torn by the hands of violent persons, who had each
snatched away what he could clutch.[B] Her right hand held a note-book;
in her left she bore a staff. And when she saw the Muses of Poesie
standing by my bedside, dictating the words of my lamentations, she was
moved awhile to wrath, and her eyes flashed sternly. 'Who,' said she,
'has allowed yon play-acting wantons to approach this sick man--these