416Then indeed the divinity of Bacchus was renowned throughout all Thebes, and his aunt tells everywhere of the great powers of the new god, and of so many sisters she alone was free from grief, except the grief her sisters had caused. 420Juno beholds her, proud in her sons and her marriage to Athamas and her divine foster-child, and she did not bear it, and said to herself: 'The son of a concubine could transform the Maeonian sailors and plunge them in the sea, and give a son's flesh to his own mother to be torn apart, and cover the three daughters of Minyas with strange wings: will Juno be able to do nothing but weep over unavenged wrongs?
427And is that enough for me? 427Is this my only power? 428He himself teaches me what to do (it is right to be taught even by an enemy), and what madness can do he shows enough and more than enough by the slaughter of Pentheus: why should Ino not be goaded and follow, in a madness of her own, the examples of her kin?' 432There is a sloping path, dark with gloomy yew, which leads through mute silence to the infernal abodes. 434Sluggish Styx breathes out mists, and the newly dead shades go down that way, and the ghosts of those who have received burial. 439The spacious city has a thousand approaches and gates open on every side, and as the sea takes in the rivers from the whole earth, so that place receives all souls, and it is too small for no people, nor does it feel the throng increase.
443The bloodless shades wander without body or bones, and some throng the forum, some the dwelling of the lowest tyrant, some practise various arts, imitations of their old life. 447Saturnian Juno brings herself to go there, leaving her heavenly seat (so much did she yield to hatred and anger). 449As soon as she entered and the threshold groaned, pressed by her sacred body, Cerberus raised his three mouths and gave three barks at once. 451She summons the sisters born of Night, a grim and implacable deity. 453They were sitting before the doors of the prison, shut with adamant, and combing black snakes from their hair. 455As soon as they recognised her among the shadows of the gloom, the goddesses rose.
456The Accursed Seat it is called: Tityos was offering his innards to be torn, and lay stretched over nine acres; 458by you, Tantalus, no waters are caught, and the tree that overhangs you flees away; 460you either chase or push, Sisyphus, the rock that will roll back; 461Ixion is whirled round, and both follows and flees himself; 462and the granddaughters of Belus, who dared to contrive death for their cousins, ceaselessly seek again the waters they are to lose. 464When the Saturnian goddess had looked on them all with grim gaze, and on Ixion before all, looking again from him to Sisyphus, she says: 'Why does this one of the brothers suffer everlasting punishment, while a rich palace holds proud Athamas, who with his wife has always scorned me?' 469and she explains the reasons for her hatred and her journey, and what she wants.
470What she wanted was that the palace of Cadmus should not stand, and that the sisters should drive Athamas to crime. 472Commands, promises, prayers she mingles into one and urges the goddesses on. 473When Juno had spoken thus, Tisiphone, her white hair dishevelled as it was, shook it and tossed back the snakes that blocked her face, and spoke thus: 'There is no need of long roundabout words: consider done whatever you command. 477Leave this unlovely kingdom and take yourself back to the airs of a better sky.' 479Juno returns happy, and as she prepared to enter heaven, Iris, daughter of Thaumas, purified her with sprinkled water.