Ascalaphus

Man into Owl

 

Proserpine gets stuck in the land of the dead because she ate some pomegranate seeds while she was there. Nobody would have known about the seeds she ate if Ascalaphus hadn’t seen her do it. She pays him back for snitching.

 

Much wept the queen of Pluto, but she chang'd

The vile informer to an hideous shape:

Sprinkled with streams of Phlegethon, his head

Feather'd appears, with beak, and monstrous eyes;

Spoil'd of his shape, with yellow feathers cloth'd:

Large grows his head; bent are his lengthen'd nails;

Scarcely he moves the pinions which are shot

Light from his lazy arms. A filthy bird

Becoming;—constant presager of woe;

An owl inactive; omen dire to man.