The Daughters of Minyas

Women into Bats

 

Minyas’s daughters refuse to participate in the festival of Bacchus, staying home and weaving instead. Suddenly their threads turn to vines and the room fills with smoke. The terrified women try to hide.

 

But while they seek

A lurking shelter, o'er their shorten'd limbs

A webby membrane spreading, binds their arms

In waving wings. The gloom conceal'd the mode,

Of transformation from their former shape.

Light plumage bears them not aloft,—yet rais'd

On wings transparent, through the air they skim,

To speak they strive, but utter forth a sound

Feeble and weak; then, screeching shrill, they plain:

Men's dwellings they frequent,—nor try the woods;

And, cheerful day avoiding, skim by night;

Their name from that untimely hour deriv'd.