Second Semi-Chorus
Singing.
Such are the songs with which the Muse with the glorious hair [800] inspires the able poet and which enchant the assembled populace, when the spring swallow twitters beneath the foliage; but the god spare us from the chorus of Morsimus and that of Melanthius! [805] Oh! what a bitter discordancy grated upon my ears that day when the tragic chorus was directed by this same Melanthius and his brother, these two [810] Gorgons, these two Harpies, the plague of the seas, whose gluttonous bellies devour the entire race of fishes, these followers of old women, these goats with their stinking arm-pits. [815] Oh! Muse, spit upon them abundantly and keep the feast gaily with me.